Tag Archives: Poul Anderson

The Ebb and Flow of Empire: David Falkayn: Star Trader

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David Falkayn: Star Trader
Baen Books
ebook $6.99
Mass market paperback $7.99

This is volume 2 of the Technic Civilization Saga. The first four stories in the book are novellas: “Territory”, “The Trouble Twisters”, “Day of Burning”, and “The Master Key”. The first and fourth stories concern Nicholas van Rijn, but the middle two involve David Falkayn and his crew Chee Lan and Adzel. Chee Lan resembles a furry primate, while Adzel is a pacifist who looks like a dragon.

In “Territory”, van Rijn has to survive on an alien world when the aliens turn decidedly unfriendly.  In “The Master Key”, he solves a problem on an alien world without getting out of his chair. Falkayn and company find themselves in the middle of a power struggle when he rescues a damsel in distress.

“Day of Burning” is of particular interest here. Falkayn and his crew are trying to save as many inhabitants of a planet that will soon be victim of a nearby supernova. That planet is Merseia. Centuries later, Dominic Flandry will wish Falkayn hadn’t done such a good deed. The Merseians will become humanity’s greatest enemies.

Other than “Day of Burning”, there aren’t any standout stories in terms of long term historical impact in Anderson’s future history. Things are fairly stable as far as galactic government goes. That’s okay, though. All four stories are good, old-fashioned space adventures with well-constructed societies and alien cultures. They are a lot of fun and worth reading.

The rest of the book contains the novel Satan’s World and two shorter pieces. I’ll take a look at those soon.

The Ebb and Flow of Empire: The Van Rijn Method Part II

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Earlier this year I started looking at what I’ve called for lack of a better term, the ebb and flow of empire. The last installment of this series was a while back and looked at the first half of The Van Rijn Method, an omnibus of the beginning of Poul Anderson’s future history.

We’ll look at the second half of the book here.

“A Sun Invisible” is a David Falkayn story. In this one he has to deal with an upstart group of invaders.

“The Season of Forgiveness” is a Christmas story. I’ve discussed it elsewhere.

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The Ebb and Flow of Empire” The Van Rijn Method Part 1

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I’ve been rereading Poul Anderson’s future history, beginning at the beginning. This series is sometimes call the Technic Future history. The name comes from the Polesotechnic League, which is the first interstellar government, although it’s more of a league of intergalactic traders and merchants. Baen has collected all the stories in order of internal chronology.  The first volume is called The Van Rijn Method.

This series has to main subseries. The first concerns the trader Nicholas Van Rijn (rhymes with “line”) and his protege David Falkayn. The second subseries deals with Dominic Flandry, who is an agent trying to stave off the fall of the Galactic Empire, even though he knows it will be ultimately futile. Continue reading →

The Ebb and Flow of Empire

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Over on Adventures Fantastic, I’ve been reviewing the nominees for the Retro Hugos. Isaac Asimov has two stories from his Foundation series on the ballot, one a novelette, and the other a short story. I haven’t read the original Foundation series since I was in high school. These two stories are the last two in Foundation. So I read the whole book.  The last story in the book, “The Merchant Princes”, which was published under the title of “The Big and the Little” before the story that precedes it in the book. There’s a passage in the story where the central character travels outside the Foundation’s sphere of influence and talks to an old man. The old man tells him what’s happened in the Empire, which the Foundation has lost contact with, over the last few decades.

In addition to increasing my interest in history, that made me want to read something with an epic scale.  I immediately thought of Poul Anderson’s Technic future history, particularly the Dominic Flandry subseries. Which made me want to reread H. Beam Piper, Dune, and  and to read the rest of Christopher Ruocchio’s Sun Eater series.  (If you haven’t read Ruocchio, you’re missing out. I’ve only read the first book, but I’ll be buying all the others.) Continue reading →

Seeing Things in 2020 Vision

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2020 Vision
Jerry Pournelle, ed.

This anthology was first published in 1974. That’s the original cover over there on the right. I found a copy of the 1980 edition (the cover isn’t nearly as good) at the Friends of the Library sale last month and thought it would be fun to see what science fiction writers in the 1970s thought this next year would be like.  In some ways, they missed the boat by a mile. In others, they almost nailed it.

The 1980 edition has a few additional editorial comments by Pournelle, but otherwise the two different editions are the same. Continue reading →

A Look at Poul Anderson’s “To Outlive Eternity”

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anderson-to-outlive-eternityTo Outlive Eternity
Poul Anderson
Baen
mass market paperback $7.99
ebook $6.99

This post isn’t about the entire collection, but the title story.  “To Outlive Eternity” was serialized in Galaxy in 1967.  An expanded version was published in 1970 as the novel Tau Zero.  I read the novel approximately 25 years ago.  Today being Anderson’s birthday, I wanted to read something of his that was longer than a short story, but not too long.  “To Outlive Eternity” was perfect.

Anderson was a master at many forms of science fiction and fantasy.  He had a degree in physics; not surprisingly, much of his hard science stories revolve around physics and astronomy concepts, one of the many reasons I like his work.  “To Outlive Eternity” falls into this category. Continue reading →

Celebrating “The Season of Forgiveness”

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9781451638622“The Season of Forgiveness”
Poul Anderson
A Cosmic Christmas
Hank Davis, ed.
Baen Books
paper $12.00
ebook $8.99 Baen  Kindle Nook Kobo

Poul Anderson has always been one of my favorite writers. I’m going to be starting a project involving a number of his works next month, so watch for a formal announcement soon.

I first read “The Season of Forgiveness” when I was in high school or the first year or so of college. It’s part of Anderson’s epic future history. This story takes place fairly early in the series, during the first major series-within-a-series, that of the Polesotechnic League. (The other major sub-series is that of Dominic Flandry.)

The story concerns Juan Hernandez, an apprentice at a trading post on a planet orbiting a red dwarf near the Pleiades. A plant that produces a valuable substance has been discovered on the planet, negotiations with the indigenous aliens are underway, and a ship carrying a contingent of new workers and their families is due to arrive soon. In fact, it should land just before Christmas.

The post commander isn’t thrilled with the thought of having children underfoot, so when Juan requests permission to set up a Christmas display to make the kids feel more at home, he reluctantly grants it. During the preparations, hostilities break out among rival factions of the indigenous people.

Juan is out gathering crystals for the final touch of the Christmas decorations when he finds himself surrounded by a group of natives, and they aren’t friendly. He manages to escape, and in the process he has the opportunity to kill the natives. Instead he flees back to his skimmer, literally closing the door on a volley of spears.

When the natives ask why he didn’t kill them, he explains that in his culture, it is the season of forgiveness. That opens a dialogue with leads to a resolution of the conflict between the two groups of natives.

The resolution to the problem is a little simplistic, but this story was first published in Boy’s Life, the magazine of the Boy Scouts of America.  As such, it’s appropriate for its audience.

It’s popular in some circles to rant about how science fiction has always been about white men. Usually those doing the ranting haven’t read as much science fiction as they like to pretend.  The protagonist isn’t white; he’s Hispanic.  There are several other apprentices in the story.  They’re not white either.  And while there are no female characters, this story was written for a boy’s magazine, so I don’t see much of a problem there, {although I’m sure someone would).

I was reminded when reading “The Season of Forgiveness” of what it was I liked about Poul Anderson’s work, and what especially drew me to this particular future history.  In addition to using science to make the story work (length of planetary day, spectral classification of star, type of creatures adapted to that environment), he was able to communicate the vastness of space in just a few lines.

This isn’t one of Anderson’s major works, but it’s a solid piece of Christmas themed science fiction that works for its intended audience.  Check it out.

A Cosmic Christmas is a mix of fantasy and science fiction, all with a Christmas theme.  One of my favorite stories is included.  That would be Seabury Quinn’s “Roads”.  I looked at it in depth a few years ago.  Here’s the link to that post.