Lie Like Judas

"Fortune Hunter."

"...I lie like Judas." (p. 212)

Another Biblical reference. Or is it really a Biblical reference? "Judas" (scroll down) has become part of the language. If you call anyone Judas, he both gets the point and doesn't like it. No one says, "That's in the Bible. I don't believe that stuff!"

I have read this story at least once before but had completely forgotten what happens in it. It is emotionally unpleasant and the word "Judas" is appropriate. In order to stay in the wilderness, the narrator, Pete, wants to marry Jo so he tells her that he has split up from Marie although he has not - yet. Jo wants to phone Marie which, of course, would have exposed Pete's lie so he does wind up going back to Marie who does not know what has happened. Several of Anderson's short stories have emotionally unpleasant endings and this is one of them. The meaning of the title becomes clear at the end. I hope to return to something more cheerful but might not succeed: "The House of Sorrows"?

A Judas

"Sargasso of Lost Starships."

Searching the blog reveals a long list of Biblical references, including several specifically to Judas, but here is one that we might have missed:

"How does it feel to be a Judas?" (p. 403)

The word has become part of the language to such an extent that anyone called "Judas" does not like it and does not say, "But I don't believe that Biblical stuff!"

The Nebular planet is terrestroid and humanly habitable but Anderson writes just enough to get us to accept this. The planet is inhabited by humanoids who have preserved its environment despite its age. After the spaceship crash, the rest of the action is on the planetary surface.

It's That Man Again

The Man Who Counts, XI.

Nicholas van Rijn invents (I think) the term, "'...gout of Judas!'" (p. 212)

Do we count this as yet another Biblical reference or just accept that "Judas" has become part of the language, thus that the phrase is only indirectly Biblical? It is not, after all, a direct quotation. Searching the blog discloses a long history of references to Judas. See here. (Scroll down.) Perhaps the most apposite is in a post entitled Judas. I always like it when we start in the Technic History and wind up in the Time Patrol series.

A short post can mean that I have an idea for a post but little time so I practice brevity which is the soul of wit. I said this before (see here), not realizing that I was quoting Shakespeare. See here.

Uses Of The Bible II And More About Venus

Simon Hollister addresses his men:

"'You thought me another of these bootlickers to a rotten government...who was being rewarded for some Judas act.'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Big Rain" IN Anderson, The Psychotechnic League (New York, 1981), pp. 201-280 AT p. 257.

Here is "Judas" again, a word in our language. If you call an atheist, "Judas!," does he say, "That's in the Bible. I don't believe that ___!"? No. He doesn't like it. The equivalent in Norse mythology would be "Loki!"

To gain the men's support, Hollister appeals to their nationalism despite despising it. His psych training helps him to do this effectively. That there can be such an exact science of psychology and society is as much a science fictional premise of the story as the spaceships and other gadgets. Venus will be terraformed by airmakers, pulverizers, genetically engineered organisms, water units and hydrogen bombs causing volcanoes that will release carbon dioxide and water. In Hollister's time, Lucifer is the site of a penal uranium mine. Later, on a free Venus in the Solar Union, there will be a kilt-wearing Lucifer Clan, its members identifiable by their distinctive tartan. We wish that a story had been set on Venus during that later period.

"Judas Priest!"

For Love And Glory, XXXV.

"'Judas priest!' Hebo exclaimed. 'How much labor went into this?'
"Lissa didn't recognize his phrase, doubtless archaic. Yes, he'd have wanted to keep memories from his first youth." (p. 184)

People who are rejuvenated have more than one youth.

I have hardly encountered Hebo's phrase outside of Poul Anderson's works where I first found it in the mouth of Manse Everard. There is an English heavy metal band called "Judas Priest." See also the Wikipedia article here. There is also a song by Bob Dylan.

Apparently the phrase is a euphemism. I thought that there should be more to it than that but apparently not.

Judas And A Prayer

Starfarers, 40.

Biblical references slip past us especially when they are ones that have become embedded in the language but I have said this before. See It's That Man Again. This time, when Cleland realizes what Brent's mutiny will entail and counter-mutinies, Brent calls him "'You Judas...'" (p. 378) Right...

Cleland had prayed to the dead Jean Kilbirnie:

"'Jean, Jean, forgive me...'" (39, p. 377)

"Air stirred, a barren tiny noise among the shadows.

"'What to do, Jean?  What would you have done?'

"Odd, how soon the answer came." (ibid.)

The answer comes from within Cleland but the "...barren tiny noise..." of the air sounds like that "...still small voice..." which is another Biblical reference.

Does Jean answer Cleland?

Reprogrammed Guthrie

Harvest Of Stars, 8.

The horror of the reprogrammed download Guthrie (see Sayre And Guthrie) continues when a Fireball employee confronts the reprogrammed version - an exact copy of Guthrie except that it makes excuses for the Avantists who have killed another employee. In other words, not an exact copy but a travesty. After this, anyone would prefer to converse with an avowed enemy of Guthrie.

The horrified employee, Aulard, says:

"'Anson Guthrie would never betray as you 'ave betrayed. Many people called 'im devil, but none ever called 'im Judas.'" (p. 111)

Does that count as two Biblical references? Or just one? Or even just none on the ground that both "devil" and "Judas" have become parts of our language? (In India, devas are gods, not devils. When two Aryan groups parted company, the gods of one group became the demons of the other.)

Two Biblical References

See here.

"What is man, that thou art mindful of him-?" (The Man-Kzin Wars, p. 77)

This verse gave Asimov an appropriate robot story title.

"'You win, you Judas...'" (p. 137)

Markham, here accused of treachery, had called Christianity "'A religion for slaves.'" (p. 44) Nevertheless, the Bible is part of us: no one wants to be called Judas or Pontius Pilate although we might identify with Doubting Thomas or Barabbas?

More on Markham later. Lunch and a walk now. Brevity is the soul of wit (I hope).

Judas

"Delenda Est," 7.

It is impossible to reread Poul Anderson without finding something new to post about.

"She kissed them both. Van Sarawak responded as eagerly as expected, but Everard couldn't bring himself to. He would have remembered Judas." (p.216)

Here is yet another appropriate Biblical reference embedded in the text. We have to be alert to every turn of phrase.

Everard tells Deirdre that the spells that he used to save their lives prevent him from returning her to her world. He tells Van Sarawak:

"'I can't send her back to what's waiting for this world.'" (p. 217)

Yes, he can but I am not going to go back through that argument yet again.

Naming Planets, Stars And Constellations

"A Sun Invisible."

The human discoverer of the planet Cynthia named it after his wife. Thurman discovered Thurman's Star and named one of its planets, "Vanessa."

Falkayn thinks:

"Judas, what a radium-plated opportunity an explorer had! What girl could possibly resist an offer to name a whole world for her?" (I, p. 272)

On Coronation Street, a guy got a star named after his girlfriend and googling reveals that this is a real world practice. See Star Registration. I suppose that that is one way to interact with the universe. Inhabitants of a planet in orbit around a star have no way of knowing that their sun is named after someone on Earth or that Earthmen might arrive and name their planet "Cynthia" or "Vanessa." I wonder what they call us?

In a James Blish story, Sol seen from far enough away is in a constellation called the Parrot and, in Anderson's Technic History, it is in the Maukh. See The Plowman And The Parrot.

A Pleistocene Hunter

When David Falkayn realized the potential of the planet Satan:

"Sheer instinct roused him. He was abruptly a Pleistocene hunter again.
"'Judas!' he yelled. 'Yes!'" (p. 358) (For full reference, see here.)

I quoted this passage at greater length before. See The Realization About Satan. Now I want to connect it with two similar passages about Dominic Flandry (see Our Animal Ancestry and A Moment Of Truth?) and also with some comparable passages in Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series (see Subjectivity and The Presence Of Innocence).

Falkayn, Flandry and Everard are high tech hunters.

The Cainites

I missed a point in the previous post about "Cain." On the very next page in Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: Season Of Mists (New York, 1992) -

Lucifer: Cain. You must know of the Cainites?
Cain: Can't say that I do...
Lucifer: Gnostic sect. Second century. They rejected the books of the New Testament in favor of the Gospel of Judas.
-page 49, panel 1.

Lucifer: They believed that we created the heaven and the earth, and that you were the persecuted party in that unfortunate affair with your brother. They also held that the way to salvation was to give way to lust and temptation in all things.
-panel 2.

Lucifer: And no greater percentage of them turned up here than of any other religion. Amusing, isn't it?
Cain: I wouldn't know.
-panel 3.

The Wikipedia article on Cainites mentions this issue of The Sandman as a popular cultural reference.

Now maybe it is time to return to Poul Anderson's very different Cainites?

The Nine Worthies

Poul Anderson, The High Crusade, CHAPTER VII.

The data necessary for a return to Earth have been lost in the crash landing of the ship:

"A groan went up. They were hardy men, but this was enough to daunt the Nine Worthies." (p. 48)

I have read The High Crusade twice before but do not remember the Nine Worthies and do not remember hearing of them anywhere else.

Christians
Charlemagne
King Arthur
Godfrey de Bouillon

Pagan
Julius Caesar
Hector
Alexander the Great

Jews
David
Joshua
Judas Maccabeus

Elsewhere, de Bouillon is placed in a triad with Richard the Lionheart and Raymond IV:

It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate!
-copied from here.

The Bible And Beyond

Here, we moved from Shakespearean to Biblical phrases in works by Poul Anderson. Next, we move to a Biblical phrase in a work by Julian May and thence to passages in works by James Blish and Poul Anderson.

The Family Ghost tells Fury:

"Do what you must do..."
-Julian May, Jack The Bodiless (London, 1991), 2, p. 41.

Jesus tells Judas:

"Hurry and do what you must!" (Jn. 13:27)

The Family Ghost, a time traveler, knows that Fury's evil actions cannot be prevented and also tells Rogi to arrange a meeting between a couple who must marry and have children. In Blish's The Quincunx Of Time, the Service, knowing the future, supervises meetings between couples who must marry and have children. Similarly, Anderson's Time Patrol intervenes to ensure that its history comes to pass and therefore would arrange marriages if necessary. If only we could have some foreknowledge...

Finishing Rogue Sword

OK: "Boniface" is a word applied to innkeepers and is derived from the name of a dramatic character of that profession, like calling a traitor a "Judas" etc.

Since Rogue Sword is the only Poul Anderson volume in my possession while spending four nights away from home, I will probably run out of new additions to make to this blog. Slightly longer term, I might acquire some (to me) new material that will have to be read for the first time, not just reread, before it can be commented on.

Setting Rogue Sword in 1306 was, for those who know the relevant history (I suppose not many of us), kind of like setting a twentieth century novel in 1913 or 1938: it is already known what will happen next. In this case, the Templars will be suppressed; the Hospitallers will take possession of Rhodes where they will rule for over two hundred years before, after another period of homelessness, being given Malta and becoming known as the Knights of Malta. Great events are about to occur.

In fact, just as the Western Roman Empire had fallen a thousand years earlier in Poul and Karen Anderson's King of Ys tetralogy, the Eastern remnant of the Empire is now in terminal decline.

Lucas, evading the Inquisition, is hidden, fed and helped to escape by a woman called "Xenia." Because the name is familiar, I googled it to check whether Anderson was cameoing an existing character. He wasn't but "Xenia" turns out to be a Greek word for hospitality.

A Moment Of Realization On Vanessa

"A Sun Invisible."

I itemized Falkayn's detective work:

Science Fiction And Detective Fiction

How Falkayn Did It

- but seem to have missed his Andersonian moment of realization. He lists the clues regarding the location of the enemy sun:

the Neuheimer and Vanessan constellations are recognizably similar;
the two systems were parts of an interstellar empire built at sub-light speeds;
the Neuheimer sun, Antoran, must be large, bright and energetic;
it has six planets in its liquid-water zone with eccentric orbits.

"Unheard of. You'd almost think that -
"Falkayn sat bolt upright. His pipe dropped from his jaws to his lap. 'Holy...hyper...Judas,' he gasped.
"Thereafter he thought most furiously. He did not come back to himself until the coals from his pipe set fire to his trousers." (IV, p. 295)

If that is not a typical Andersonian moment of realization, then I don't know what it is.

Action Scenes

Starfarers, 40.

I have reread to the point where Brent has mutinied, has killed his ally, the "Judas," Cleland, and is now being hunted by the rest of the crew. This reminds us of similar fight and chase scenes inside a spaceship in "Brake," the concluding instalment of the first section of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History. We feel that this is an obligatory Andersonian action scene and we are keen to return to the part of the narrative that deals with communication with the quantum intelligences near the black hole. 

I cannot remember for certain but it now looks as if seven of the ten explorers will return to the Solar System. Kilbirnie has plunged into the black hole and Cleland has been shot by Brent who will soon be killed, we hope. We can say things about fictional characters that we cannot say about real people. In real life, I would want Brent to be restrained and challenged about the consequences of his actions. He would respond by calling me a stooge of the tyrant, Nansen.

The Avatar V

I was wondering whether Poul Anderson's account of his character Ira Quick's motivations was fully consistent. On the one hand, Quick wants "social justice" and is motivated by the memory of a child killed in a war. On the other hand:

his private life is self-seeking and self-satisfied;
his public appearances are dramatic performances, duplicitous and patronising;
his professional interactions are cynical and manipulative;
his political practice is clandestine, ultimately murderous.

Is this consistent? Or is it just that Anderson disliked a particular kind of professional politician so was unable to show them in a favourable light? No, not entirely. Anderson held strong views and wrote well. The combination of strongly held views, considerable writing ability, scientific knowledge and historical understanding generated powerful fiction. First, he ensures, by repetition alone, that the reader, having been told, does not forget that Quick's motives include wanting to prevent a repetition of the suffering that he had witnessed.

Secondly and more significantly, Dan Brodersen spells this out:

"...any state - is an end in itself. It's a way for the few to impose their will on the many. And Judas priest, how those few do want to! Need to." (1)

There are, I suggest (this is me speaking now, not Anderson), two kinds of reformers/revolutionaries. The first kind advocates a different direction for humanity and encourages or inspires active participation in that different direction. The second kind tries to gain control of the levers of power in the existing state apparatus in order to impose his ideas on everyone else. The first kind cannot consistently adopt the second course of action, especially not if the different direction necessarily involves dismantling the existing state apparatus.

I am bound to agree with Brodersen that his proposed interstellar free for all is preferable to a static welfare state spoon fed by Quick, who no doubt would continue considering it necessary to incarcerate or murder anyone who disagreed with him.

"...we'll skite off through every star gate the Betans have mapped, as well as mounting our own program to chart new ones. The sheer profit to be made, in countless places and ways, must beggar the imagination...so even before we start large-scale emigration, the balance of economic power will shift away from Earth. It'll also shift away from governments, unions, giant corporations, toward small outfits and individuals. There goes the tidy world welfare state the Actionist types hope to build. I daresay Quick foresees as much." (1)

This reminds me of James Blish's Cities In Flight Tetralogy where the Bureaucratic State banned spaceflight but not before a few colonists had escaped from the Solar System with faster than light drives.

I am not sure of Brodersen's certainty that "...small outfits and individuals..." will cope with this massive task. Even if they do, successful small outfits tend to grow, take over, merge and eventually become big corporations. Of course, "...profit..." here means new knowledge, materials, resources, techniques, concepts, inter-species contacts etc whatever economic system is involved.

In the interstellar free for all, many extrasolar colonies will become independent and some at least will become self-sufficient. There will therefore be the possibility of experiments in communal and cooperative modes of production different from the kind of market economy that entrepreneurs like Brodersen are used to operating in. It will no longer be possible, let alone necessary, for anyone to impose a single system everywhere. That is the human freedom and diversity that Poul Anderson advocated.

(1) Anderson, Poul, The Avatar, London, 1985, p. 189.

Planning Escapes

"Briefly, she grew rigid. The jolt passed, her mind hummed into overdrive..." (David Falkayn: Star Trader, p. 160)

"And then his mind rocked. He stumbled back and sat down on the bed. Chee jumped clear and watched with round yellow eyes. The silence grew huge.
"Until Falkayn smashed fist into palm and said, 'Judas on Mercury! Yes!'" (p. 191)

By now, the alert reader recognizes what is happening. First Chee, then Falkayn, suddenly realize how they might escape from their current imprisonment. More moments of realization. But they have to escape from more than physical imprisonment. What they need on Ikrananka is a stable empire that they can trade with. What they have got is an unstable empire trying to annex Ikranankans who would be more amenable contacts for interstellar trade but who are too few to form an empire and also local human beings rebelling against the current empire. How can Falkayn reconcile all the factions and unite the planet sufficiently to please van Rijn in particular or the League in general?

If Falkayn fails on Inkrananka, then he will be given a safe, undemanding routine job and, at the appropriate age, compulsorily retired. That would suit many people but not the few like Falkayn. If I were a citizen of  the Solar Commonwealth, then I would not aspire to work or seek promotion in Solar Spice & Liquor! I would welcome a career in some kind of public service with enough leisure time for reading fiction and studying philosophy.

Aycharaych And Merau Varagan

I love Time Patrol-Technic History parallels. Here is another. Everard hears a description of foreign visitors to ancient Tyre a generation previously:

"Judas priest! slashed through Everard. That's almost got to be my enemies. Yes, them, Exaltationists, Varagan's gang... they didn't bother to disguise their appearance. As in South America, Varagan must have felt sure his cleverness would be too much for the plodding Patrol."
-Poul Anderson, "Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 229-331 AT p. 301.

A Terran Intelligence team were guests of the Imperial resident on Diomedes but instructed the resident and his household not to talk about them. However, Flandry discovers that the single xenosophont among them not only answered the description of Aycharaych of Chereion but even identified himself as such:

no one would check;
the local files would have been faked in any case;
Aycharaych could read in the Terrans' minds that they had never heard of Chereion;
the secrecy instruction would cover his tracks as long as necessary;
eventually, if the story were told, anyone in the know would recognize him from his description;
meanwhile, it would amuse him to give his real name.

Varagan is introduced and captured in a single work but then appeared in two others. Flandry meets Aycharaych in only three works. Flandry:

outwits Aycharaych;
captures him - but there is a prisoner exchange;
neutralizes him.