Saturn And Cana

Mirkheim, IX.

A photograph of Saturn in Orion Shall Rise (see Photographs Of Saturn) got me into rereading The Rebel Worlds, then other works in the Technic History. There is yet another image of Saturn in the Saturn Room in the Hotel Universe:

"Overhead lifted the vast half-circles of the rings, tinted more subtly than rainbows in a violet sky where four moons were presently visible. Sparks of light flickered in the streaming arcs and meteors clove the heavens. Where a tiny sun was setting, dimmed by thick air, clouds lay tawny and rosy." (p. 135)

It is in the Saturn Room that van Rijn preaches to Bayard Story about:

"'The very first miracle that Our Lord did...'" (p. 136) (See A Select Vintage And Solar Spices.)

Although I referred to the "...very first miracle...," I did not cite the Biblical reference so here it is: John 2: 1-12.

A Chapter Of Revelation

I am just starting to read a 400+ page novel by John Grisham, which will take a while. Meanwhile, here is a reflection on a work by Poul Anderson. I have Anderson's story, "A Chapter of Revelation," in his collection, Dialogue With Darkness (New York, 1985). The printing history reveals that this story was first published in The Day The Sun Stood Still, edited by Lester del Rey. The attached cover illustration further discloses that this book was an anthology of three original novellas on the common theme of the Sun standing still.

Observations

(i) What an unusual theme for an anthology.

(ii) Anderson's story is in every way realistic apart from its single Sign or Miracle which, of necessity, is unexplained, unless we just say "Divine intervention." Whether there is no explanation or a supernatural explanation, in either case the story is a fantasy, not science fiction as it says on the cover, but its classification is immaterial. What does matter is the story's point, which is the same as that of the film Oh, God!, starring John Denver and George Burns.

(iii) I can and might reread the story and comment in detail. However, the main impact of a story like this is in it's readers' longer term memories of its point and that is the level of my current observations.

(iv) The story's point is that, even if an undeniable miracle definitely occurred, many people would learn neither awe nor humility but instead would use the miracle to further their own agendas. Thus:

a particular man, an ordinary guy, is somehow associated with the miracle;
maybe he is just this guy no different from anyone else or maybe he does have something to say that everyone else should heed;
but ignore that - while the spotlight of publicity is on him, pressurize him in every way to parrot whatever Message we want propagated!

My God!

Anderson might have created a protagonist able to articulate this point more clearly but maybe the fact that our hero does not know what to say is itself part of the point. Why should he have to say anything after everyone has seen the Sun stand still?

The story ends:

"'When will we see that we've always lived in a miracle?'" (p. 80)

Belief And Unbelief II

Genesis, PART TWO, 5.

Laurinda and Christian appear to a scientist in one of Gaia's emulations. He calls their appearance a miracle but soon converses avidly with them:

"Christian recalled myths of men who were lovers of goddesses or who tramped the roads and sat at humble meat with God Incarnate. The believer accepts as the unbeliever cannot." (pp. 226-227)

I had remembered this passage about God Incarnate but not where I had read it until I reread it.

To Christian Brannock, God Incarnate is a myth. Nicholas van Rijn unquestioningly accepts that:

"'The very first miracle Our Lord did was turning water into wine...'"

-Poul Anderson, Mirkheim IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 1-291 AT IX, p. 136.

Fr. Axor says that Our Lord Jesus Christ was born on Terra and walked on Terra but then adds:

"'If science can show that the gospel account of Christ is not myth but biography...'"

-Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 189-453 AT CHAPTER ONE, p. 210.

I am not sure of the strength of that "If..." Does Axor mean that science has shown this, therefore... or just that science might show it at some time in the future. (I once tried to say, "If this is the case, then...," but the person to whom I was speaking kept interrupting to say, "It is!" because she misinterpreted my "If..." to mean doubt, not an implication.)

In CS Lewis' Ransom Trilogy, we are to understand that the Incarnation is not a myth or a belief but a historical fact:

"'[Death] is horrible. It has a foul smell. Maleldil Himself wept when He saw it.'"

-CS Lewis, Perelandra IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 145-348 AT 5, p. 203.

"Jesus wept."

Habeas Corpus

"He was a huge man, two meters in height and more than broad enough to match."
-Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2009), p. 139 (my emphasis).

That is our first sight of Nicholas van Rijn. Although he is a merchant prince to whom it is fitting to bow, his employees may occasionally refer to his girth:

"'...I admire your courage - nobody can say you lack guts -' van Rijn gave him a hard look..." (p. 159)

"'Suppose they got brains in their bellies,' said Van Rijn.
"'Well, some people do,' murmured Torrance. As the merchant choked, he added in haste, 'No, actually, sir, that's hardly believable.'" (p. 582)

- as can colleagues:

"'I don't make a god of my stomach.'
"'You think I do, ha? No, by damn, I make my stomach work for me, like a slave it works. My palate, that is what I pay attention to.'"
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 136.

There follows a statement of the van Rijn philosophy of life:

what is wrong with attention to palate?;
Our Lord's first miracle was water into wine;
it was a select vintage;
God's gifts are "'...good food, drink, music, women, profit...'" (ibid.);
the troublemakers are not content with these;
they cause misery by playing God and trying to save us.

I agree with some of this and would love to discuss it with van Rijn - over dinner, of course.

Doomsday And Wine

Poul Anderson, The Enemy Stars, 15.

David Ryerson says that:

God seemed to be scourging him;
he believed that all creation was under wrath;
however, now he has "'...been on the other side of Doomsday. Here, in nightmare land.'" (p. 120);
the same God made "'...wine for the wedding at Cana.'" (ibid.)

We note that:

Ryerson echoes the Anderson title, After Doomsday;
like van Rijn, he refers to the first miracle;
he remains within Christian belief but interprets it more benignly.

Before leaving Earth, Ryerson was newly married whereas Maclaren lived for pleasure. Now, Maclaren focuses on Ryerson's wife, whom he has never met, and eats less of his rations so that Ryerson can have more - as a gift to her.

Less posts here today means more happening in what we laughingly call "real life" and also a few more posts on James Blish Appreciation. Three chapters remain to be reread in The Enemy Stars.

A Chapter Of Revelation

I am reading or rereading short stories in Poul Anderson's collection Dialogue With Darkness (New York, 1985). The first story is "A Chapter Of Revelation." I have read this one before and it was a little depressing so I am not immediately about to reread it. However, the basic premise is straightforward and can be discussed simply as an idea without necessarily remembering the details of this particular story.

I am astonished to discover that the story was originally published in The Day The Sun Stood Still, three original science fiction novellas by Poul Anderson, Gordon R Dickson and Robert Silverberg, edited by Lester del Rey. So it seems that del Rey asked these three authors each to write a novella on the same premise? This has been done before, of course:

Four For The Future by Aldiss, Anderson, Blish and Harrison, edited by Harrison;
Three For Tomorrow by Silverberg, Zelazny and Blish, edited by Clarke.

But The Day The Sun Stood Still, as its title indicates, has a very specific and bizarre premise. In the Anderson story, the Sun, or rather the Earth, stands still after a lot of people have prayed that it will. No other explanation is given so I suppose that we should say that the astronomical miracle is supernatural in origin and that therefore the story is fantasy, not sf. However, apart from that one miracle, the rest of the story is narrated realistically. 

Anderson's story makes two serious points: (i) philosophical and scientific; (ii) moral and political.

(i) Might the Sun stand still if enough people prayed for this "sign"? Scientifically, we might reply, "Of course not. How could it? Why should it?" and I think that this answer is alright as far as it goes. However, it does not quite go all the way. The scientific approach is always to wait and see whether new data confirm or disconfirm our expectations. That many people have not all prayed for the same thing ever before. If they did pray for it and if it did then happen, then that would be a new datum to add to any existing body of evidence about the efficacy or otherwise of prayer. Scientists will not organize such a prayer campaign and it is unlikely that anyone else will either so the question does not become a practical one. However, we do not need to dogmatize about what would or would not happen in other circumstances.

(ii) This is the main point of the story. Even if there were such a sign, people would not change their ways. (This is where it gets depressing.) The media identify the central character as the originator of the prayer campaign although he is not even sure that it was he who had started it. They ask him for his Message. All that he needs to say is: "I have no Message but have we all not been given enough of a sign?" Even worse, interest groups lobby and pressurize him to present their message as the Message. Fortunately, he refuses to do this. But how presumptuous are they? The sign is forgotten. Instead, a man who is no different from any other is emphasized. And there is no real interest in what he has to say.

The story ends when another character asks:

"'When will we see that we've always lived in a miracle?'" (p. 80)

Nicholas Van Rijn's Social Life In The Hotel Universe

Mirkhem, III, IX.

For a poor old lonely fat man who does not want to be a burden on a state that is only good for overtaxing hardworking merchants, Nicholas van Rijn sure puts himself about a lot. He addresses the Council of the Polesotechnic League in Lunograd. Because he is the leading independent, his voice carries weight although he is not able to shift the votes of either cartel. The Council ends indecisively. 

In Chapter III, van Rijn entertains Hanny Lennart and Bayard Story to canapes and conversation in his Hotel Universe suite. In IX, Story entertains van Rijn to dinner in the Saturn Room of the Hotel Universe. It is here that van Rijn recommends onion soup a la Ansa and discourses on Our Lord's first miracle.

Van Rijn withstands pressure to support Story's cartel but otherwise is friendly and avuncular towards the younger man, not yet knowing what hides beneath the surface. Van Rijn and others will attack the Seven in Space militarily when Falkayn has unearthed the truth.

Van Rijn and Falkayn make a good team.

A Themed Anthology

Of Poul Anderson's two contributions to Four For The Future, one is an installment of his History of Technic Civilization.

Of James Blish's two contributions, one is loosely connected to his Haertel Scholium.

The second of Brian Aldiss' two contributions (see here) is a sequel to his first, which is unusual or even unique for Aldiss.

Themed anthologies are not my preferred form of sf but this one manages to be of interest in more ways than one. The stories have to be individually good and most of these are.

My reading agenda, which is becoming confused, is:

reread the two Aldiss stories;
continue to read SM Stirling's The Sunrise Lands;
read for the first time Anderson's Murder In Black Letter;
read also for the first time Elliot S. Maggin's prose novel, Superman: Miracle Monday;
reread the Fables graphic novels.

I might get bogged down here.

A Select Vintage And Solar Spices

My study of the New Testament (see here) does not lead me to accept the Gospels as historical accounts of the events that they describe. However, let us willingly suspend disbelief. In that case, the Gospels become prequels to some passages in Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization.

Nicholas van Rijn says:

"'The very first miracle Our Lord did was turning water into wine, and a select vintage it was, too.'"
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 136.

So the Marriage Feast at Cana and van Rijn's many modest repasts are scattered along the same timeline! And later along that timeline, Fr Axor says:

"'Now Our Lord was born once upon Terra... If science can show that the gospel account of Christ is not myth but biography; and if it then finds that his ministry was, in empirical fact, universal...'"
-Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (New York, 2012). pp. 209-210.

If a proposition is proved scientifically or empirically, then it is known and no longer a matter of faith whereas, if it remains an article of faith, then it has not yet been proved scientifically or empirically.

Axor is a Wodenite who finds spiritual significance in events that occurred in ancient Galilee whereas Adzel was an earlier Wodenite who found such significance in ancient India. Both find it on Earth. What a pity that they could not meet - except maybe in someone's version of a hereafter?

Revised Communication And Revolution

Away from home, I am referring to Revolt In 2100 without access to a copy. Once a year, at the Miracle of the Incarnation, the First Prophet, Nehemiah Scudder, returns from heaven in the body of the reigning Prophet and addresses the Angels of the Lord on national television, including TV sets before congregations in churches. The Voice of God broadcasting station at New Jerusalem fakes the transformation of the face and voice of the current Prophet into those of Scudder. As a first step in the Second American Revolution, the revolutionary Cabal captures the broadcasting station and fakes Scudder calling on congregations to rise and overthrow the current corrupt regime.

In Poul Anderson's Harvest Of Stars, 35, download Guthrie records a broadcast but Rinndalir has it edited and revised so Guthrie is seen and heard to call on his company, Fireball, to aid the Chaotics if they now rise against the Avantist government of North America. Perfidious Selenarchs! An Avantist-reprogrammed Guthrie has been running Fireball and now a fake Guthrie incites rebellion.

Fake news everywhere: where is truth to be found?

Fictional Religions

I do not want to compile a complete list bur here are some interesting comparisons:

Robert Heinlein
The Angels of the Lord
The Fosterite Church of the New Revelation

Like some Muslims, the Angels reject Church-State separation. Medieval Christendom had a Pope and an Emperor (in England, a King and an Archbishop), and conflict between them, whereas, after the election of President Scudder, the United States has only a reigning Prophet. Heinlein's other nasty Christian derivative is the Fosterite Church of the New Revelation in Stranger in a Strange Land. Both Angels and Fosterites claim direct contact with Heaven. Archangels tell the Fosterite Supreme Bishop exactly when a couple who have left their property to the Church will go to Heaven and the Church organizes a farewell party... None dare call it murder. The First Prophet is said to return in the flesh annually at the Miracle of the Incarnation. Heinlein knew that modern communications technology could be used to broadcast nonsense. We, the readers, meet neither the hedonist Foster nor the ascetic Scudder in person - but we know that Scudder's successors do not adhere to his asceticism. The revolutionary Cabal cannot take the deposed Prophet alive because his Virgins get to him first.
-copied from here.

   
Poul Anderson
The Jerusalem Catholic Church
The Johannine Church

The Angels and the Johnnies are collective villains. The only wholesome church in this list is the Jerusalemites.

Interstellar Messianism

If a science fictional interstellar empire not only resembles the Roman Empire but also, like it, either incorporates or generates diverse religious movements, will the contradictions between Imperial rule and religious aspiration generate Messianism and even a major Messianic military leader?

In Robert Heinlein's Future History, even before the interstellar stage, the contradiction between technological progress and social regression generated the First Prophet, Nehemiah Scudder, and his theocracy. In Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land, not part of the Future History but sharing the same race of Martians, a prophet called Foster founded the Church of the New Revelation.

On the interstellar scale, we have Paul Atreides in Frank Herbert's Dune and Jaan in Poul Anderson's Technic History and here there is a link back to Heinlein. In the Future History, the Angels of the Lord used television to fake the Miracle of the Incarnation, the annual return of the First Prophet to Earth. In the Technic History, Aycharaych uses mental technology to fake the personality of Caruith, the supposed Ancient who possesses Jaan. 

Beware of technology in the hands of manipulators of religion.

The Next Millennium

A standard sf scenario is the expansion of our civilization onto an interplanetary, then an interstellar, scale in the next few centuries. The background details of many stories might be interchangeabale. It might even be possible, with minimal editing, to incorporate diverse short stories and novels into a common future history. In fact, Heinlein did partly cobble together the first part of his Future History. Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization begins with a University on the Moon and with the exploration of the outer Solar System in the mid-twenty first century.

Anderson's Time Patrol series is about time travel and history, not about space travel or the future. However, of necessity, it sketches a future history with the colonization of the Moon, Venus, Mars and the Saturnian moons in successive centuries. On exactly the same time scale, Elliot S. Maggin has people in the twenty ninth century celebrating Miracle Monday throughout the Solar System and in this part of the Galaxy. I used to assume that such a future was assured but now I am less sure.

Team Work And Individual Excellence

"One of the hardest lessons [Everard] had had to learn, when first recruited into the Time Patrol, was that every important task does not require a vast organization. That was the characteristic twentieth-century approach; but earlier cultures like Athenian Hellas and Kamakura Japan - and later civilizations too, here and there in history - had concentrated on the development of individual excellence. A single graduate of the Patrol Academy (equipped, to be sure, with tools and weapons of the future) could be the equivalent of a brigade.

"But it was a matter of necessity as well as aesthetics. There were all too few people to watch over all too many thousands of years." (Time Patrol, p. 130)

I was going to make these points but then found that I could simply quote this passage. We see Specialists working alone and Unattached Agents working either alone or in pairs. Sometimes, a small military force is necessary as when attacking a group of Exaltationists. Everard must rescue a Patrol agent from a Templar house in Paris in 1307. To use a timecycle to make the man disappear from within a locked room would be to generate a "miracle" with unforeseeable consequences. It must seem that a gang of robbers have attacked the house at night, stolen what they could and kidnapped the prisoner possibly to hold him for ransom. Thus, Everard and his "bully boys" (p. 757) with "...birthdays scattered through several future centuries and around the globe..." (p. 758) arrive on an "...outsize machine bearing saddles for eight..." (p. 758). Yan, Tabarin, Rosny, Hyman and Uhl are not Unattached agents but "...the most promising he'd found among personnel familiar with this milieu, hastily briefed and drilled." (p. 761)

The team aspect of the Patrol is investigated more as the series proceeds and we end in style with Yan and co.

Temporal, Esperanto And Latin

The Time Patrol Academy, like the Nest (see earlier posts) is in the American Oligocene. Time traveling organizations in alternative timelines have hideouts in other geological epochs. I posted about Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series earlier on this blog and on the Logic of Time Travel blog so interested page viewers might read those earlier posts.

"Temporal, the artificial language with which Patrolmen from all ages could communicate without being understood by strangers, was a miracle of logically organized expressiveness."
- Time Patrol (New York, 2006), p. 12.

But four hundred and seventy pages later:

"The Patrol speech had a grammar capable of handling chronokinesis, variable time, and the associated paradoxes, but when it came to human things was as weak as artificial languages generally are. (An Esperantist who hits his thumb with a hammer will not likely yell, 'Excremento!')" (p. 482)

I learned some Esperanto and it is very expressive. The Bible and Shakespeare have been translated into it and it has original poetry and fiction which are enjoyable to read. Speakers can create new words from stems and affixes. Thus:

Si diris, "Jes": She said, "Yes";
Si respondis jese: She responded yesly;
Si jesis: She yessed.

Demandemulino = Demand-em-ul-in-o, thus a female member of group with a tendency to ask questions, i.e., an inquisitive woman.

Samideanoj = Sam-ide-an-o-j, ones having the same idea, i.e., how Esperantists address each other, like "brothers and sisters" or "comrades."

I did not learn any swear words but I suppose Esperantists swear in their national languages! - although I heard of a couple who met and were married through Esperanto. Their children might have been bilingual in Esperanto and a national language but the international language is not meant to be anyone's first language.

Back to Temporal, Anderson tells us that it is exclusively used by the Patrol and that it has tenses for time travel. However:

"He used Temporal, the common speech of the Time Patrol and many civilian travelers..." (p. 657)

- so it is not used exclusively by the Patrol. And Anderson contradicts himself by saying that it is expressive but weak in human things.

I think we are told that the Exaltationist language sounds like song. (Later: An Exaltationist spoke "...in a language that purred and trilled." (ibid.))

"Time Patrol" introduces the Latin term for a time traveler, "...peregrinator temporis..." (p. 38), which is used later in the different scenario of There Will Be Time.

Addendum: Harry Harrison bought me a beer at a Con because I addressed him in Esperanto.

Poul Anderson's Time Travel II

The time travel stories by Poul Anderson that I would include in a revised Past Times are, in this order:

"Wildcat"
"The Nest"
"The Little Monster"
"The Man Who Came Early"
"Welcome"
"Time Heals"
"Flight to Forever"

The other stories in the original Past Times should, of course, be preserved elsewhere. In particular, "Eutopia" deserves to be included in another (proposed) collection:

The Old Phoenix and other Universes
"The House of Sorrows"
"Eutopia"
"House Rule"
"Losers' Night"

The seven stories in the proposed Past Times: Revised Edition span the geological past, the historical past, the near future and the ultimate cosmic future, then return to 1973 in a story published in 1950. These are independent stories, each presenting an instance of time travel in a distinct scenario.

If Anderson's "Time Patrol" (1955) had not initiated a series that spanned his career, then it would have made an appropriate concluding item for PT:RE. However, it differs from the previous seven in two respects. First, it addresses and answers the question, "Can the past be changed?" Its answer is subtle and not fully coherent in my opinion, but I have discussed this before.

Secondly, it presents not just another single, finite application of the time travel concept but a vast time traveling organization spanning and overseeing human history in its entirety. This was clearly the premise for a series and a second story, "Delenda Est", was published later that year.

"History was divided into milieus, with a head office located in a major city for a selected twenty-year period (disguised by some ostensible activity such as commerce) and various branch offices. For his time, there were three milieus: the Western world, headquarters in London; Russia, in Moscow; Asia, in Peiping; each in the easygoing years 1890-1910, when concealment was less difficult than in later decades, when there were smaller offices..."
-Time Patrol (New York, 2006), p. 13.

"...his time..." turns out to mean 1850-2000. Two decades is a very short time by comparison with a century and a half or even an expected human lifetime, let alone the indefinitely extended lifespan of a Time Patroller. Do all Patrol members receive the futuristic longevity treatment or only those who need it more because they time travel a lot? Those who do get it, which I assume is all, have to move to a different public identity in a different milieu after a few decades. We see just a little of this happening but obviously there is much more that we could be told about the Patrol.

We ordinary people work, retire and die whereas Patrollers work indefinitely and die by accident eventually so their lives are completely different from ours. A single Patroller could work for the entire twenty years in London, then Moscow, then Peiping, then somewhere/when else and so on indefinitely. The series does not begin to address such ramifications.

"Temporal, the artificial language with which Patrolmen from all ages could communicate without being understood by strangers, was a miracle of logically organized expressiveness." (p. 12)

Yet:

"'Merau Varagan, you are under arrest by the Time Patrol," [Everard] called in Temporal." (p. 278)

- so Varagan's time criminal group, the Exaltationists, must not only have stolen timecycles but also somehow learned the secret language?

The Time Patrol is time travel fans' heaven.

An Original Contribution

"...no time traveler, no human blunder or madness or vaunting ambition brought this about. The fluctuation was in space-time-energy itself, a quantum leap, a senseless randomness." (The Shield Of Time, p. 344)

The first time I read that passage, I thought that Poul Anderson had made an original contribution to time travel fiction. I still do. In such fictions, when causality violations occur, they are caused by time travelers. Anderson had been working towards explaining such violations by comparing them with quantum fluctuations. Now he dispenses with the time traveler as cause and presents a change in past events as simply another kind of quantum fluctuation.

However, the fluctuation would pass unnoticed if there were no time travelers to notice it. And such time travelers can try to rectify the situation although they may not succeed. In this case, if they had merely shot Lorenzo from a distance, then they would have caused a "miracle" of divine or demonic intervention on the battlefield. That would have diverted events away from the alpha timeline without turning them back towards the Time Patrol timeline. Finesse is needed. Lorenzo, who did not kill Roger in the Time Patrol timeline, must be prevented from killing him but not in any way that will change events further. The Patrol seems to succeed but what they really needed, and did not get on this occasion, was Lorenzo's death.

"A noseguarded spangenhelm was secured above." (p. 341)

Everard fights Lorenzo and wears one of them, which I had never heard of before.

Everard recognizes Lorenzo because he had been/would be his guest a year in the future of the alpha timeline. Lorenzo, of course, does not recognize Everard but grins gamely and rides to meet him. What a thought. Does this happen to all of us? Do we live different versions of our lives in alternative timelines? We don't know. All that we ever experience is a single timeline.

The change event is described  as a fluctuation, a quantum leap and a randomness. Later, it is called an accident and a quirk. (p. 434) A Danellian explains that such random changes, if not counteracted, would destroy the universe and prevent freedom.

"'In a reality forever liable to chaos, the Patrol is the stabilizing element...'" (p. 435)

This is why, back at the Academy, when Whitcomb asked, "'What routine are you giving us?,'" he was told, "'The truth...As much of it as you can take.'" (Time Patrol, p. 14)

Many Milieus

The Boat Of A Million Years.

Each chapter requires us to enter into a new sociohistorical milieu. Examples:

"To Yen Ting-kuo, subprefect of the Tumbling Rock district, came an inspector from Ch'ang-an, on an errand from the very Emperor." (II, p. 33)

"A ship was loading at the Claudian dock." (III, p. 47)

"The caravan to Tripolis would leave at daybreak." (IV, p. 70)

"It is told in the saga of Olaf Trggvason..." (V, p. 108)

"Where mountains began their long climb to Tibet..." (X, 1, p. 203)

"Armand Jean de Plessis de Richlieu, Cardinal of the Church, first minister to His Most Christian Majesty Louis XIII..." (XI, p. 221)

"Over the plain from the north the young men came a-gallop." (XII, p. 241)

"The ranch house was small..." (XIV, 1, p. 275)

"This was not the forest of old..." (XVII, p. 344)

"As it came out of the darkness that had severed it from Hanno, his machine self came back to him." (XIX, p. 455)

(Machine self: some of the ancients have lived into an sf future.)

These are the most in your face examples and they are the majority.

In each chapter, it must be gradually disclosed that at least one character has lived longer than usual. In two cases, Hanno spins an elaborate yarn before confirming that the yarn is true.

In Chapter VIII, we are again in China (Later: This is an error. See the next post.) but over a millennium later and in a different stratum of the social hierarchy.

Monasteries are a good place to conceal longevity. The community will keep it quiet and might regard it as a miracle or as a sign of divine favor. In VIII, Asagoa becomes a Buddhist nun whereas, in IX, Svoboda ceases to be a Christian nun. Nothing lasts forever.

Apart from blogging, I am reading a biography and a graphic novel and watching a video. Not all at the same time. This evening, Holocaust Memorial followed by choir for Sheila and a meeting for me. More blogging soon.

Emergency Conference

In James Blish's Black Easter/The Day After Judgment, also published as The Devil's Day, the black magician, Theron Ware, and the white magician, Father Domenico, try to cope first with an unprecedented conjuration of many demons, then with its unforeseen consequences: Armageddon and the breaking of the Law that decrees the prior appearance of the Antichrist. Comparable characters in Poul and Karen Anderson's The King Of Ys are the miracle-working Christian minister to Ys, who will later be called St Corentin, and Forsquilis, one of the Nine Witch-Queens of Ys.

Corentinus and Forsquilis, both anticipating a disastrous intervention by the Three Gods of Ys, share the visions that they have had. No one doubts the existence of these Gods but:

Forsquilis thinks that They are beyond good and evil;
Corentinus thinks that They are demons, thus entirely evil;
Gratillonius, King of Ys but a Mithraist, thinks that They are creatures of Ahriman, thus essentially agrees with Corentinus.

No one doubts the existence of Christ. The only question is how powerful He is - but other Gods have already withdrawn before Him. He has displaced the Olympians in Rome.

Forsquilis confirms that the Three want Gratillonius' daughter, Dahut, to be the priestess of their new Age. The Three wanted Forsquilis to assassinate Gratillonius so that the Ysan Suffetes would appoint a new King who could marry Dahut but Forsquilis would not do this. Corentinus asks, in these extreme circumstances, whether Dahut's death would help but it would not: the Gods, who want Gratillonius dead, would avenge Dahut on Ys. Can Forsquilis cope with her Gods before they destroy Ys? No.

Corentinus and Forsquilis face the destruction of their city by the Triad just as Ware and Domenic face rule by demons.

Active Optic Nerves

Elliot S! Maggin tells us in Superman: Miracle Monday (Caveat Corner Books, 2017) that Clark Kent can project heat and x-rays from his eyes because his optic nerve has an active as well as a passive mode, my only points at this late hour being first that Poul Anderson would have been able to invent ingenious rationales for all of Kent's superhuman abilities and secondly that Anderson would also have been able to match Maggin's Biblical resonances, e.g.:

"Then, as happened to Abraham's aged wife Sarah, the Heavens gave [Martha Clark Kent] a son." (Chapter 2, p. 17)

And, in a list of earlier heroes:

"Young David killed the giant Goliath with the spin of a smooth rock in a land where walls fell at the sound of trumpets and the Creator of Heaven and Earth spoke through the mouths of men in rags whose eyes burned with the lights of Eternity." (Chapter 4, p. 35)

Superheroes began as sf, then became a distinct genre: Frankenstein is pivotal between Gothic and sf; Superman between sf and superheroes. What's next?