{"id":1079,"date":"2014-12-25T13:27:03","date_gmt":"2014-12-25T19:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/?p=1079"},"modified":"2014-12-25T13:39:47","modified_gmt":"2014-12-25T19:39:47","slug":"celebrating-the-season-of-forgiveness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/celebrating-the-season-of-forgiveness\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating “The Season of Forgiveness”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"9781451638622\"<\/a>“The Season of Forgiveness”
\nPoul Anderson
\nA Cosmic Christmas<\/em><\/a>
\nHank Davis, ed.
\nBaen Books<\/a>
\npaper $12.00
\nebook $8.99 Baen<\/a>\u00a0 Kindle<\/a>\u00a0Nook<\/a>\u00a0Kobo<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The resolution to the problem is a little simplistic, but this story was first published in Boy’s Life<\/em>, the magazine of the Boy Scouts of America. \u00a0As such, it’s appropriate for its audience.<\/p>\n

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. \u00a0The protagonist isn’t white; he’s Hispanic. \u00a0There are several other apprentices in the story. \u00a0They’re not white either. \u00a0And 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).<\/p>\n

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. \u00a0In 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.<\/p>\n

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. \u00a0Check it out.<\/p>\n

A Cosmic Christmas<\/em> is a mix of fantasy and science fiction, all with a Christmas theme. \u00a0One of my favorite stories is included. \u00a0That would be Seabury Quinn\u2019s \u201cRoads\u201d. \u00a0I looked at it in depth a few years ago. \u00a0Here\u2019s the link <\/a>to that post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The Season of Forgiveness” Poul Anderson A Cosmic Christmas Hank Davis, ed. Baen Books paper $12.00 ebook $8.99 Baen\u00a0 Kindle\u00a0Nook\u00a0Kobo 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[52],"tags":[715,725,764,774],"class_list":["post-1079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christmas","tag-baen-books","tag-boys-life","tag-christmas","tag-poul-anderson"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3P5pJ-hp","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1079"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1084,"href":"https:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079\/revisions\/1084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}