Friday 26 June 2015

Poul Anderson And SM Stirling

I am informed that a character in Conquistador by SM Stirling is a Poul Anderson fan. Further, this novel shares a premise with a Poul Anderson short story. These are adequate reasons to discuss the novel on this blog but first I must buy and read a copy.

There have been two previous Anderson-Stirling connections.

(i) Both The Game Of Empire by Anderson and The Peshawar Lancers by Stirling refer to Kipling. This got me to read Kim for the first time.

(ii) Sf writers including Anderson cameo in the Prologue to Stirling's In The Courts Of The Crimson Kings. This prompted me to reflect on fictional versions of Mars in general and on Anderson's several versions in particular.

Comparisons with Wells, Stapledon and Heinlein are productive and Stirling is now definitely on this list.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And I'll be very interested in any comments you make about Stirling's CONQUISTADOR, and how it might be connected to the works of Poul Anderson.

I think CONQUISTADOR even has TWO characters who are fans of Anderson. But I limited myself to just one due to not being sure my memory on this point was correct.

Sean