Three Market Squares On Two Planets

We have discussed the market squares (scroll down) in Lancaster and in Olga's Landing on Imhotep. Today Lancastrians had a procession with two lions and a dragon around the town centre, then music and food in Market Square.

There is also a market-square in Solis Township on Earth in the far future of Poul Anderson's "The Chapter Ends." The statue of the dancing girl on the fountain in the centre of this square is one of the memorable images in Poul Anderson's works, I think because mankind is about to evacuate Earth so that the statue will be left to crumble without ever again being seen.

Searching this blog for "dancing girl" (scroll down) brings up two references to this fountain and two others to a living dancing girl in Tyre.

Market Places

I have mentioned Lancaster Market Square here (see image). Today I strolled through and bought some samosas. We like reading about markets in exotic locations. In the market square of Olga's Landing on the planet Imhotep, booths sell:

hinterland fruits and grains;
ironware from local smithies;
velvyl fabric and miniature computers of the inner Empire;
jewels, skins and carvings from a hundred other planets;
sleazy Terran vidplays;
recordings of a vaz-Siravo dance beneath the Seas of Yang and Yin;
chemical rifles;
military stunners;
illegal blasters from a wrecked Merseian spaceship;
hot savory food.

And there is music in a couple of taverns. All of this makes Sanah's samosas in Lancaster seem very tame and parochial.

A Local Incident

Sometimes we post about Lancaster life, especially if it can be shown to be relevant to Poul Anderson Appreciation. On the blog, we have discussed:

Indian food, including samosas;
market economics;
entrepreneurs like van Rijn selling spices and condiments;
pluralist societies like the Terran Empire, Avalon and Birmingham;
law and order.

There is a twice weekly open air market in Market Square, Lancaster. See image. Sanah sells Indian food. A week ago, when I had bought a bag of samosas, a white youth smelling of drink grabbed the cash box from one of the stalls and ran into the network of pedestrian alleys between the Square and the former Market Hall. Sanah's family and I gave chase. Shopkeepers came out to say, "He went that way!" The youth was trapped in a cul-de-sac and made to return the box and some coins although the family insisted that bank notes were still unaccounted for, which he denied. A Castlegate Security man and I detained the youth until the police arrived to arrest him. I have yet to learn whether the bank notes were recovered or whether I will be required to give evidence in court. And the moral of the story is: "We don't need it!" (I mean we don't need the hassle. Sanah does need the cash back.)

The Game Of Empire II

The fourth paragraph of Poul Anderson's The Game Of Empire (IN Flandry's Legacy, New York, 2012, pp. 189-453) informs us that Diana, still with no surname revealed, is homeless. She hides her few possessions in a ruined temple and sleeps there in a sleeping bag when she does not find a doss anywhere else.

She sits on the tower of St Barbara in the middle of the market square in the old quarter of Olga's Landing on the planet Imhotep:

"...to enjoy the ever-shifting scenes..." (p. 196);
to spy chances to earn credits by guiding newcomers - "Nonhumans were safe." (ibid.);
to run errands or find information for acquaintances who pay with money, meals, a doss etc.

The fifth paragraph, a colorful description of the life in the market square, refers to two intelligent species that we know from earlier in the Technic Civilization series. We learn that Imhotep is where the vaz-Siravo from Starkad were settled and that the Merseians have attacked recently.

The sixth paragraph begins:

"Folk were mainly human..." (p. 197)

- so some were not. Imagine living in such an environment. The human beings, most of whom have never seen Earth, differ in appearance according to the planets that they inhabit. Because of Imhotepan gravity, the locals are "...muscular and never fat." (p. 197) and, if their families have been on the planet for the generations since Olga's Landing was just a scientific base, are usually dark and aquiline.

That gets us to the end of the third page of the text. Unless we pause to savor these details, we miss many of them because we continue reading until the dialogue and action begin.

A Rich Story

What a rich story is Poul Anderson's "The Chapter Ends."

We have posted about:

Solis Township (and here)

Sol City

Earth Seen From Space

Super Powers

a house interior

a metaphorical mountain (and here)

the galactic periphery

the statue on the fountain in the market square

the beach

uninhabited regions

a sunset

(In Market Square, Lancaster, we no longer have a fountain but a plinth on which people perform or demonstrate and from which they speak or preach.)

After appreciating many details in this single story, we can:

discuss whether the story really belongs in Anderson's Psychotechnic History;

in any case, discuss that entire series as well as its relationships to other future history series written by Anderson and by other sf authors;

imagine inhabitants of these alternative histories visiting Anderson's inter-universal inn, the Old Phoenix.

Anderson informs us that both Heinlein's Rhysling and his own van Rijn have been in the Old Phoenix.

Adzel and Axor, two Wodenites from different periods of Anderson's Technic History, have converted to alternative Terrestrial religious traditions and therefore might meet to discuss their differences.

This post has rambled but it is all one multiverse.

Dynamic Diversity

(Lancaster: Dalton Square, Queen Victoria, Town Hall.)

Today there will be a celebration of diversity in Lancaster. (Later: see here.) The City Council meets in the Town Hall. We will assemble in Dalton Square. Sometimes also there are gatherings in Market Square where the former Town Hall is now the City Museum.

From Monday to Thursday, I will be in Birmingham, a city that usually inspires posts comparing its diversity to that of Poul Anderson's multi-species Terran Empire. This time, I might learn more about that city's Tolkien connection. But I might not have much access to a computer while there.

The current agenda is to continue reading Anderson's Murder In Black Letter, then to read the next two volumes of SM Stirling's Emberverse series. As John Carter says, "We still live!"

Unfamiliar Circles

See Mornings for descriptions of mornings on both Merseia and Hermes. Do you notice an odd phrase in the passage about Ardaig on Merseia?

Like many cities and towns on Earth, Lancaster, where I live, has a Market Square which has made several appearances on this blog. However, in Ardaig:

"...market circles began to fill..."

-see the above "Mornings" link.

 

I thought that "market circles" seemed an alien concept but took the precaution of googling it and found Takoradi Market Circle. The image shows it at night. Are there others?

Myth Or Biography

"'If science can show that the gospel account of Christ is not myth but biography; and if it finds that his ministry was in empirical fact, universal - would not you, for example, my dear, would you not decide it was only reasonable to accept him as your Savior?'

"Uncomfortable, Diana tried to shift the subject."

-The Game Of Empire, I, p. 210.

People feel uncomfortable because they lack the knowledge to respond to such claims. The Gospels are not biographies and, if they were, then accepting them would not require an act of faith.

I have just had yet another frustrating exchange with a street Evangelical. He hands me a leaflet full of unsubstantiated statements. I point this out. He responds with more unsubstantiated statements and continues to do this, no matter what is said to him. Is there any point? Axor, who addresses Diana, stands in a tradition such that he would at least heed and respond to reasoned arguments instead of just repeating outrageous statements. The Evangelical was standing in a square (Market Square, mentioned before) where demonstrators and counter-demonstrators were right then protesting about current government policies but none of that mattered to him. All that mattered was the mere statement that I was damned if I did not, without reason, accept his belief. Axor would be better company and it would be possible to discuss the truth claims of the Gospels with him.

Music Event

Occasionally, I explain how local life interrupts posting. This weekend, our time and attention are consumed by a "Love Lancaster Live" music event. There is live music in the Castle, the Priory Church, Market Square, the Gregson Centre, the John O'Gaunt pub, other pubs and also less likely venues, e.g., a folk singer's audience filling a small second hand bookshop, a "busker" guitarist with an audience of one or two performing inside a Pharmacists (drug store?).

I have come home to eat and am going out again which is why I offer this short explanatory post.

A Changed Galactic Periphery

Poul Anderson, "The Chapter Ends" IN Anderson, The Complete Psychotechnic League, Volume 3 (Riverdale, NY, July 2018), pp. 195-215; Chronology of Future, pp. 217-218.

This story is set fifty thousand years after the fall of the First Empire. (p. 202) That Empire begins some time after the Third Dark Ages which in turn begin in 3200. (p. 218)

We are invited to imagine a very different Galactic periphery after the events of "The Chapter Ends." The comparatively few human beings that had remained in the Sirius Sector of the Galaxy after the fall of the First Empire were scattered through hundreds of planetary systems, including those of Sol, Alpha Centauri, Procyon and Sirius. However, all of these populations will soon be evacuated to join the human quadrillions and their non-human allies in:

"'...the great star-clusters of Galactic center.'" (p. 201)

The periphery will be occupied by the Hulduvians, inhabitants of gas giant plants like Jupiter and Saturn, who, centuries hence, will colonize such planets in the Solar System. Hulduvian brains utilize cosmic energies in a way that differs from and interferes with the way that artificially adapted human brains utilize those same energies. Hulduvians, propelling themselves across interstellar space without needing spaceships, will arrive in the Solar System but will have no need for any of the inner planets. On Earth, the ruined towers of Sol City and the City Hall, market square and fountain with its statue of a dancing girl in Solis Township will continue to crumble. Also crumbling will be the long dead body of the one old man who had refused to leave.

Try to imagine such a Galactic periphery - although we would not be able to visit it.

Stan's Soap Box

(My first name is Stanley but we always used middle names in our family.)

Christian Maximus to Mithraist Gratillonius:

"'For your soul's good, understand. You'll burn for ever after you die, unless you take the Faith.'"

-Rome Mater, p. 23.

Intolerable.

Maximus exhibits one of the three bad features of Evangelical Christianity.

(i) An inability to speak except on the assumption that their belief is true. Thus, an inability to recognize, respect and engage in dialogue with any alternative point of view. If we question any of their beliefs, they continue to speak on the apparent assumption that that very belief is an established and acknowledged fact: "You'll burn..." Some people resort to saying, "But what if it is true...?" The same question can be asked about any belief.

(ii) They expect us to change our belief not on the basis of reason or evidence but by an act of will. This is impossible - or, if somehow possible, it would count as intellectual dishonesty.

(iii) The belief that they expect us to accept is absurd. Having created us, God is so outraged by our behaviour that he consigns us to endless torment but he loves us so much that he required his son to be tortured to death on our behalf but we will still be consigned to endless torment if we do not believe this nonsense.

Evangelicals spoil the peace of Market Square in Lancaster by endlessly repeating their beliefs. Unfortunately, a situation in which they were banned would be worse. We now have Muslims at least presenting an alternative.

Sensations In Kaukasu

The Peregrine, CHAPTER IX.

Chill morning mist.

Gleaming wet flagstones.

Mountainous towers.

Shrill clamoring voices.

Thumping hoofs.

Groaning wheels.

Clashing iron.

Smells, unspecified.

Narrow, cobbled, twisting, labyrinthine streets.

Slippery muck.

High, peak-roofed, crazily leaning houses.

Heavy brass doors.

Narrow slit windows.

Overhanging balconies.

Flimsy wooden booths of pottery, clothing, tools, weapons, rugs, food and wine.

Minareted temples.

Blood-smeared gods.

Swirling crowd.

Braying trumpet.

Galloping guardsmen.

Sheeting mud.

Trampled child.

Chained slaves.

Bleeding feet.

Market square.

Hanged bodies.

Happy harpist.

Blind alleys.

The human rulers of this planet have turned into a blind alley.

Anderson Celebrates Life II

See Anderson Celebrates Life.

Never more so than in the opening chapter of The Game Of Empire where the old quarter of Olga's Landing on Imhotep in the Patrician System:

"...had grown, but more in population than size or modernity - a brawling, polyglot, multiracial population, much of it transient, drifting in and out of the tides of space."

-Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 189-453 AT CHAPTER ONE, p. 195.

"Life spilled from narrow streets and surged between the walls enclosing the plaza." (p. 197)

 

Booths sell multifarious wares including "...miniature computers of the inner Empire...," recorded vaz-Siravo dances from beneath the Seas of Yang and Yin, illegal blasters found in wrecked Merseian spacecraft and hot, savory food. (ibid.)

 

From the top of St. Barbara's tower in the middle of the market square, Diana sees the new quarter with the Pyramid, housing Imperial offices, the Institute campus, industries, stores, hotels and apartments. (p. 195) She keeps her sleeping bag and few possessions in "...a ruinous temple..." (p. 196)

The crowd, mainly human beings physically adapted to different planetary environments, also includes members of several other intelligent species. This is human life in an exotic setting.

Imhotep

Diana Crowfeather is "...everybody's friend..." (Flandry's Legacy, p. 196) just as Kim is "'...The Friend of all the World...'" (Kim, p. 6).

The city of Olga's Landing on the planet Imhotep in the Patrician System began as an exploration base. Guns in the tower of St Barbara provided defense against stampeding ice bull herds and later against human beings during the Troubles but now the disarmed tower, sunseeker vine clambering up its crumbling yellow stone, stands in the middle of a market square in the old quarter.

From the tower, Diana sees the new sector with industries, hotels, apartments, the Institute and the Pyramid housing Imperial offices but she prefers the old quarter with its:

"...brawling, polyglot, multiracial population, much of it transient, drifting in and out on the tides of space." (ibid.)

Imhotep seems as real as Kipling's India.

Conflicting Cultures

Over two years ago, I discussed four conflicting cultures in Poul Anderson's The Peregrine here.

On Erulan, there is slavery and cruelty. Three bodies hang from a gallows in a market square. Ilaloa of the Alori comments:

"'There is no need for this endless strife and suffering. But it is still more - right - than that which is in the city Stellamont.'" (The Peregrine, Chapter X, p. 89)

Stellamont is on a human colony planet and thus represents a fifth culture distinct from Sol, Nomads, Erulan and Alori:

Sol, Nomads and Stellamont are human;
Alori are humanoid (see image);
Erulan is human beings enslaving (other) humanoids.

I can only remark that I disagree with Ilaloa. Technology-using urbanites are indeed "...shut away..." (p. 88) from nature but that does not make a slave-owning society better than they are!

Some More Lancaster Life

I have more to post about Poul Anderson's Brain Wave but not this evening. It is nearly 11:00 PM. And maybe not much tomoz when there are Viking, Kite and Art Festivals in Morecambe, which is part of Lancaster District - and, additionally and incidentally, is also where Andrea lives above the Old Pier Bookshop.

The Ashton Memorial in Williamson Park is currently the Emerald City. See the attached image. I listed six of its earlier dramatic identities in "Oberon Trod Forth." A footpath through the wood has been painted yellow and we followed the characters along it between scenes.

We can think about the works of Poul Anderson while sitting in Williamson Park, in Market Square or on Morecambe Promenade. Brain Wave, in particular, is so rich in observations on human life that it repays very careful rereading and analysis. We have certainly not finished with it yet. How do its characters live and how should we live now even without their increased intelligence?

The Game Of Empire

Two correspondents have explained how the opening and closing sentences of Poul Anderson's The Game Of Empire (IN Flandry's Legacy, New York, 2012, pp. 189-453) pay homage to Rudyard Kipling. I imagine that the title does as well?

The novel begins:

"She sat on the tower of St Barbara..." (p. 195)

The opening paragraph establishes that this tower is not on Earth by telling us that the sun is called Patricius and that two moons are in the sky. The paragraph closes by telling us that the planet is called Imhotep, that its Mt Horn is twelve kilometers high and that "her people" have modified the climate since coming here.

In the second paragraph, "she" becomes "Diana" as she looks from the old quarter towards the city center where "...the Pyramid ...housed Imperial offices and machinery..." (ibid.) Of course, we already know that this novel is part of a series. Nevertheless, we can study the text to find out how soon it informs us of its relationship, if any, to other works by the same author. Thus, we might at this stage wonder whether these "Imperial offices" indeed represent the Terran Empire of Anderson's Technic Civilization series. At the end of the second paragraph, and of the first page of the text, we learn that the old quarter has:

"...a brawling, polyglot, multiracial population, much of it transient, drifting in and out on the tides of space." (ibid.)

Space has no tides but the metaphor is apposite. We expect interesting things from a varied and variable population.

The third paragraph not only informs us that Imhotep was colonized centuries previously but also refers both to the Troubles and to the Terran Empire, thus unequivocally confirming which fictitious timeline we are in. Also, we learn more about this particular planet, Imhotep, which has not appeared in the series before:

first, there was an exploration base, sometimes threatened by stampeding ice bull herds;
secondly, the planet was threatened by marauders during the Troubles;
thirdly, "...the hand of the Terran Empire reached this far..." (p. 196).

St Barbara's, originally part of the defensive works against ice bulls and marauders, has long since been obsolete, its guns scrapped, its chambers empty, its vine-covered yellow stone crumbling, its neighboring towers demolished and a market square surrounding it. It is "...in Olga's Landing...," which seems to be the name of the city (ibid.).

We do not yet know who Diana is or why she sits on St Barbara but a lot more information will be imparted before she speaks for the first time in our hearing in the middle of p. 199.

The Duality Of Man

The duality of man:

great achievements but also continued conflicts;
civilizations that rise but also fall;
growing knowledge opposed by resurgent superstition and even by vile ignorance ("I'm no kin to the monkey!")

Poul Anderson's fiction charts the duality of man through various civilizations, for example in the Roman Empire, the Polesotechnic League and the Terran Empire. After Technic civilization:

"'Sir, the League, the troubles, the Empire, its fall, the Long Night...every such thing - behind us. In space and time alike. The people of the Commonalty don't get into wars.'"
-Poul Anderson, "Starfog" IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 709-794 AT p. 722.

Either conflict has ended or the next conflict has not been met yet.

When there is interminable wrangling in the Time Patrol:

"Everard glared out the window, into the prehuman night, and wondered if the sabertooths weren't doing a better job after all than their simian successors."
-Poul Anderson, "Delenda Est" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 173-228 AT 8, p. 221.

The struggles and achievements of mankind are Anderson's major theme.

Whatever our philosophy, we need to acknowledge complex duality but avoid simplistic dualism. This is something that I heard from a preacher as I passed him in Market Square:

"God created us to be His companions but, because it is in our nature to do so, we turn against Him!"

When I walked back, he was saying:

"In my experience, an explosion just makes a big mess!"

So God created us but not our nature? It is in our nature to oppose the purpose of our Creator and to turn against the Being Whose companions we were created to be? And scientific cosmogony is to be ridiculed and dismissed?

The preacher rightly recognized duality but explained it by assuming it. Thus, dualism - which is in fact a Christian heresy. And we are back to what I said at the start of this post: growing knowledge opposed by resurgent superstition. 

Other Reading Update

Each of us that reads Poul Anderson also reads other authors and each of us reads different authors. Thus, each of us appreciates Anderson in a different literary context. Am I alone in comparing Anderson to both Neil Gaiman and Stieg Larsson? - between whom there is no direct comparison. Will I reread Heinlein's The Door Into Summer in order to compare it to Andersonian time travel or will I no longer find Heinlein's text interesting?

I reread Larsson's Millennium Trilogy the way many others reread Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings Trilogy. My granddaughter buys me Alan Moore's prose fiction. I am quite unexpectedly finding Anderson's collections worth rereading. That is about it right now. Life contains several activities other than reading, of course.

Lancaster Music Festival update: local people marched through Market Square singing, the Community Choir; when musicians performed in a covered shopping precinct, the public danced spontaneously - the musicians thanked their audience for the dancing; walking past shops that are open for business, we hear live music from inside, including a band in a shop window.

Present And Future

The King of Spain has just been on TV, expressing support for relatives of people killed in a massive train collision. Does the Terran Emperor do likewise when the screen field generators of a luxury liner approaching Callisto fail, killing everyone on board? How much of our experience would be reproduced in the Terran Empire? Their tourists include extraterrestrials although not Ythrians because that species cannot fly in Terrestrial gravity. I do think of Ythrians when pigeons proliferate in Market Square.

In other fictional narratives by Poul Anderson, aliens, immortals and time travellers are among us now. A fan could walk around town comparing real and fictional experiences although I do not know how many people do that. Not me all the time. Remember that fictional characters experience their worlds. Jim Ching sees a blue Alfzarian in an airbus just as I see foreign students in a ground bus when I travel locally with a free pensioner's pass.

(Attending the Gregson last night, I learned of an upcoming fiftieth anniversary! Life is good when it's not bad and I am now about to switch off from Poul Anderson and reread some more Ian Fleming before turning in. Laterz.)