Thursday 8 August 2013

Which Collection Next?


Poul Anderson's "The Voortrekkers" appears in at least two collections, Explorations and All One Universe. The latter is a larger format volume of alternating fiction and non-fiction, short stories but also articles or essays by Anderson.

On this blog, I have referred to two other stories from All One Universe:

the prehistorical story, "The Forest";
a pessimistic future history outline whose title currently eludes me.

I had intended to reread All One Universe after Explorations but my copy of it has at least temporarily gone astray among re-shelved books so, while that is being located, I will reread something else. Bear with me...

Later: My granddaughter is exercising in the book room so I can't get in there. Meanwhile, the gods have heard my prayer. For Love And Glory has arrived so that is what I read next. One of Anderson's many accomplishments was very good contributions to other authors' fictional universes and this novel is based on two of those.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

I think the "pessimistic" item from ALL ONE UNIVERSE you had in mind was "In Memoriam." About how the last man lived and died and speculation about what happened to Earth afterwards. I would consider "In Memoriam" a successor or conclusion to "Murphy's Hall."

And I esp. enjoyed reading "Strangers" and "The Forest" from the above mentioned volume.

I agree Poul Anderson was also very good when he contributed stories set in other writers fictional timelines. The example I have in ming being "Deathwomb," set in Fred Saberhagen's Berserker series. To say nothing of the contributions Anderson made to Larry Niven's Man/Kzin wars series (his very last story was "Pele," also set in that timeline).

Sean