Tuesday 16 October 2012

Quantity, Quality And Scope


Why spend so much time on a single author? Quantity, quality and scope. Poul Anderson wrote a lot. It is consistently good. It is extremely wide-ranging. His three novels set BC give us:

the original of Odin in a historical novel;
the original of Theseus in a science fiction novel;
the real god Set in an installment of a heroic fantasy series created by Robert E Howard.

Anderson did not create Odin, Theseus, Set or Conan but did create:

Eodan, the original of Odin;
Duncan Reid, the time traveler who meets Theseus;
other characters in Conan The Rebel.

And, of course, his many futuristic science fiction novels feature his own creations including not only Nicholas van Rijn and Dominic Flandry but also many others. Thus, Anderson transports us into history, myths and futures so that it is like reading the works of at least three different authors.

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