Tuesday 14 April 2015

"Eve Times Four"

I am struggling with Poul Anderson's "Eve Times Four" in the third NESFA collection because it is sf humor of a kind that does not appeal to me. Since it was originally published in Fantastic Science Fiction Stories, April 1960, I googled the title of this magazine, hoping to find an image of its cover to illustrate the post (see image). Blow me down if I didn't also find a review of the issue. The review states that the twist in the story is easily guessed but I will confirm or disconfirm this for myself in due course.

The fact that the story is a comedy means that:

the characters converse in amusing - or at least in exaggerated -  ways;
unlikely events occur;
we need not take seriously details like one of the characters being a "Lord High Gongbeater" (p. 474) etc;
nothing really unpleasant will happen to any of the characters;
there will be no tragic or unhappy ending to the story.

Would it be possible to write a story set in a parallel universes or alternative timelines scenario such that comedic and serious universes coexisted and people could travel between them? The arrival of a serious character in a comedic universe might produce some genuine humor whereas the reverse scenario would be harder to write, I suspect.

Other parallel universes do not bear thinking about:

the musical universe whose inhabitants burst into song and dance around in the street;
the commercials universe where anyone who uses a commodity spontaneously sings its praises;
the cartoon universe of anthropomorphic animals that can endure any kind or amount of violence without suffering any permanent harm. (Alan Moore shows us this one in Pictopia.)

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Your comments here reminded me of an amusing illustration to be found on page 164 of my paperback edition of HOKA! the second collection of the shorter Hoka stories co authored by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson. On the right hand side of this illustration of a street scene in Mixumaxu you can see a banner proclaiming "Three Hearts and Three Lions Tavern." On the left, the other side of the street, a shop sign says "CHILDE CYCLE." With a smaller sign on the window declaring: "YES! WE SELL BICYCLES BUILT FOR BREW."

I thought it was amusing of the artist to thus obliquely bring in allusions of the serious SF and F works of Anderson and Dickson into the humorous universe of the Interbeing League and Hokas. The "CHILDE" mentioned here refers to Dickson's Dorsai stories. And of course we both know THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS and "A Bicycle Built for Brew" are the titles of two of Anderson's works.

Sean