"The Sky People"

Poul Anderson, "The Sky People" IN Anderson, Maurai And Kith (New York, 1982), pp. 9-71.

If we cannot, for the time being, grind Poul Anderson's "Progress" into even finer particles, then we should turn to his first Maurai story, "The Sky People." I first read both "The Sky People" and "The Game of Glory" in Venture sf magazine, not yet suspecting that each of these stories was an installment of a different future history series.

As a rover fleet of the Sky People approaches and prepares to attack the Meycan city of S' Anton, Loklann sunna Holber, captain of the Buffalo, sees in the harbor a monstrous ship with seven tall masts and an unusual arrangement of sails. Although we do not know it yet, this is a ship of the Sea People called the Maurai and this series belongs to them, not to the Sky People.

We appreciate the descriptions of dawn light tinting cathedral spires rose and flashing off the gilt figureheads of the airships while regretting that the airships are about to raid the city.

People Of The Sky

Poul Anderson's The People Of The Wind is about winged Ythrians and human choth members who fly with grav belts.

In Anderson's "The Sky People," one group has rediscovered flight during the recovery after a nuclear war.

In SM Stirling's The Sky People, the inhabitants of a terraformed Venus call Terrestrials "the Sky People."

In Anderson's The Winter Of The World, an uncivilized population in North America during a future Ice Age is called the Rogaviki, which means "Children of the Sky." (IX, p. 97)

And we are all children of the sky. See "The Meteorite" by CS Lewis here.

The Book And The Cover

The cover image in the previous post is appropriate because it shows a spaceship (Kith) and a sea (relevant to the Maurai but also the second Kith story). The cover of my copy (New York, 1982) (see this post and here) proclaims "The People of the Sea and The People of the Stars..." An accurate blurb. However, the back cover claims:

"After Armageddon the People of the Sea created a new kind of civilization, one based on the integrity of Life and the moral as well as pragmatic necessity of conservation. But the Sky People live by a different vision, and they have come to enforce it...."

This blurb, like the title, wrongly suggests that the Maurai and the Kith coexist and interact. In fact, the first Maurai story is entitled "The Sky People" and this title refers not to the Kith but to a group of sky pirates who will find common cause with the Maurai.

Titles and blurbs can mislead. In HG Wells's works, The War Of The Worlds and The War In The Air might have been two installments of a future wars series whereas, in fact, they are distinct and discrete narratives.

 

To Continue...

Life continues to interfere with Art. However -

We notice an Andersonian phrase given an entirely different meaning in SM Stirling's The Sky People (New York, 2007). The natives on Venus call a black woman from Earth "'...Night Face...'" (p. 58).

My copy of Stirling's second "Lords of Creation" novel, In The Courts Of The Crimson Kings (New York, 2008), arrived this morning. I have already read and quoted from its Prologue which is printed as a preview at the end of The Sky People. The Crimson Kings are, or were, rulers of Mars whereas "the Sky People" is what Terrestrials are called on Venus. A Martian calls Terrestrials "'...the vaz-Terranan...'" (p. 23), echoing the "vaz-Terran" of Starkadians in Anderson's Ensign Flandry.

The Prologues of the two "Lords of Creation" novels are set in 1962 when probes land on Venus, then Mars. The action of The Sky People occurs 1988-1990 whereas ...Crimson Kings begins in 2000. And now I really must read some of the novel before I can post anything more about it. Different planet, different characters, a new beginning.

World Con, '62

Poul Anderson is a minor character in SM Stirling's Lords Of Creation series. We will come back to that. 

No wonder I could not remember whether:

"World Science Fiction Convention

"Chicago, Earth

"Labor Day, 1962"

- was in Lords Of Creation, Volume I, The Sky People, or in Volume II, In The Courts Of The Crimson Kings. It is at the end of Vol. I as a preview and at the beginning of Vol. II as the PROLOGUE (although maybe not still present as a preview in later editions of Vol. I?). 

We are still rereading The Sky People, rediscovering obscure ERBian references like "Vepaja," but have skipped ahead to the preview.

If you read this preview/PROLOGUE, then read the Wikipedia account of the 1962 World Con, then you will find that Stirling has got the names of Con attendees and even of the Guest of Honour right.

In Stirling's alternative historical Con, sf authors say a lot of things relevant to their works and this could lead to a detailed post on my Science Fiction blog. In fact, it probably will lead to something on that blog but, for present purposes, we will confine ourselves to "Poul" and to "the editor of Astounding." (Later: See Mars Books.)

While the authors watch transmissions from a Martian lander, Poul:

had brought in a case of Tuborg and is described as a postwar Young Turk (The Sky People, p. 314);

addresses "Arthur" on p. 315;

grumbles that the Viking horns worn by fans were not historical on p. 316;

comments on Martian sea level and highland air on p. 317;

is said to like messing about with boats and to murmur about pointing into the wind on p. 319;

guffaws that the Martians have put the lander in a sack when the screen goes dark after a tarpaulin has been thrown on p. 322.

The Astounding editor insists that Terrestrials are the most advanced Solar species on p. 319. This was a disagreement with Asimov.

Campbell:

edited Heinlein's Future History, Asimov's Foundation and Robots, Blish's Okies and Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn;

published Heinlein's Time Chart;

made suggestions that affected Foundation, Okies and the Technic History.

In the case of the Technic History, Campbell's suggestions were the ideas that became the Ythrians and Mirkheim.

A Science Of Society?

The premise of both Isaac Asimov's Foundation series and Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic future history is that a group of experts can apply a science of society to society, thus ensuring that a government, or a clandestine group monopolising the science, would be able to achieve its aims (an Empire can be rebuilt on schedule; discontent can be managed so as to prevent social breakdown) as readily as an engineer can build a bridge. The same idea occurs in works by Heinlein and in other works by Anderson.

Anderson's Maurai Federation has made some moves in this direction. Their paramathematical psychology is at an early stage but "...helps control population..." (1)

Ruori of the Maurai sees evidence that his current enemies sometimes fight each other and reflects that:

"The Federation's political psychologists were skilled at the divide-and-rule game." (2) 

Ruori, understanding social processes, sees that the settled Meycan civilisation can conquer the "Sky People" raiders not with an army but with priests (Christian missionaries), merchants, culture and learning. He advocates this because he wants to preserve the Sky People's scientific approach which the Meycans, for all their rote learning from ancient texts, lack.

How plausible is the idea of an applicable science of society as practised by Asimov's "psychohistorians" and Anderson's "psychotechnicians" and approached by Anderson's Maurai? The premise of the Maurai series is that the industrial technological civilisation of the Northern Hemisphere had destroyed itself in a nuclear war so that the Islanders in the Southern Hemisphere, lacking metal to cannibalise, have had to survive by applying scientific method not to oil, iron or uranium but to wind, sun and life. This could include their paramathematical and political psychology.

However, society is us, not an external substance or process that we can observe from outside and perform experiments on. Maybe we, by cooperation and education, can together acquire a better understanding and control of our own activities? The idea of the applicable science of society as presented in these works of sf seems to be the idea of a minority manipulating the majority. And, since society is divided into conflicting interest groups, this controlling minority is likely to serve either its own interests or the interests of whichever other group pays its salaries and funds its activities. Anderson's Psychotechnic History does show the Psychotechnic Institute being overthrown and society preferring to live without that kind of minority control.

(1) Anderson, Poul, "The Sky People" IN Maurai And Kith, New York, 1982, pp. 9-71 AT p. 22.
(2) ibid., p. 34.

Science Fictional Subject-Matters

Two passages in SM Stirling's The Sky People (New York, 2007) led, first, to a reflection on relevant works by Poul Anderson and, secondly, to a more general reflection on science fiction which, appropriately, takes us back to HG Wells.

Sf writers can write about:

technological advances on Earth;
interplanetary travel;
interstellar travel;
time travel.

Thus, HG Wells wrote:

"The Land Ironclads" (tanks);
"In The Abyss" (an undersea vehicle);
The War in The Air (world war with aircraft);
The World Set Free (nuclear weapons);
The Invisible Man (invisibility);
The Food Of The Gods (giants);
Men Like Gods (the discovery of parallel Earths);
The First Men In The Moon (interplanetary travel);
A Modern Utopia (interstellar travel);
The Time Machine (time travel).

(A Modern Utopia is not a novel about interstellar travel but a discussion of a modern utopia. However, for the purpose of this discussion, Wells imagines that he and his readers have been transported to a utopian Earth in another planetary system. Also, the narrator of The War Of The Worlds speculates as to whether Martians or Terrestrials will traverse interstellar distances.)

In The Sky People, the subject-matter of interplanetary travel has passed from sf to contemporary adventure fiction. Two responses:

Frederik Pohl will concentrate on "Extrasolar stuff..." (p. 314);
L Sprague de Camp will stick to "'...historicals and time-travel from now on and leave the solar system alone...'" (p. 315).

Thus, sf has lost interplanetary travel but retains interstellar travel and time travel. Poul Anderson's main future history, avoiding the near future of interplanetary exploration, started with interstellar exploration in the twenty second century. Only much later did Anderson add a single story of interplanetary exploration set around 2055, now only forty years away.

De Camp is surely known for "...historicals and time-travel..."? His Lest Darkness Fall, a vast improvement on Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court, was one source of Anderson's Time Patrol.

In The Sky People, new arrivals on Venus bring equipment like a computer camera that is not yet marketed on Earth, thus reinforcing the hero Marc's impression that he is living inside an sf story - which he is. Metafiction.

Historical Transition

"Progress."

The transition from "The Sky People" to "Progress" is a wrench because "Progress" begins in the midst of the action with different characters although there is early evidence of historical continuity when the words "N'Zealann," "Maurai" and "Lohannaso" soon appear in the text. (pp. 74-75)

The phrase:

"For centuries after the War of Judgment..." (p. 84)

- suggests a longer timescale than that implied in There Will be Time where it seems that rebellion against Maurai dominance begins when the Eyrie moves to Phase Two in the twenty-second century.

In "The Sky People," Ruori Lohannaso first reflects that Maurai political psychologists should be able to "divide-and-rule" (p. 34) the Sky People and later explicitly suggests that Meycan missionary and cultural influence will civilize them over "'...a century or two.'" (p. 67) In "Progress," we read:

"Relations between the Sea People and the clans of southwest Merica remained fairly close, however little direct trade went on. After all, missions from Awaii had originally turned those aerial pirates to more peaceable ways." (p. 88)

When Ranu says that the Maurai Federation sends psychodynamic teams to redirect the energies of barbarians, a Merican responds:

"'Just like you did with my ancestors, eh?'" (p. 92)

So it seems that Ruori's "...century or two..." have elapsed and this explains the absence of character continuity. It is at this point that the Maurai stories become a future history series, however brief.

Maurai Religion: First Impressions

The Sky People are pagan. Seeing a cathedral, they call it a "temple." One of their leaders invokes "Oktai the Stormbringer" and remembers, as a child, "...opening presents on Midwinter Morning..." (1) Death in war gives a chance to be reborn as a Sky Man but their enemies deserve to be reborn as swine.

The Maurai are pagan. One refers to "Shark-toothed Nan" and another to "...ancestors..." (2) The latter, Ruori, also thinks of a "Bispo" (Bishop) as a high priest, is unsure how to address him and does not understand the word "immodest." But Ruori is educated enough to recognize that the deity "Esu Carito" of whom the Bispo is a high priest is "...cognate with the Maurai Lesu Haristi." (3)

The Meycan city visited by the Maurai and attacked by the Sky People is Christian. It has a cathedral with a statue of "S'Ose" (?) and a bishop who refers to "...el Dio's punishment...". (3) A young woman crosses herself when the Bispo refers to "...judgment..." (3)

The unmarried young women of the city are chaperoned whereas the Maurai have brought "wahines" and Ruori would like to make love to his host's daughter on first acquaintance.

There will be more but this is considerable information to gain from the opening pages.

Addendum, 2/7/12: Near the end of this first story, Ruori invokes "...great creating Tanaroa...," the remaining member of the Maurai trinity. (4)

(1) Anderson, Poul, "The Sky People" IN Anderson, P, Maurai And Kith, New York, 1982, pp. 9-71 AT p. 12.
(2) ibid., p. 14.
(3) ibid., p. 16.
(4) ibid., p. 69.

Fair Winds Forever

Poul Anderson was able to invent new characters for specific purposes, then invest them with substance. An omnibus collection contains twelve works (eleven stories and one novel) set before, during and after the period of the Polesotechnic League. Another novel, The People of the Wind, is set after this period. From this further novel, Anderson generated a title and interstitial passages for the collection. The People of the Wind is set on the planet Avalon where some humans and Ythrians are organised as the Stormgate Choth so the collection became The Earth Book of Stormgate. The rationale for the title is that the works in the collection present human perspectives on events preceding the founding of the Stormgate Choth on Avalon.

Five of the works feature Ythrians. Of these, four focus explicitly on human-Ythrian relations, three are set on Avalon, two are set after the joint colonisation of Avalon and one is about Falkayn, the founder of the Avalonian colony, and his employer, van Rijn. Of the seven non-Ythrian works, one is about Falkayn, one about his future travelling companion, one about a planet previously visited by Falkayn and three about van Rijn. The one remaining story mentions van Rijn. Thus, all twelve works are connected to each other but not all in ways that link them directly to Avalon. Anderson makes this further connection in the specially written Earth Book introductions to the works.

In "Esau," Emil Dalmady reports to van Rijn. The Earth Book introduction informs us that Dalmady's children joined the Avalonian colony where one of them wrote "Esau." The introductions to two other stories inform us that she also wrote them. Earth Book introductions mention three Stormgate members from The People of the Wind: Lythran, Blawsa and Christopher Holm/Arinnian. They also introduce new characters: the historian Rennhi, who wrote The Sky Book of Stormgate about Ythrian perspectives but who died before she could start the companion volume, the Earth Book, and her son Hloch who wrote the Earth Book. Arinnian wrote one Earth Book story and collaborated with Hloch on two others which were based on Rennhi's decipherment of records left by van Rijn and Falkayn on Falkayn's home planet, Hermes.

Hloch's other sources are:

Far Adventure by Maeve Downey, the autobiography of a planetologist;

a private correspondence recorded on Terra and kept in the archives of the University of Fleurville on the planet Esperance;

the reminiscences of James Ching, a spaceman who settled on Catawrayannis;

Tales of the Great Frontier by A. A. Craig;

stories by Judith Dalmady in the Avalonian periodical Morgana;

a historical novel about van Rijn originally published on either Terra or Hermes;

a tale brought to Ythri by the xenologist Fluoch of Mistwood and translated into Anglic by Arinnian;

the private journal of the spaceship captain Hiraharouk of Wryfields Choth on Ythri.

Hloch writes of Rennhi that her Sky Book, which we do not read, describes the history of the choth, the Ythrian ancestors, the Avalonian founders and their descendants to her own day.

"...of how past and present and future have forever been intermingled and, in living minds, ever begetting each other - of this does her work pursue the truth, and will as long as thought flies over our world." (1)

Thus, Anderson adds significantly to the works gathered in the Earth Book. Hloch signs off with:

"Now The Earth Book of Stormgate is ended. From my tower I see the great white sweep of the snows upon Mount Anrovil. I feel the air blow in and caress my feathers. Yonder sky is calling. I will go.
"Fair winds forever." (2)

(1) Poul Anderson, The Earth Book of Stormgate, New York, 1978, p. 2.
(2) op. cit., p. 434.

Collecting Clues

"Hunters of the Sky Cave."

At the Crystal Moon, Aycharaych describes violet orchids as black. Flandry deduces that the Chereionite is color-blind in the blue wavelengths but sees further into the red, therefore that his home sun is cooler and redder than Sol. (II, p. 162)

The Ardazirho are covered in red fur (VII, p. 200) but describe themselves as "'...the Black People...'" (XII, p. 244) Their kilts have squares of rose next to scarlet or of crimson between two yellows. (VII, p. 200) Temulak describes Flandry and the Vixenite colonials as "'...gray people...'" (XI, p. 233)

Svantovik refers to "'...the Sky Cave...'" (XII, p. 245) and swears by "'Great unborn planets!'" (XII, p. 247) Ardazir's sun is not in Imperial catalogues because it is hidden behind "...the Hatch...," (IX, p. 221), a small dark nebula visible from Vixen, and there has not as yet been any exploration in that direction. From its far side, the Hatch is discovered to be "'...faintly luminous: a proto-sun.' " (XV, p. 268) On hearing this:

"Flandry stiffened. 'What's the matter?' snapped Walton.
"Nothing, sir. Or maybe something. I don't know." (ibid.)

Flandry is experiencing a moment of realization as he remembers Svantovik's moment of realization when the latter exclaimed, "'Great unborn planets!'" (See above.) Elaborating slightly, Flandry says that he has a hunch, that some of the Ardazirho use the expression, "the Sky Cave," that it describes a dark hole which is the entrance to hell in some of their religions and that the higher-ranking Svantozik, who knows more than the others, swore by "'Great unborn planets.'" 

Later, when Svantovik, now captured by Flandry, looks at the Hatch, which he calls the Sky Cave, from its far side, he sees:

"'The Great Dark. The Gate of the Dead, as those who believe in religion call it....' His tone, meant to be sardonic, wavered." (XVI, p. 279)

The Sky Cave is black. Svantovik does not see its dim red luminosity, visible to Flandry. The Ardazirho are red-blind, seeing further into the violet than human beings, the opposite of Aycharaych. They see human beings as gray and themselves as black. The mismatched red and yellow squares on their kilts are equally dark to them.

Exploiting Ardazirho awe of the Gate of the Dead, Aycharaych the telepath directs the Packmasters from within the Sky Cave. (XVII, p. 283)

Maurai Civilization

The basis of the Maurai civilization:

the Southern Hemisphere suffered less in a nuclear exchange ("the War of Judgment");

Islander populations did not outrun the sea's ability to feed them;

having less metal to cannibalize than mainlanders, they instead applied scientific method to sun, wind and organisms;

by applying genetics, they created useable seaweeds, plankton and fish;

scientific forest management gives them adequate timber, organic-synthesis bases and some fuel;

they develop and apply solar, wind and tidal energy;

wood, ceramics and stone replace metal for most purposes;

early paramathematical psychology helps to control population;

having mastered nautical techniques, they can sail large ships fast, almost into the wind;

their whale ranchers keep large herds;

unlike mainland populations, they preserve printing, universal literacy, scientific medicine, a healthy diet, spacious living and personal freedom.

I have gathered this much so far by rereading a few pages into the first story, "The Sky People." The Maurai, the "Sea People," are about to meet others, the Sky People of the title, who have rediscovered and are applying scientific method so that it will be more appropriate to form an alliance with them than with a superficially more attractive culture that is declining back towards barbarism because it merely applies rote knowledge bequeathed by the ancients, depends on muscle power, has a peon class, tears down old ruins and does no research on new energy sources.

Published in 1959, "The Sky People" was one attempt by Anderson to show a recovery of civilization after a nuclear war. Much later, information about a "nuclear winter" implied that such a war would not be survivable.

Multiple Timelines?

SM Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers and The Sky People are set in different alternative histories but this could nevertheless make them installments of a single series since The Peshawar Lancers, like many other works of sf, assumes the coexistence of divergent timelines. For example, Poul Anderson's many series include not only future histories and historical fictions but also several interconnected alternative history novels.

In both The Peshawar Lancers and The Sky People, Terrestrial history diverges from the course of events known to us because of celestial events: 

comets strike Earth;
life has evolved on Venus.

I thought that history in The Sky People had diverged from ours in 1962 when a Russian Venus lander transmitted an image of a Neanderthal. However, before that:

in the late1940's, microwave observations had provided evidence of Earth-like surface temperatures;

in 1932, infrared studies had shown that the atmosphere was possibly oxygen-nitrogen;

in 1927 and 1928, ultraviolet photographs were taken although we are not told the results.

Googling discloses an article by Ross (named in the novel) on the 1927 ultraviolet photographs so it seems that, from the point of view of Terrestrial history, this timeline diverged from ours after 1927, possibly in 1932, whereas, from the point of view of Venerian evolution, it diverged billions of years ago. Similarly, in The Peshawar Lancers, that timeline diverged not when the comet or comets struck the Earth but when cometary orbits had taken a different course at a much earlier date.

Introducing The Maurai

Poul Anderson, "The Sky People" IN Anderson, Maurai And Kith (New York, 1982), pp. 9-71.

"The Sky People" introduces the Maurai but obliquely. The first viewpoint character, Loklann sunna Holber, is the captain of a Sky People rover fleet about to attack Meyco Province, previously raided by the Mong from Tekkas, while a ship from the Maurai Federation also happens to be visiting Meyco.

The second narrative passage shifts from the viewpoint of Don Miwel Caraban, calde of S' Anton d' Inio, as he entertains his Maurai guests with a lavish feast to that of his principal guest, Captain Ruori Rangi Lohannaso, whose reflections inform us that the Maurai Federation stretches from Awaii to N'Zealann to Mlaya. Rightly are the Maurai called the Sea People.

Not two but three cultures are about to clash. 

Sea And Sky Combat

For some earlier discussion of the Maurai History, see:

From Historical Fiction To Science Fiction

Maurai In There Will Be Time

 

I have previously summarized several accounts of combat from Poul Anderson's works. The sea and sky battle in "The Sky People" is one of the best and I might return to it to write a summary. Basically, a single Maurai sea ship destroys one Sky People airship and captures another. Then the sea ship and the captured airship attack and destroy three more airships.

In this first Maurai story as also in the first Kith story, "Ghetto," a political necessity gets in the way of a personal relationship. In "The Sky People," because the flying pirates have a scientific culture, the Maurai will seek long-term trade and peace with them, not the endless war that some Meycans would have preferred. In "Ghetto," the central characters breaks off his engagement rather than change sides in a class conflict. 

Significant Dates

1925 other galaxies recognized
1926 birth of Poul Anderson
1929 cosmic expansion discovered
1938 Superman published
1947 "Tomorrow's Children" by Poul Anderson and F.N. Waldrop
1947 "Chain of Logic" by Poul Anderson
1949 my birth
1951 "Tiger By The Tail" by Poul Anderson
1951 "Honorable Enemies" by Poul Anderson
1951 "Sargasso of Lost Starships" by Poul Anderson
1952 Vault Of The Ages by Poul Anderson
1952 "The Star Plunderer" by Poul Anderson
1953 Three Hearts And Three Lions by Poul Anderson
1954 Brain Wave by Poul Anderson
1954 The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson
1954 "Ghetto" by Poul Anderson
1954 "The Warriors from Nowhere" by Poul Anderson
1954 Question And Answer by Poul Anderson
1954 "The Sensitive Man" by Poul Anderson
1955 "Time Patrol" by Poul Anderson
1955 "Delenda Est" by Poul Anderson
1955 No World Of Their Own by Poul Anderson
1956 "Margin of Profit" by Poul Anderson
1956 Star Ways by Poul Anderson
1957 Earthman's Burden by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
1957 "Memory" by Poul Anderson
1957 "Brake" by Poul Anderson
1958 The Snows Of Ganymede by Poul Anderson
1958 "The Man Who Counts" by Poul Anderson
1958 War Of The Wing-Men by Poul Anderson
1958 "The Game of Glory" by Poul Anderson
1959 Virgin Planet by Poul Anderson
1959 "Brave To Be A King" by Poul Anderson
1959 "The Sky People" by Poul Anderson
1959 "Hunters of the Sky Cave" by Poul Anderson
1959 "A Message in Secret" by Poul Anderson
1959 The Enemy Stars by Poul Anderson
1959 Perish By The Sword by Poul Anderson
1959 The War Of Two Worlds by Poul Anderson
1960 "The Only Game In Town" by Poul Anderson
1960 Guardians Of Time by Poul Anderson
1960 "The Plague of Masters" by Poul Anderson
1960 "A Twelvemonth And A Day" by Poul Anderson
1960 The High Crusade by Poul Anderson
1960 Murder In Black Letter by Poul Anderson
1960 The Golden Slave by Poul Anderson
1960 Rogue Sword by Poul Anderson
1961 "Progress" by Poul Anderson
1961 "Children of Fortune" by Poul Anderson
1961 "Epilogue" by Poul Anderson
1961 Twilight World by Poul Anderson
1961 Strangers From Earth by Poul Anderson
1961 Orbit Unlimited by Poul Anderson
1961 "Hiding Place" by Poul Anderson
1962 Un-Man And Other Novellas by Poul Anderson
1962 After Doomsday by Poul Anderson
1962 The Makeshift Rocket by Poul Anderson
1962 Murder Bound by Poul Anderson
1963 "Territory" by Poul Anderson
1963 Shield by Poul Anderson
1963 Is There Life On Other Worlds? by Poul Anderson
1964 Three Worlds To Conquer by Poul Anderson
1965 The Corridors Of Time by Poul Anderson
1965 The Star Fox by Poul Anderson
1963 Let The Spacemen Beware by Poul Anderson
1963 "The Three-Cornered Wheel" by Poul Anderson
1963 "Homo Aquaticus" by Poul Anderson
1964 "The Master Key" by Poul Anderson
1964 Three Worlds To Conquer by Poul Anderson
1965 "Trader Team" by Poul Anderson
1965 The Corridors Of Time by Poul Anderson
1966 Ensign Flandry by Poul Anderson
1966 "A Sun Invisible" by Poul Anderson
1966 "Plus Ca Change, Plus C'est Le Meme Chose" by Poul Anderson
1966 "Home" by Poul Anderson
1966 "The Moonrakers" by Poul Anderson
1966 The Fox, The Dog And The Griffin by Poul Anderson
1967 "Outpost of Empire" by Poul Anderson
1967 "Starfog" by Poul Anderson
1967 "Day of Burning" by Poul Anderson
1967 "A Tragedy of Errors" by Poul Anderson
1967 World Without Stars by Poul Anderson
1967 "To Outlive Eternity" by Poul Anderson
1968 "The Sharing of Flesh" by Poul Anderson
1969 The Rebel Worlds by Poul Anderson
1969 The Infinite Voyage by Poul Anderson
1969 Seven Conquests by Poul Anderson
1970 Tales Of The Flying Mountains by Poul Anderson
1970 "Esau" by Poul Anderson
1970 A Circus Of Hells by Poul Anderson
1970 Tau Zero by Poul Anderson
1971 "A Little Knowledge" by Poul Anderson
1971 "The Queen Of Air And Darkness" by Poul Anderson
1971 The Byworlder by Poul Anderson
1971 Operation Chaos by Poul Anderson
1971 The Broken Sword revised
1972 The Dancer From Atlantis by Poul Anderson
1972 "Wings of Victory" by Poul Anderson
1972 The Day The Sun Stood Still by Poul Anderson, Gordon R. Dickson and Robert Silverberg
1973 There Will Be Time by Poul Anderson
1973 "The Season of Forgiveness" by Poul Anderson
1973 "Wingless" by Poul Anderson
1973 The People Of The Wind by Poul Anderson
1973 "The Problem of Pain" by Poul Anderson
1973 "Rescue on Avalon" by Poul Anderson
1973 "Lodestar" by Poul Anderson
1973 The Day Of Their Return by Poul Anderson
1973 "Windmill" by Poul Anderson
1973 Hrolf Kraki's Saga by Poul Anderson
1974 "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" by Poul Anderson
1974 A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows by Poul Anderson
1974 "My Own, My Native Land" by Poul Anderson
1974 "Passing The Love Of Women" by Poul Anderson
1974 "A Fair Exchange" by Poul Anderson
1974 Fire Time by Poul Anderson
1974 A Midsummer Tempest by Poul Anderson
1974 The Many Worlds Of Poul Anderson, ed. Roger Elwood
1975 "To Promote The General Welfare" by Poul Anderson
1975 The Winter Of The World by Poul Anderson
1975 Homeward And Beyond by Poul Anderson
1975 Star Prince Charlie by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
1976 The Best Of Poul Anderson
1977 A World Named Cleopatra
1978 The Avatar by Poul Anderson
1979 The Merman's Children by Poul Anderson
1979 The Demon Of Scattery by Poul Anderson and Mildred Downey Broxon
1979 A Stone In Heaven by Poul Anderson
1980 Conan The Rebel by Poul Anderson
1980 The Devil's Game by Poul Anderson
1980 The Golden Horn by Poul Anderson
1980 The Road of the Sea Horse by Poul Anderson
1980 The Sign Of The Raven by Poul Anderson
1981 Fantasy by Poul Anderson
1981 Explorations by Poul Anderson
1981 The Dark Between The Stars by Poul Anderson
1981 The Psychotechnic League by Poul Anderson
1981 "The Saturn Game" by Poul Anderson
1982 Cold Victory by Poul Anderson
1982 Starship by Poul Anderson
1982 New America by Poul Anderson
1982 The Gods Laughed by Poul Anderson
1983 Conflict by Poul Anderson
1983 "Ivory, And Apes, And Peacocks" by Poul Anderson
1983 "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" by Poul Anderson
1983 Hoka! by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
1983 Orion Shall Rise by Poul Anderson
1984 Past Times by Poul Anderson
1984 The Unicorn Trade by Poul and Karen Anderson
1985 Dialogue With Darkness by Poul Anderson
1985 The Game Of Empire by Poul Anderson
1985 "Pride" by Poul Anderson
1986 Roma Mater by Poul and Karen Anderson
1987 Gallicenae by Poul and Karen Anderson
1987 Dahut by Poul and Karen Anderson
1988 The Dog And The Wolf by Poul and Karen Anderson
1988 The Year Of The Ransom by Poul Anderson
1989 The Boat Of A Million Years by Poul Anderson
1990 The Shield Of Time by Poul Anderson
1991 "Star of the Sea" by Poul Anderson
1991 "Inconstant Star" by Poul Anderson
1991 The Time Patrol by Poul Anderson

Stop! This is not a complete list and was never intended to be such a long list. I have stopped temporarily only because I am not, at this time of night, finding any title that was published in 1992. The list so far shows:

(i) the dates of two important discoveries that underlie all subsequent sf;

(ii) the date of Superman who started as sf although he initiated a new genre (his alien menagerie is comparable to the one in Anderson's "Hiding Place" (1961));

(iii) for comparison, the year of my birth (blog readers can add theirs);

(iv) an unbroken record of Poul Anderson publications from 1951 until 1991 - and there was more after that.

Miscellaneous Points

SM Stirling, The Sky People (New York, 2006).

(i) "The Sky People" is what the natives of Venus call Terrestrials. (p. 40)

(ii) "Everyone knew that the Sky People, while wizards of great power, were raving mad. Filling a sack with useless rocks and treating it like a treasure was typical of them." (ibid.)

Thinking that something is useless because we do not understand it: a bad mistake, one that I made in childhood.

(iii) Two hundred million years ago, Venus was somehow terraformed. It looks as if biological action pumped carbon out of the atmosphere and oxygen into it. (p. 39) We approach an answer to the central question of the novel.

(iv) "...un-transport..." (p. 50) - ?

(v) "You had to keep in mind that the world the size of Earth or Venus was a big place..." (p. 51) A valid point and typically Andersonian.

(vi) Colonists of Venus are heroes on Earth:

"Marc...was undoubtedly the thinly disguised hero of countless trashy novels and bad TV shows by now - and the illustrated heart-throb of countless girls." (p. 52)

So our viewpoint character is the real life version of a popular fiction hero - but we, in another timeline, are reading the true account. How cool is that?

Anderson’s Technic History

A Chronology of the Writing of the Technic History

Jan 51	“Tiger by the Tail”	3032
May 51	“Honorable Enemies”	3033
Jan 52	“Sargasso of Lost Starships”	28th C
Sep 52	“The Star Plunderer”	c2700
Summer 54	“The Warriors from Nowhere”	3042
Sep 56	“Margin of Profit”	2416
Feb-Apr 58	The Man Who Counts	2420s
Mar 58	“The Game of Glory”	3025
59	“Hunters of the Sky Cave”	3040
Mar 61	“Hiding Place”	2420s
61	“A Message in Secret”	3037
61	“The Plague of Masters”	3038
Jun 63	“Territory”	2430s
63	The Night Face	3900
63	“The Three-Cornered Wheel”	2423
Apr 66	“A Sun Invisible”	2420s
66	Ensign Flandry	3019
Jan 67	“Day of Burning”	2430s
Aug 67	“Starfog”	7100
Dec 67	“Outpost of Empire”	3027
Feb 68	“A Tragedy of Errors”	3600
May-Aug 68	Satan’s World	2430s
Dec 68	“The Sharing of Flesh”	4000
69	The Rebel Worlds	3025
Feb 70	“Esau”	2420s
70	A Circus of Hells	3021
Jul-Aug 71	“The Trouble Twisters”	2430s
Aug 71	“The Master Key”	2430s
Aug 71	“A Little Knowledge”	2430s
Apr 72	“Wings of Victory”	2150
Feb 73	“The Problem of Pain”	24th C
Feb-Apr 73	The People of the Wind	29th C
Jul 73	“Wingless”	26th C
73	“Rescue on Avalon”	26th C
73	“Lodestar”	2446
73	The Day of Their Return	3028
Dec 73	“The Season of Forgiveness”	2420s
74	“How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson”	2416
Sep-Dec 74	A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows	3047
77	Mirkheim	2456
79	A Stone in Heaven	3061
Feb 81	“The Saturn Game”	c2055
85	The Game of Empire	3064

Sandra Miesel compiled the “Chronology [which is also a bibliography] of Technic Civilization.” (1) From this Chronology/bibliography, I have abstracted the above chronology of the writing of the Technic History from 1951 to 1985.

The History comprises two complete narrative cycles. The first begins in 2150 with human-Ythrian first contact on the planet Ythri and ends, seven centuries later, when the human-Ythrian joint colony on the planet Avalon successfully resists Terran Imperial annexation. The second cycle begins in 3019 with Dominic Flandry defending the Terran Empire and ends, four millennia later, when descendants of rebels exiled by Flandry contact a post-Imperial civilization. “The Saturn Game,” preceding the first cycle, introduces the Jerusalem Catholic Church and thus anticipates both The People of the Wind, the last volume of the first cycle, and The Game of Empire, the last volume of the Imperial period, because members of that Church play important roles in both of these works.

The Game of Empire, set in the Empire, “A Tragedy of Errors," set during the Long Night between the Empire and the Commonalty, and “Starfog,” set in the Commonalty period, are potential series. Each introduces a character who could have become central to later works but Anderson had more to write than this one series.

In “Hunters of the Sky Cave,” Flandry reveals that the Empire he has defended in “Tiger by the Tail,” “Honorable Enemies,” “The Warriors from Nowhere” and “The Game of Glory” is the same Empire that the leader of a slave rebellion, Manuel Argos, had founded in “The Star Plunderer.” In “A Plague of Masters,” Flandry reveals that Manuel’s Empire was preceded by the Polesotechnic League of Nicholas van Rijn’s period as described in “Margin of Profit” and The Man Who Counts. Since mercantile expansion was later followed by imperial decline, the combined series is about social change.

Mirkheim, a good political novel, shows how the League had declined and sympathetically treats a revolutionary character despite Anderson’s conservatism. Van Rijn, old but not pathetic and still energetic, makes an anti-cartels speech into the sunset.

“Day of Burning” reveals that the Merseians from whom Flandry defended the Empire had owed their earlier survival to van Rijn’s protégé, David Falkayn. “Lodestar” shows why inequities within the League made Falkayn break his oath of fealty to old van Rijn. When the League declines, van Rijn leads an expedition outside known space but Falkayn leads the colonization of Avalon. Works set after The Game of Empire show us what happened after the Empire fell. Flandry, an Intelligence officer, worked hard to prolong the Empire so that he could continue to enjoy its decadence while he lived. Near the end of A Stone in Heaven, the reader is led to believe that Flandry will die in space but his faithful retainer rescues him and he is last seen, in this book, in an autumnal scene. He cameos in The Game of Empire, about his daughter who is embarking on a new series of adventures.

(Added later: on re-reading A Stone in Heaven, I realize that I had misremembered one scene. Chives does not rescue Flandry. Instead, Miriam Abrams rescues both Chives and Flandry. But I prefer my memory. Flandry should have been alone when reminiscing before an expected death in space.)

I think that the elderly Flandry should have become Emperor in a palace revolution. A novel called Emperor Flandry could have book-ended the series with Ensign Flandry. Also, as the Lancaster sf book seller Peter Pinto suggested to Anderson, Flandry’s opponent Aycharaych should have returned but in an Aycharaych, not another Flandry, novel. I used dialogue between Flandry and Aycharaych on death when working as an RE Teacher. The aristocratic Flandry thinks that death is “…not quite a gentleman…” whereas the alien Aycharaych sees it as a “...completion.” (2)

Van Rijn stories are curious combinations of frivolous action-adventure fiction and serious scientific speculation. We are supposed to admire and enjoy van Rijn’s profiteering, ostentation, apparent benevolence and confounding of the bureaucrats. At the same time, the canny trader van Rijn survives, prospers and profits only if he continues to understand ever new examples of alien biology and psychology and Anderson can imagine these as genuinely alien by reasoning from the basic premises of different stellar and planetary environments. Van Rijn’s deductive processes resemble Hercules Poirot’s. He works hard at thinking out new situations even while lounging and drinking beer but is physically powerful and skilled enough to handle himself in a fight with an alien warrior if necessary. How would he have coped with a situation where he had to choose between private profit and the greater good? The moral of his stories seems to be that he can always profit from the greater good although he is persuaded to hold his peace at the end of “Lodestar” when Falkayn has become more prominent.

This article is occasioned by the fact that Baen Books are currently issuing the entire Technic series in chronological order of fictitious events for the first time ever. They are therefore having to break up earlier collections including the omnibus The Earth Book of Stormgate but they are preserving the Earth Book introductions to stories, “written by” an Avalonian Ythrian. The Earth Book about Terrans who walk the Earth is a companion volume to the Sky Book, which we do not see, about winged Ythrians.

This complete publication of the series means that many of us will read for the first time the previously uncollected “Sargasso of Lost Starships” which, I believe, has to be regarded as a slightly inconsistent account of the early Empire. A reference in “The Star Plunderer” to Manuel’s Empire as the First Empire fits with a similar reference in Anderson’s earlier, Psychotechnic, History. Thus, this represents a period in the writing when the Histories had not yet been differentiated.

Disagreeing with Anderson, I would include “Memory” (July 1957) as a post-Empire Long Night story because that is how it reads. If it were included in the Long Night section of the History, I do not think that readers would notice any discrepancy. It may be that the characters anticipate a different subsequent history than the one revealed in later stories but that is what happens in history.

(Added Feb 2012: After carefully re-reading "Memory," I now agree with Anderson that it is not set during the Long Night after the Fall of the Terran Empire.)

The Chronology of Technic Civilization

c2055	“The Saturn Game”	Feb 81
2150	“Wings of Victory”	Apr 72
24th C	“The Problem of Pain”	Feb 73
2416	“Margin of Profit”	Sep 56
2416	“How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson”	74
2423	“The Three-Cornered Wheel”	63
2420s	“A Sun Invisible”	Apr 66
2420s	“The Season of Forgiveness”	Dec 73
2420s	The Man Who Counts	Feb-Apr 58
2420s	“Esau”	Feb 70
2420s	“Hiding Place”	Mar 61
2430s	“Territory”	Jun 63
2430s	“The Trouble Twisters”	Jul-Aug 71
2430s	“Day of Burning”	Jan 67
2430s	“The Master Key”	Aug 71
2430s	Satan’s World	69
2430s	“A Little Knowledge”	Aug 71
2446	“Lodestar”	73
2456	Mirkheim	77
26th C	“Wingless”	Jul 73
26th C	“Rescue on Avalon”	73
c2700	“The Star Plunderer”	Sep 52
28th C	“Sargasso of Lost Starships”	Jan 52
29th C	The People of the Wind	Feb-Apr 73
3019	Ensign Flandry	66
3021	A Circus of Hells	70
3025	The Rebel Worlds	69
3027	“Outpost of Empire”	Dec 67
3028	The Day of their Return	73
3032	“Tiger by the Tail”	Jan 51
3033	“Honorable Enemies”	May 51
3035	“The Game of Glory”	Mar 58
3037	“A Message in Secret”	61
3038	“The Plague of Masters”	61
3040	“Hunters of the Sky Cave”	Jun 59
3042	“The Warriors from Nowhere”	Summer 54
3047	A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows	Sep-Dec 74
3061	A Stone in Heaven	79
3064	The Game of Empire	85
3600	“A Tragedy of Errors”	Feb 68
3900	The Night Face	63
4000	“The Sharing of Flesh”	Dec 68
7100	“Starfog”	Aug 67

1. Miesel, Sandra, “Chronology of Technic Civilization” IN Anderson, Poul, The Technic Civilization Saga: The Van Rijn Method, compiled by Hank Davis, 2008, Riverdale NY, pp. 445-450.
2. Anderson, Poul, Agent of the Terran Empire, 1977, London, p. 93.