Pele III

Heavenly bodies are named after deities. Thus, we find a star called "Pele" in a work by Poul Anderson and the goddess, Pele, in The Sea Peoples by SM Stirling. Further, since Anderson's Zacharians are named after Terrestrial deities, there is a Pele Zachary. For all blog posts referring to Anderson's use of the name Pele, see here. (Scroll down.)

In The Sea Peoples, Chapter Five, p. 68, Pele is invoked as part of a pantheon:

Pele of the fire;
Kane of the forests;
Kuof of the mace;
Lono of the rain;
Laka of the lehua flower;
Milu of the dead.

Pagans from elsewhere will simply equate members of this pantheon with members of theirs. Pele's "...flame draws land from sea!"? (ibid.) I suppose undersea volcanoes create islands.

Pele And The Planet

"Pele."

A gas giant planet, very close to its sun and about to fall into it, is observed by human beings and kzinti. Poul Anderson imagines every kind of cosmic event. In For Love And Glory, hostile species observe a collision between two black holes. In "Pele," the planet approaches its Roche limit.

It is uncoincidental that Ryan compares Tyra to the goddess Pele in "Inconstant Star" and that a star is named "Pele" in "Pele" because it is Tyra who names it.

Probably:

the planet will fill its Roche lobe;
it will become teardrop shaped;
planetary turbulence will eject matter;
the matter will spiral into Pele;
the spiral will become an accretion disk;
it will last for decades or centuries.

Poul Anderson's Man-Kzin Wars Trilogy

"Iron."
"Inconstant Star."
"Pele."

The first begins with a kzin attacking a man; the second and third with kzinti conferring on Kzin, a planet of 61 Ursae Majoris.

In "Inconstant Star," Ryan compares Tyra Nordbo to the goddess, Pele.

In the opening chapter of "Inconstant Star," Weoch-Captain, visiting High Admiral Ress-Chiu, is enraged to be received by a kdatylno slave whereas, in the opening chapter of "Pele," Ghrul-Captain, visiting Grand Lord Narr-Souwa, is given due courtesy when he is received by two armed Heroes.

In "Inconstant Star," a Raptor class warship is named Swordbeak. In "Pele," a hookbeak hovers.

I am going to reread "Pele" but maybe not tonight. There has to be some time in the day for non-blog reading.

Diana's Skills

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

Diana, a Crowfeather, not a Flandry, is not yet an agent of the Terran Empire. Nevertheless, she develops appropriate skills. 

There are three accounts of why Targovi transported Axor and Diana from Imhotep to Daedalus:

he wanted them as stalking horses;

Axor thinks that he did it from benevolence;

for plausibility, Targori tells Pele Zachary that Axor paid him.

There are two accounts of why Targovi arrived at Lulach later than his two traveling companions:

in fact, he fled from the spaceport to avoid detention as a Gerhart loyalist and hid at Ju Shao's inn until he was able to follow in disguise;

he tells Pele that, with the others, he was arrested and interrogated but then released at the spaceport but that he stayed longer in Aurea, unsuccessfully trying to gain clearance for a return to Imhotep.

Axor must be prevented from innocently contradicting Targovi in conversation with Zacharians so Diana invents two cover stories:

she hints to Axor that she paid Targovi to transport them to Daedalus;

Targovi panicked at the spaceport because Tigeries cannot abide long imprisonment but was soon caught, interrogated and released and was too embarrassed to tell Pele about his unnecessary panic.

Two cover stories worthy of a Flandry: Targovi regards Diana with respect.

Voices

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

"'You should find this house more hospitable when we summon you,' Pele said. Conviviality provides opportunities for the probing of character. 'At present, I have my work to do. Good day.'" (p. 345)

Would you be able to read this passage aloud, making clear which parts are spoken by Pele and which are comments by the narrator? For Pele's dialogue, you would have to imitate her aged female Zacharian voice with its slight accent. For the rest, you would have to adopt a completely different narrator's voice and tone. Easy enough for those who can do it.

In a TV drama about the Abdication of King Edward VIII, an actor with his back to the camera spoke in Churchillian tones so that we knew who he was even when he turned to face us and did not look like him. A 1940's festival in nearby Morecambe was advertised with a photograph of a Churchill look-alike. (See the attached image.) Seeing the guy at the Festival, I approached him and said, "I didn't expect to meet you here, sir!" He replied in an incomprehensible high-pitched whine!

At Christmas one year, a guy I knew performed an abridged public reading of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," with mulled wine, at a local library. He gave the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come a pronounced Scottish accent. No warrant for this in the text but it served to differentiate him from the others. The same guy performed telephone calls to children from Santa Claus. 

Have we gone off the point again? Not really. Read carefully every line written by Poul Anderson for what it means to you. All human and nonhuman life is in there.

Inconstant Star: Conclusion

"Inconstant Star" (see previous posts).

Another brilliant military maneuver by Robert Saxtorph destroys a kzinti spaceship and all its occupants but Weoch-Captain's dying act deprives the Saxtorphs of the mini-black hole. 

I was right about Tyra Nordbo's brother being a traitor but that was obvious. Tyra's father, Peter, has become the Saxtorph's partner so can be expected to re-appear in Anderson's third Man-Kzin Wars story, "Pele."

Ryan the Hawaiian refers to Pele and google discloses that Pele is the Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes.

A character in "The Asteroid Queen" by JE Pournelle and SM Stirling is called Matthieson and a street in "Inconstant Star" by Poul Anderson is called Mattiesonstrasse. It is clear that some interconnections are to be fully understood only by reading the entire sub-series although my present purpose is to continue reading works by Anderson.   

Kumukahi

Poul Anderson, "Pele" IN Larry Niven, Ed., Man-Kzin Wars IX (New York, 2002), pp. 3-95.

(Not a novel by my 100+ pages rule of thumb, especially since there are blank spaces at the ends of chapters.)

Kumukahi:

the inmost planet of the star, Pele;
ten Jovian masses;
spiraling inward;
temperatures soaring;
atmosphere distended into a 280,000 kilometer ovoid;
storms larger than terrestroid planets;
now orbiting only a million kilometers above the stellar photosphere;
revolving in less than half an Earth day and accelerating;
rotating in fifteen hours, slowed by tidal bulges;
night side flickering with lightnings reflected from planet-sized clouds, flashing with explosions or other atmospheric events;
day side burning, emitting incandescent gasses - some breaking free;
storms pouring along the inner tidal bulge;
a core of metallic hydrogen;
very few heavy elements.

To Be Or Not To Be

In this post, I will copy Hamlet's famous soliloquy. Subsequently, I will show how, in different ways, it is relevant both to the sixth Star Trek film and to Poul Anderson's third Man-Kzin Wars story, "Pele."

The phrases, "to be or not to be," "what dreams may come," and "the undiscovered country" have become film titles. Anderson's kzinti character, Ghrul-Captain, accuses human beings of "...contumely..." in "Pele," 10, p. 60.

To be, or not to be, that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub:

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause—there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action.

-copied from here. (William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Act 3, Scene 1, lines 58-90) (To find the line numbers, I had to look in a mere book!)

Targovi's Tendrils And Clawed Feet

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

Targovi watches Pele Zachary who sets out:

"...on an overcast afternoon, when odors of wilderness lay rank and dank in windless heat." (p. 358)

Three senses - and we usually read about wind, not windlessness!

Observing with Tigery senses, he follows Pele while remaining out of sight:

"Targovi's tendrils picked the faint traces of her individual scent-complex out of the air. Yes, she was definitely bound for the field." (p. 360)

His tendrils also detect vibrations. He has a hunting animal's abilities to blend into the background, to move without sound, to bound up a tree with clawed feet and to soar from tree to tree above the Zacharians that he is following but he must return to the ground as they approach habitation in order not to be noticed by the arboreal Cynthians who will not expect to see their familiar outworld itinerant trader clambering about among the trees of their village.

Of the three kinds of beings mentioned in this post, only the Zacharians are a kind of humanity. Cynthians are from Cynthia but also have settlements on Daedalus and elsewhere. Tigeries are originally from Starkad, now destroyed, but currently settled on Imhotep.

See also:

Some Details On Daedalus

Tigeries

"Glory To The Race!"

SM Stirling's Draka say, "Glory to the Race!" (see here) as does Ghrul-Captain when concluding his recorded statement of mission intent. ("Pele," 9, p. 61) We find some parallels between Klingons, kzinti, Merseians, Treens, Draka, Daleks, Wellsian Martians etc.

This evening, rereading "Pele," I found two points of interest but then searched the blog and confirmed that I had already posted about them. Some, although not all, repetition is avoided.

Craig Raden, lacking Tyra's extensive experience of kzinti, has unrealistic ideas about the possibility of scientific cooperation with them. That species at that stage of its social development can only resist cooperation, reject help and aim to monopolize scientific knowledge hopefully for its military applications.

The Game Of Empire, Contents Of Chapters, Continued

The Game of Empire, CHAPTERS

THIRTEEN Targovi with Rihu An in Lulach

FOURTEEN Targovi persuades Pele, then meets Diana

FIFTEEN Targovi persuades Diana

SIXTEEN  Targovi spies on Pele and Kukulkan

SEVENTEEN The team arrives on Zacharia

EIGHTEEN Magnusson and Flandry on Sphinx

NINETEEN Targovi gets proof of Zacharian-Merseian collusion

TWENTY They escape from Zacharia

TWENTY-ONE Magnusson's background

TWENTY-TWO Aftermath on Daedalus and Merseia

TWENTY-THREE Flandry with Diana etc on Imhotep

And that is the end of the Flandry period of Poul Anderson's Technic History, unfortunately.

Pele

Poul Anderson, "Pele" IN Man-Kzin Wars (New York, 2002), pp. 3-95.

Two villainous organizations in popular fiction, SPECTRE and THRUSH, execute their own failures. This tradition goes right back to SMERSH executing Le Chiffre, the villain of the first James Bond novel. The kzinti observe the same custom except that their failures die fighting. The High Admiral whose schemes our heroes foiled in the previous story has willingly faced wild beasts in the Patriarchal Arena, but now a member of the same house wants to regain the estate as well as to gain a full name and the right to breed. (What an apology for a rational species!)

Once before, a kzin on his home planet had to use an English word in conversation because there was no exact equivalent in the Hero's Tongue. On that occasion, the English word was government. Now it happens again, this time with the phrase, "'...purely scientific.'" (p. 6) The kzinti, aggressive feline hunters, disparage "monkey curiosity."

Our former heroes do not transport the exploratory expedition in this third story but Peter Nordbo's daughter, Tyra, whom we know, does join the expedition and is accompanied by one Craig Raden, so maybe this story will focus on her and him? (I am only just starting to read Chapter 3 of 17.)

Pele II

Poul Anderson imagines yet another unexpected hazard in a strange planetary system. As a gas giant of ten Jovian masses falls toward its sun, Pele, planetary convulsions spew iron into the upper atmosphere where Pelean ultraviolet splits molecules into ionized atoms. Next, the chaotically interacting Pelean and planetary magnetic fields form vortices that pull ferromagnetic atoms into charged pellets which, accelerated to escape velocity, are thrown like shotgun fire into space where they riddle an exploratory kzinti spaceship.

Anderson understands three kinds of psychology:

human beings who know the kzinti are unwilling to attempt a rescue;
a human being of good will who does not know the enemy does attempt a rescue;
a kzin can only attempt to kill his monkey rescuers...

Man-Kzin Wars

As far as I can see, Poul Anderson wrote three stories set during the Man-Kzin Wars period of Larry Niven's Known Space future history:

"Iron" (1988);
"Inconstant Star" (1990);
"Pele" (2002) -

- and I have the first two. Further, these two were combined as a single collection called Inconstant Star in 1991. I now think that this is why I had thought that Anderson had novelized one of his Man-Kzin Wars stories.

"Iron" is 149 pages in Niven, Larry, Ed., The Man-Kzin Wars (London, 1989). "Inconstant Star" is 142 pages in Niven, Larry, Ed. Man-Kzin Wars III (New York, 1990). I think that their lengths make them novels. Both feature a character called Robert Saxtorph. Authors who contribute to another author's series tend to create sub-series within it.

Niven's Known Space future history and Anderson's Technic Civilization future history have in common:

spaceships with faster than light hyperdrives;
a hostile tailed species, feline kzinti and green Merseians, respectively.

I have read "Iron" and "Inconstant Star" maybe once when they were first published so it makes sense to reread them and also to track down "Pele" which is in Man-Kzin Wars IX.

Prose And Other Media

It is a privilege to be able to appreciate imaginative fiction of high quality in different genres and media. I must apologize to readers of this blog because reading Poul Anderson's "Pele" has been interrupted by seeing Captain America: The Winter Soldier, in which Samuel L Jackson plays Nick Fury, and this has led to rereading The Ultimates, the earlier graphic work in which Nick Fury was drawn to look like Samuel L Jackson (and said that he should be played by him!). (This in turn has led to a couple of posts on another blog.)

Back to "Pele": Poul Anderson had an endless ability to create extraordinary astronomical events for his space-traveling characters to observe and explore. Here, a gas giant ten times as massive as Jupiter falls into its sun. As the planet spirals inward, held together by its massive gravitational field, it fills its Roche lobe. I had to google this phrase, hence the attached image. Scientific observers speculate that material from the planet will spiral into the sun for decades or centuries until the reduced planetary core explodes.

Anderson also often showed dangerous unexpected events, usually explosions, in unfamiliar conditions, then explained them. Here, a smooth ancient asteroid from the outer system explodes when approached because the spacecraft's gravity polarizer volatilizes its metastable agglomerate of chondrules and ices. I have yet to finish reading the story but must now turn in for an early start tomorrow. 

Sequels And Prequels

Potential Sequels To "Pele"

The Saxtorph's Rover, now avoiding any contact with kzinti, carries freight between the puppeteers' tradepoint and four human planets and has a new crew member called Buck about whom we know nothing else as yet. Thus, either a sequel would fall outside the Man-Kzin Wars franchise or kzinti would be encountered despite attempts to avoid them. We expect Tyra to be married to Craig, living on Earth, and Shayin-Mate to have become Shayin-Captain. Either unforeseen events would bring all these characters back together or, alternatively, new characters could be introduced.

More Generally

I have in my possession:

The Man-Kzin Wars (1988);
Man-Kzin Wars II (1989);
Man-Kzin Wars III (1990);
Man-Kzin Wars V (1992);
Man-Kzin Wars IX (2002).

- and have ordered a copy of Man-Kzin Wars IV (1995).

Thus, I can begin to get a sense of the chronological and other relationships between some parts of the series. In order to begin somewhere, I focus initially just on stories by Anderson, Stirling and Pournelle. Thus, it seems to me as of now and please correct me if I am wrong that:

in the unnumbered opening volume, the first instalment of Anderson's trilogy begins soon after the Liberation of Wunderland;

in II, the first instalment of Pournelle's and Stirling's trilogy begins during the occupation of Wunderland;

III contains Pournelle's and Stirling's second instalment, still set during the occupation, and Anderson's second instalment;

IV contains a solo story by Stirling which I have yet to read;

V contains Pournelle's and Stirling's third instalment, still set during the occupation;

IX contains Anderson's third instalment;

there is more information about the occupation of Wunderland elsewhere in the series.

Obviously, these works could be rearranged into chronological order of fictitious events. Since, unless I have got this wrong, Pournelle and Stirling in their prequels adapt characters and settings introduced by Anderson, I will reread their trilogy next.

Man-Kzin Wars IX

OK. Man-Kzin Wars IX has arrived, a large cheap second hand hardback. For the past few days, I have been Comics Appreciating. This morning, I will walk by the river under a blue sky to the gym.

"Pele" by Poul Anderson is slightly shorter than his previous Man-Kzin Wars stories, less than a hundred pages. It again features Robert Saxtorph and Peter Nordbo, now in business together.

The book also contains three stories by other authors, including the creator of the kzinti, Larry Niven. Thus, and not for the first time, Niven himself adds to this franchised sub-series.

The original Star Trek TV series wound up as just one period of a longer history - sandwiched between a prequel and several sequels in diverse media. Comparably, the fourteen volume Man-Kzin Wars can be read as a space war series in its own right or as part of a much longer history stretching from twentieth century interplanetary exploration to the Fleet of Worlds Trilogy and the Ringworld Tetralogy. But I will probably not read a lot more of Man-Kzin Wars than Anderson's three contributions.

More On Zacharian Divine Names

Yesterday, I published a post which I then entitled "Divine Names II" and linked from it to an earlier post entitled "Divine Names." Since then, I have had to re-entitle the post of yesterday "Divine Names III" and to add to it links to two other earlier posts entitled "Divine Names II" and "The Zacharians." For the corrected post of yesterday, see here.

The full list of divine names used by Zacharians becomes:

Ares

Cernunnos

Pele

Kulkulan

Vishnu

Heimdal

Kwan Yin

Isis

Izanami

Izanagi

Astarte (see image)

Tangaroa

All of these have relevant links in the previous posts except Tangaroa who is linked here.

Divine Names III

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

See:

Divine Names 

Divine Names II.

The Zacharians

I missed two Zacharian divine names. On p. 361, Pele refers to both Ares and Cernunnos.

For previous references to Cernunnos on this blog, see here. (Scroll down.)

He is the horned god. Perhaps we saw one of his manifestations in the US Capitol recently?

Ares is the villain of the 2017 Wonder Woman film.

There are some very different gods out there.

Unpolluted Planets II

(Alpha Centauri A and B.)

Poul Anderson, "Pele" IN Larry Niven (Ed.), Man-Kzin Wars IX (Riverdale, NY, 2002), pp. 1-95.

See Unpolluted Planets.

The same sentiment is re-expressed when, from the main office of Saxtorph and Nordbo in Munchen, Robert Saxtorph sees:

green countryside;
scattered houses;
groves;
distant blue hills;
blue sky;
morning light from the sun, Alpha Centauri A;
white clouds;
a flock of rosewings -

- and thinks:

"Yes, Wunderland's still a lovely world, as alive as Earth used to be before people screwed her up." (2, p. 12)

That is my last gasp for tonight or rather this early morning.