Saturday 31 March 2018

Chives And...

I think that I once found the internal illustrations of the Ace Books A Stone In Heaven on the Internet but cannot find them now when I could really use a picture of Chives.

I want to make a point about Chives but, as sometimes happens, find that I have already made it. Before Sir! and Sir! II, there was "Sir!" which ended by linking to a post about another master-servant team here.

We rightly compare Chives with Jeeves but Flandry is no Wooster although he sometimes plays such a role. There is another team in which:

the master is no Wooster but sometimes pretends to be;

the servant combines impeccable butling with unobtrusive and effective support for his master's covert war.

I refer to Bruce Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth.

Under Bombardment

See Make Oneness and:

Making Oneness
Ramnuans lose themselves in dance, music and chant until they and the world no longer have names, then sleep to wake renewed, comforted, strengthened and inwardly peaceful. Is this sub- or supra-rational? It sounds like the former to me.
-copied from here.

We know that Ramnuan weather is turbulent so it is no surprise that there is a storm when Dominic Flandry's spaceship, Hooligan, descends to rendezvous with Yewwl's party. Nevertheless, the description of the storm includes appropriately suggestive features:

clouds make night except when there is lightning;
raindrops are huge, each illuminated by the lightning;
the thick air makes the thunder like a bombardment;
wind thrusts hard;
its "voice" is like drums, not shrieks;
rain falls vertically and strikes violently and explosively;
small devil-shaped flyers called "storm bats" by human beings flit through the storm.

Flandry might have to do battle with an errant Duke but meanwhile is already in an elemental battle with overtones of Hell.

Sensory Experiences On Ramnu

Nullfire, our old friend, a grass equivalent, glows in the sunset;

lurid colors west, blue-gray above, purple east;

flames and smoke on a black volcano;

an approaching storm towers, flashes and rumbles;

increasingly cold air sighs and stirs Yewwl's fur;

the fire that her party has made is both audible and warm;

the Ramnuans spread their vanes to catch the heat.

Thus:

colors;
sounds;
cold and warmth;
the feel of air in fur.

Two reminders that Yewwl is not human: fur and vanes.

A pathetic fallacy: a storm approaches simultaneously with the would-be usurper, the Grand Duke of Hermes.

Voices Within And Beyond

When a Seeker threatens to compose a satire against Yewwl, she instantly responds with an already composed satire inwardly dictated to her by her human oath-sister, Miriam/Banner:

"'Wind be the witness of this withering!'" (etc)
-Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 1-188 AT VIII, p. 121.

The Seeker, crushed, capitulates and concedes.

When Janne Floris of the Time Patrol, impersonating a goddess, moves the pagan prophetess, Veleda, from war to peace, she intones:

"'To every thing there is a season...'" (Time Patrol, p. 613) and see here.

When Wanda Tamberly of the Time Patrol intervenes between pre-Columbian tribesmen, she intones:

"'I could a tale unfold...'" (The Shield Of Time, p. 244) and see here.

The Bible and Shakespeare out of their times.

Ramnu And Eriu

In a Ramunan meeting room, the presiding Lord of the Volcano sits on a dais between carved beasts before tiers of benches. Each successive speaker either walks or glides down to the dais. Ramnuans are vaned gliders - but not winged fliers like the Diomedeans or Ythrians.

If a Seeker makes a satirical poem against Yewwl, then the council will no longer heed her. This custom resembles one in Eriu, ancient Ireland. Poul and Karen Anderson inform us that:

in Eriu, the highest ranking poets were in some ways more powerful than kings;

like druids, poets were highly trained;

skilled in both language and memory, they could make or break reputations;

poetic satires were believed to be physically destructive - and one poet's victim does suffer facial disfigurement later in the Ys sequence;

violence to a poet, druid or scholar was a serious crime;

lesser versifiers were entertainers.

Poul And Karen Anderson, The King Of Ys: Roma Mater (London, 1987), Afterword and Notes, 2, p. 456.

Make Oneness

Ramnuans "make oneness": they lose themselves in dance, music, chanting, winds and distances until they and the world cease to have names. Then they sleep and awake renewed. This is not what a human being calls "worship" because that:

"...involved a supposed entity dwelling beyond the stars -"
-Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 1-188 AT VIII, p. 123.

But worship can also involve recognition of inner oneness.

Chance-Formed, Impotent And Foredoomed

A Ramnuan Seeker of Wisdom plays notes on his harp as he addresses a meeting. He resents human influence on his society:

"'Is not our whole world a mere dust-fleck adrift in limitless, meaningless hollowness? Are we ourselves anything save wind made flesh, chance-formed, impotent, and foredoomed? This is the teaching the strangers have sent seeping into us, a teaching of despair so deep that few of us even recognize it as despair.'"
-Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 1-188 AT VIII, p. 118.

Chanced-formed and foredoomed, yes. Impotent, no. Is limitless space meaningless or awesome? Is an electric bulb valueless because its light is caused by electrons, not by an indwelling spirit? Is a Ramnuan or human brain valueless because its consciousness is caused by neurons, not by an indwelling soul? If the human teaching is based on knowledge, is it preferable to cling to a pre-scientific world-view?

Will this kind of conflict occur in future human-alien relations? Both Poul Anderson and James Blish present Christian characters who question their beliefs after encounters with extra-solar intelligences.

Some Interesting Facts About Ramnuans

Ramnu has 7.5 gravities. Ramuan are a meter high and stocky with rigid torsos, able to squat but not bend. The young, born very small after a short gestation, are carried in a pouch by either parent.

A garment covers the front of the body because there are vanes on the back. A hunter, surveying the country from the back of a large, rhinoceros-like onsar, sees quarry and glides towards it. Before domesticating onsars, Ramnuans were confined to forests and hills but now range across the large prairies and veldts.

The vanes are sense organs and are also used for body language like Ythrian feathers. A Ramunuan face is platyrrhine and prognathous. Ramnuans are carnivores but not obligate ones.

Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 1-188 AT VII, pp. 102-103.

Yewwl points with her ears. (p. 110) She snaps her vanes open and shut to show that she has stopped addressing a meeting. (p. 116)

For other information about Ramnu, see here.

The Corridors Of History

Time And York was occasioned by a TV program about York Minster presented by Tony Robinson. A link from the latter post leads to other posts about different periods in English history.

I have found that reading either historical fiction or time travel fiction can lead into reading history, e.g., Simon Schama's A History Of Britain based on a TV series.

Friday 30 March 2018

Time And York

York Minster features prominently in works by Poul Anderson. See here.

The Minster took 242 years to build, from 1230 to 1472. Thus, twelve generations knew this cathedral only as a building site.

The Minster has a uniformed police force answerable to the Dean and Chapter of the Minster, not to the Chief Constable. This seems to make it the oldest continuously existing police force anywhere, just as Britain has a very long tradition of fighting ships loyal to the king.

The Time Patrol has an office in London in 1000 A.D. which sends material and clothes to Agents Everard and Whitcomb when they have to travel from the London office in 1894 to 464 A.D. It may be the office in 1000 A.D. that has oversight of the building and early history of the Minster, possibly delegating a small team, a temporal equivalent of the Minster police force, to counteract any potential interruptions to the more than two centuries of building work. It would be an easy matter for some accident or extra-temporal interference to halt the work, thus changing the subsequent history of England.

Shared Fictions

James Blish's "On Science Fiction Criticism" (see here) is a reply to Michel Butor, "Science Fiction: The Crisis of Growth" (Partisan Review, Fall 1967). Butor argued that many partially imagined future cities - or presumably other settings but he focused on cities - were fragmentary and unsatisfactory. He suggested instead that:

a number of writers should accept a common setting defined and described as closely as possible;

such a common fictional environment would acquire the power of a classical myth;

other writers would be obliged to accept this common city and readers would even build it!

That last point is pure moonshine. There are now shared futures because, e.g., the Man-Kzin Wars period of Larry Niven's Known Space future history has been franchised. However, we still read many futuristic fictions, mostly written by single authors.

I hope I have shown that a single future history by a single author can be extremely detailed and entirely satisfactory. For American future history series, start with the Original Triad:

The Future History by Robert Heinlein;
The Psychotechnic History by Poul Anderson;
The Technic History by Poul Anderson.

Living Authors

(Blogging has been interrupted by a Good Friday outing with Nygel (see Nygel G Harrot, also here and here).

Out of our cellar:

James Blish, "On Science Fiction Criticism" IN Riverside Quarterly, Volume 3, Number 3, August 1968 (Box 40 Univ. Sta., Regina, Canada), pp. 214-217.

Although this article is fifty years old, it makes several points that need to be considered by anyone reading a Poul Anderson Appreciation blog in 2018:

in 1968, apparently, many literary critics of sf referred back to the era of Jules Verne, who had died in 1905;

however, "...science fiction is uniquely dominated by living authors, since it is based upon modern technology..." (p. 214);

the "...few dead giants..." (ibid.) that Blish lists are Verne, Wells, C.S. Lewis and Orwell;

however, sf as a modern phenomenon dates only from 1926 when the specialized magazines began;

a critic writing in 1968 should at least mention Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein or Sturgeon;

Blish also mentions Hal Clement, Lester del Rey and Don A. Stuart as authors who have imagined extraterrestrial environments;

within sf, there is wide acceptance of Sturgeon's rule that a good sf story has a human problem and solution that are dependent on the story's scientific content;

by this rule, Lovecraft and Bradbury are not sf writers;

instead, they are science-fearing Faustian fantasy writers;

routine commercial sf puts "...a few futuristic trappings..." (p. 215) on ordinary terrestrial settings and plots;

sf, uniquely, has been "...consistently judged by its worst examples." (p. 215)

There is more than this in Blish's article but that is plenty for one post.

Observations
(i) Poul Anderson is no longer living but remains significant and will surely become one of the few giants.

(ii) Blish does not mention Stapledon but nor did he claim that his short list of giants was definitive.

(iii) I remember from conversation that Blish was unfamiliar with Stapledon's Last And First Men and therefore, of course, would not comment on it.

(iv) Lewis was certainly an imaginative fantasy writer but does he not belong with Lovecraft and Bradbury rather than with Wells?

(v) Orwell is included on the strength of a single novel but Blish said elsewhere that 1984 was important for sf because it was about something: the purpose of power.

(vi) Anderson refers to Hal Clement.

(vii) Anderson's works are good sf by Sturgeon's rule.

(viii) Anderson has been accused of putting futuristic trappings on terrestrial plots. See here.

Freyan Ornithoids

While Flandry and Miriam talk and drink in the saloon of Flandry's spaceship, the Hooligan, the background music is a concert by Freyan ornithoids singing "...of treetops and twilit skies." (Flandry's Legacy, p. 72)

What do we know of Freya as an inhabited planet in the Technic History timeline? Consulting the blog, we find Freya And Valhalla.

That's all for this Good Friday morning, folks. Normal service will be resumed at a later time.

Thursday 29 March 2018

Icy Sweep And Blue Jewel

Miriam looks through a viewscreen in the Hooligan:

"...those star-fires crowding yonder clear blackness, that icy sweep of the galaxy, and Terra already a blue jewel falling away into depths beyond depths - reached in and seized her."
-Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 1-188 AT VI, pp. 64-65.

The galaxy is the Milky Way so here is another description of the Milky Way.

The planet Ramnu is also compared to a jewel. See A Planet In Space III. Good night, all.

Sir! II

See Sir!

Chives asks to be excused so that he may prepare supper. Flandry demurs.

"'Sir?' Chives raised the eyebrows he didn't have."
-Poul Anderson, "Hunters of the Sky Cave" IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 149-301 AT XVI, p. 274.

Flandry explains that he and Chives are needed on the bridge and that a CPO will cook.

"'Sir!' bleated Chives."
-ibid.

Jeeves could not have said it better. (I believe that, somewhere in the Wooster cannon, Jeeves, temporarily crushed and deflated, trickles into a room.)

Meanwhile, our heroes speed towards the battle depicted on this cover.

Eerily Unreal

Here, I discussed Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 1-188 AT V, pp. 56-62, but missed a point.

Soundproofing means that Miriam sees lightning but does not hear thunder and this makes the scene "...eerily unreal." (p. 57)

That eerie unreality exactly matches Miriam's situation:

the Grand Duke of Hermes conceals she does not know what;

he threatens her she does not know why;

she and Flandry must move in secret because others move around them in secret -

- eerie and unreal.

Flandry and Aycharaych love and live this stuff. I would intensely dislike it. See The Practice Of Deception (which has 23 comments).

Cairncross And The Milky Way

(The image shows part of another story by Poul Anderson.)

Edwin Cairncross, Grand Duke of Hermes:

"...turned his glance from the Milky Way. Its iciness declared that the Empire was an incident upon certain attendants of a hundred thousand stars, lost in the outskirts of a galaxy which held more than a hundred billion. A man must ignore mockery."
-Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 1-188 AT II, p. 26.

Cairncross' response to immensity is to ignore it.

Emperor Gerhart receives Cairncross in the same tower as Hans had received Flandry:

clear dome with view of roofs and ocean;
Germanian dolchzahn rug;
a model of Hans' first corvette.

We wondered whether the La Reine Louise disaster resulted from sabotage. See here. Cairncross inwardly asks the same question about the spaceship crash that killed Gerhart's elder brother. Gerhart's father was a usurper. Is Gerhart a fratricide? How low can the Empire sink?

The Galactic Academy

A document signed by the President of the Galactic Archaeological Society refers to the Terran Empire, which has a diameter of about four hundred light-years, as "...the First Empire..." (Rise Of The Terran Empire, p. 325) I took this to mean that the document dates from a much later galaxy-wide civilization. Between the First Empire and the inferred Galactic civilization there are:

at least one more interstellar empire;
the period of the Commonalty when diverse human and non-human civilizations span several spiral arms of the galaxy.

However, within the First/Terran Empire, Miriam Abrams is a graduate of an educational institution called "...the Galactic Academy..." (Flandry's Legacy, p. 19). Thus, the adjective, "Galactic," was already in use, however inappropriately, at that early date.

Children Of Empire

In "The Warriors from Nowhere," Emperor Hans' granddaughter is kidnapped.

In A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, Flandry's and Persis' son has contacted Flandry and the latter becomes engaged to the Gospodar of Denniza's neice.

In A Stone In Heaven, Max Abrams' daughter contacts Flandry and the second of Hans' surviving sons has succeeded as Emperor.

In The Game Of Empire, Flandry's daughter and Dragoika's son take actions that bring them to Flandry's attention.

Thus, a second generation is introduced in the concluding four installments of the Dominic Flandry series.

A Stone In Heaven

Chapter I is about Yewwl and Miriam "Banner" Abrams on Ramnu.
II is about Banner and Edwin Cairncross on Hermes.
III begins with "Vice Admiral Sir Dominic Flandry, Intelligence Corps, Imperial Terran Navy..." on Terra.

So this is a Flandry novel and he has last accepted promotion from captain.

II ends:

"'...have you ever perchance heard of Admiral Flandry?'"
-Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 1-188 AT II, p 16 -

- so that told us that Flandry was around. In fact, it might have been our first definite indication that this novel is part of the Technic History? The Terran Empire was mentioned on p. 14 and the name Miriam Abrams might also mean something to us but the planet Ramnu is new.

Conclusion II

(St. Clement's Cathedral, Prague.)

Poul Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows ends with Bodin's Prayer (see here) after the bombardment of Chereion (see here).

Before the bombardment, Flandry tells Gospodar Bodin that the Dennitzan action should spark a quarrel that will enable Emperor Hans to force appeasers out of his regime. Hopefully including Lord Hauksberg, if he is still around?

Bodin hopes that Dennitza will survive the Empire.
John Ridenour expects that Freehold will survive.
Flandry expects that Nyanza and Vixen will.

The Long Night is coming but is well prepared for.

Two Radiant Cities

In Susan Howatch‘s series of books, mentioned in my last post, calling the cathedral Starbridge she writes: “We all came at last to Starbridge, radiant, ravishing Starbridge … beyond the roof of the nave, above the massive block of the tower, the spire itself was rising and rising and rising, yard after yard, foot after foot, inch after inch, upwards and upwards and upwards until at last it had tapered to the point which supported the cross.”
-copied from here.

On Chereion, Dominic Flandry:

"...rose from the radiant city, into the waning murky day." (p. 600) (For reference see here.)

Starbridge Cathedral has a rising spire. The Chereionite city has rising spires.

Addendum: The domes and towers of Starfall on Hermes are "...arrogantly radiant..." (Flandry's Legacy, p. 18)

On Chereion

See Chereion.

"Flandry started off in flat sub-gee bounds. His body felt miraculously light..."
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT XX, p. 594.

We have seen "...sub-gee bounds..." on Earth's Moon and Poul Anderson had seen them before writing A Knight... because the novel was published in 1974.

At this one point, our experience of space exploration meets Poul Anderson's future history.

Wednesday 28 March 2018

Bellatrix And The Milky Way

Bodin Miyatovich, whom we have seen conversing with Kossara Vymezal and with Dominic Flandry, is the viewpoint character as he leads a Dennitzan raid into Merseian space. To stimulate his crew:

"...it was cool here, with a thunderstorm tang of ozone."
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT XIX, p. 579.

I mention this because, in an Ythrian ship:

"The air blew warm, ruffling their plumes a little, scented with perfume of cinnamon bush and amberdragon. Blood odors would not be ordered unless and until the vessel got into actual combat; the crew would soon be worn out if stimulated too intensely."
-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, The Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 437-662 AT VII, p. 518.

In one of Bodin's viewscreens:

"Glory brimmed the dark, stars in glittering flocks and Milky Way shoals, faerie-remote glimmer of nebulae and a few sister galaxies. Here in the outer reaches of its system, the target sun was barely the brightest, a coal-glow under Bellatrix." (ibid.)

And a second Ythrian ship presents yet another image of a significant object outlined against the Milky Way. Captain Hirharouk is:

"Poised on his perch, crested carnivore head lifted against the Milky Way..."
-Poul Anderson, "Lodestar" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 631-680 AT p. 663.

Conclusion

After the arrest of Dominic Hazeltine, three scenes are necessary to complete Poul Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows. (I thought only two but I had forgotten (i) which, like everything else, is pivotal.)

(i) A conversation with Gospodar Bodin confirms Flandry's belief that, when the Imperials have withdrawn from the Zorian System, the Dennitzans will strike back at the Rodhunate. Dennitza will not, after all, rebel against the Empire but neither will it acquiesce to Imperial failure to grasp the nettle of Merseian aggression.

(ii) Flandry says Sayonara to Kossara in St. Clement's Cathedral.

(iii) Bodin leads the raid on Chereion. The hypnoprobing of Hazeltine has extracted the top secret coordinates of Aycharaych's home planet.

"As many as were able would attend [Kossara's] funeral."
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT XVIII, p. 576.

Coincidentally, Nygel attended a big funeral in Liverpool Anglican Cathedral today. Two thousand mourners packed the Cathedral while others watched on a big screen outside. See here.

Divided Loyalties

 England and the US have each had a Civil War and there have been other divisive conflicts. In Brideshead Revisited, when Charles Ryder mentions the then current General Strike, Charles' father asks him in alarm whether he has become a revolutionist. In fact, Charles has been breaking the strike but, for all the unfortunate father knew, his son could indeed have been on the other side, as I would have been.

This brings us to Dominic Hazeltine's reasons for supporting the Merseians. When threatened with a hypnoprobing which, because of his deep-conditioning, will destroy his mind, he pleads:

"'Yes, then, yes, I've been working for Merseia. Not bought, nothing like that, I thought the future was theirs, should be theirs, not this walking corpse of an Empire - Merciful angels, can't you see their way's the hope of humankind too? -'"
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT XVIII, p. 568.

Does Hazeltine either not know or not care that the Merseians of the Roidhunate would at best subordinate, at worst enslave or exterminate, humanity? On the one hand, Poul Anderson originally created the greenskins to be space opera villains. On the other hand, Anderson's future history, incorporating the early Captain Flandry stories, developed subtleties and complexities. We sympathize both with the human beings who fight against the Terran Empire to remain in the Domain of Ythri and with the Merseian citizens of Dennitza. However, the Roidhunate retains its racist supremacism. Hazeltine is at best culpably ignorant.

The Wind

We have commented on the wind. In Poul Anderson's fiction, the wind can figure in multi-sensory descriptions of natural scenery and in pathetic fallacies and sometimes becomes almost a chorus or a commentator on the characters' actions.

Here are more examples:

Understated Pathetic Fallacies

In Zorkagrad, after the defeat of an attempted coup, there is an early autumnal dusk, a smoldering sunset remnant above the lake, a blue-black dimness above the land, a few stars, city lights and:

"Wind mumbled at the panes."
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT XVII, p. 563.

"Tonight the knowledge that there was no more Kossara reached him only like the wind, an endless voice beyond the windows."
-op. cit., XVII, pp. 563-564.

This wind mumbles and has a voice but what does it say? The dusk, dimness, sunset, stars and lights signify the end of a day, the death of Kossara and the defeat of the coup but do they prepare us for anything? Yes. Chives is about to bring Flandry the worst possible news after the murder of his fiancee. His own son was complicit in her murder. Flandry, the hero, continues to function in spite of everything.

The Greatest Adventure

What adventure can be greater than to be alive and to try to understand and respond to the world? We respond to the observable universe, to human society and to works of fiction, including the exotic exploits of Dominic Flandry. Sure, I would like to accompany Flandry on the streets of Archopolis or Zorkagrad. However, I do in fact accompany friends and comrades on the streets of Lancaster, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and London. Flandry and his colleagues exist/subsist (?) - we need a new verb - in their author's and our imaginations. They would not exist without us but we would not be who we are without them and we would not be human if we lacked imagination. Their world is part of ours.

Will future AIs include "emulations" (self-conscious simulations) of Flandry in his universe or even scaled up into ours?

(When discussing Buddhism and theisms, I want to say that Buddhas and gods "co-exist" but, of course, they do not exist as you and I do. But they are major forces, powerful presences, in imagination, art and consciousness, "higher fictions" in Alan Moore's phrase. We need a new terminology. Dominic Flandry is of the same essence as Ares and Indra.)

Constitution Square

Dominic Flandry wonders:

"...how many Constitution Squares had he known in his life? But this lay deserted under wind, chill, and hasty cloud shadows."
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT XVII, 557.

(This is one of the images that came up when I googled "Constitution Square.")

When the demonstration of four hundred armed zmayi has entered the joint session of parliament and been allowed to speak, Kossara Vymezal bounds from among them and onto the dais. Someone in the Chamber radios to a nearby building. About fifty armed human Dennitzans run into the Chamber...

My closest experience:

a Borough Council met in the Council Chamber of a Town Hall;

simultaneously, a large group of trade unionists and their supporters convened in a large meeting room on an upper floor of the Town Hall;

the Council began to discuss a proposed funding cut with job losses;

someone in the public gallery of the Council Chamber blew a whistle, audible on the upper floor;

the trade unionists ran downstairs and invaded the Council Chamber...

There was no gunfire or loss of life.

This section of this novel accurately reflects public controversies and political conflicts and is easier to identify with than those narratives where Dominic Flandry works as a lone operative behind enemy lines.

Beginnings

Six years ago, on 28 March 2012, this blog began here with a discussion of Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series. The blog was preceded by a website which is now redundant because it is no longer added to and all its articles were copied to this or other blogs although the links on the first blog post still connect to the website.

Little did I know what the blog would become and is still becoming. I look forward to many more years of posting about Poul Anderson and related authors.

Tuesday 27 March 2018

Wind Boomed

In Dead Leaves and Explicit Pathetic Fallacy, we recognized extremely powerful use of the literary device of "pathetic fallacy" in a passage of Poul Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows. Here it is again. Although Dominic Flandry basically approves of the institution called the ispravka, he realizes that its use on this occasion might help the enemy. When Flandry articulates this concern, the author automatically underlines his words with a reference to the winter elements:

"'Maybe the firebrand who instigated that, uh, ispravka is a Merseian himself, in human skin.'
"The wind boomed between walls."
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT XVII, p. 555.

Why did wind boom just then? Of course, we understand that it is booming anyway. But the author mentions it because it is appropriate that the threat from the heard but unseen wind parallels the threat from clandestine conspirators and enemies of the status quo.

Ispravka

This image serves two purposes. It illustrates Poul Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows and it also presents a spaceship flying serenely above Dennitza where, as we have been reading, there is considerable political turmoil down on the ground.

I googled ispravka but found nothing in English.

After admiring the ychan demonstration, we continue reading and learn that human Dennitzans also take direct action but I have already discussed the ispravka here.

We have been taking a crash course in the direct democracy of Avalon and Dennitza. I move a recess.

Protective Merseians

There are two occasions in Dominic Flandry's career when he is protected by a group of Merseians.

On Talwin, it can be dangerous to disturb the hibernating Domrath:

"The scientists formed up with a precision learned in their military service. Flandry joined. They hadn't issued him weapons, though otherwise they had treated him pretty much as an equal; but he could duck inside their square if violence broke loose."
-Poul Anderson, A Circus Of Hells IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 193-365 AT CHAPTER FIFTEEN, p. 310.

On Dennitza, Flandry and Kossara march on Parliament with Merseians:

"The ychans closed in around the humans. They numbered a good four hundred, chosen by their stead captains as bold, cool-headed, skilled with the knives, tridents, harpoons, and firearms they bore. Ywod of Nanteiwon, appointed their leader by Krywedhin before the parliamentarian returned here, put them in battle-ready order. They spoke little and showed scant outward excitement, at least to human eyes or nostrils; such was the way of the Obala."
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT XVII, p. 552.

I have never taken part in an armed demonstration although someone with experience in other continents said that he had once traveled to a demonstration seated on the front of a tank, I can't remember where. The Merseians of the Roidhunate, even the scientists, have all received military training. The ychani of the Obala are easily militarized. We are a disorganized rabble. Two people carry the banner of Lancaster National Union of Teachers but are not followed by orderly ranks of NUT members. At most, they are accompanied by a few individuals, walking at different rates, who had traveled on the same coach from Lancaster and want to stay near a recognizable banner. I have seen hopelessly inauthentic demonstrations in screen dramas - but also others that were just right, as if filmed right in the midst of things. Once at the cinema, there were trailers for Star Wars etc, then one for a film about Margaret Thatcher. Suddenly, our lives were on the screen with scenes both inside and outside the House of Commons. Next, I want to see, on the cinema screen, Flandry, Kossara and the ychani marching through Zorkagrad to the Shkoptsina.

Inter-Species Politics

What political arrangements would best serve the interests of two rational species sharing a planet?

On Avalon, human beings elect Members of the Parliament of Man whereas any free adult Ythrian in the relevant territory is entitled to attend and speak at a Khruath. However, many human beings join choths and therefore participate in Khruaths, not in Parliament.

On Dennitza, the zmayi both retain Vachs and elect Members of one House of the tri-cameral Shkoptsina. However, since the Shkoptsina is a human institution not fully suited to zmayi sensibilities, there have been occasions when demonstrations, e.g., of several hundred Obala fishers marched into the Chamber and demanded that their leaders be heard.

Although the two human Houses are often turbulent and sometimes even violent, the zmayi, both Members and demonstrators, are able to cope with this occasional semi-institutionalized interruption of demonstrators' leaders demanding to be heard, being heard, then withdrawing, thus contributing without (too much) disrupting.

See also On Avalon And Dennitza.

Retirement In The Technic History

Where would you prefer to retire in the period of the Terran Empire?

Archopolis
Hermes
Imhotep
Daedalus
Avalon
Dennitza
Nyanza
somewhere else?

Flandry's and Kossara's plans for retirement on Dennitza had included:

a house in Dubina Dolyina;
an apartment in Zorkagrad;
many children;
xenological expeditions to other planetary systems;
staff Intelligence work;
investments;
enterprises;
she showing him an overlook in the Vysochina highlands;
he teaching her winetasting;
she reading aloud from Simich, he from Genji;
the opera in Zorkagrad;
dances at land festivals;
sailing across Lake Stoyan to a cafe under the flowering trees on Garlandmakers' Island;
taking the children to the zoo and merrypark.

Some of my friends would remark, "It sounds alright for those that can afford it!"

Unreliable Memories II

See Unreliable Memories.

Usually, a film flashback shows us what happened. Occasionally, it shows us what someone said happened. One scene on British TV showed us what Watson thought happened at Reichenbach: both Moriarty and Holmes fell to their deaths. The film Gambit showed us what Michael Caine's character said was going to happen, then showed us what did happen. My companion came out of the cinema very confused - thinking that the character had gone through the same motions twice with different outcomes. I think that the Baron Munchausen film turned out to be mostly a yarn spun by Munchausen.

Poul Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows presents several flashbacks as Kossara Vymezal tries to retrieve and restore distorted memories. She remembers (?) her uncle, Gospodar Bodin Miyatovich saying, on a sun deck of the Zamok:

"'...the time may come...the time may not be far off...when we need another civil war.'"
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT p. 409.

Later she remembers that, in his hunting lodge, he said that:

he talks rashly in anger but tries to act in calm;
Dennitza's only choices are Terra, the Troubles or tyranny and taming by Merseia;
so he picks Terra.

Was that talk of needing a civil war Bodin speaking in anger or a false memory planted by Aycharaych, hypnotist and telepath?

Dennitza And Ys: Their Contrasting Fates

Swimming at Thurnham Hall (see here) inspires new posts. Immersing the body reminds us of mythical merfolk and sea gods. (When I say "us," I mean "me" but I invite vicarious participation by blog readers.)

Ys
The Gods end their covenant with Ys.
The Sea/Lir drowns and destroys Its/His fabulous city.
By divine design, Ys is forgotten except as legend and fiction.
Even the Three of Ys have, like the Olympians, withdrawn before the new God born in the reign of Augustus at the dawn of the Age of Pisces.
Ysan philosophers know that ancestral myths are symbols, not literal truths, that different Gods can represent a single Being as different words represent a single thing and that meanings and the very heavens change through the aeons although "'...the reality of Heaven endures.'" (See here.)

Dennitza
Dennitza is protected by St Kossara.
Shortly before she was martyred, Kossara, praying for her murdered family and household, asked the Father to receive them, Jesus to absolve them, Mary to comfort them and the Spirit to shine upon them.
She brings peace to Dennitza through the valor of Gospodar Bodin Miyatovich who raised and prayed at her tomb.
It is hoped that God will continue to send folk like these and that they will hearten every Dennitzan.

A Necessary Causal Link

One necessary causal link is often forgotten. Is the following statement valid?  -

Kossara Vymezal, niece of the Dennitzan head of state, has been sold as a slave on Terra so, of course, there is outrage on Dennitza.

No. The statement should read:

It has been reported on Dennitza that the Gospodar's niece has been sold as a slave so, of course, there is outrage.

There are two points here. First, of course, the report might be false - although, in this case, it is not. But, secondly, the Dennitzans must first be informed about an event before they can be outraged by it.

Someone has, surreptitiously:

(i) arranged for Kossara not only to be arrested, charged and convicted but also sold;
(ii) prevented the Terrestrial government from knowing either the identity or the status of this particular prisoner;
(iii) ensured that her arrest and enslavement are reported on Dennitza.

Therefore, Dennitzans are understandably, although mistakenly, enraged at the Terrestrial government.

Sometimes, in acrimonious arguments or disputes, it has been assumed that I had acted on knowledge that I could not possibly have had at the time. Yes, x was true. No, there was no way that reports of x could have reached me before I took a particular action. When attributing motives for any action, it is always necessary to check what the person responsible for the action could have known at the time of the action.

Fast Action

Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012).

Poul Anderson's action-adventure fiction moves fast.

In A Knight..., XIV, on pp. 529-531, Dominic Flandry meets his fiancee's father, Danilo Vymezal. This is the only time we see Vymezal.

In XV, Flandry and Kossara have their short idyllic time in her father's log cabin. This is cut short on p. 534 by the blue-white flash of a nuclear explosion as it destroys Kossara's manor house home and kills her family.

When XVI begins on p. 539, Flandry and Kossara are on the Obala, mobilizing the zmayi.

In eleven pages, all that has happened. It seems that these passages should be longer but Poul Anderson tells his story in few words.

Mesyatz

11253 Mesyats 1976 UP2 October 26, 1976 Nauchnij T. M. Smirnova MPC · 11253
-copied from List of Minor Planets.

"Mesyats" is a "minor planet" in the Solar System (I had not known that astronomers used this classification for orbiting rocks) and "Mesyatz" is a moon of Dennitza in Poul Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows.

On Dennitza, zmayi, descendants of Dennitzan immigrants, tell humorous fairy tales about Ri, a hero who went to live on Mesyatz. Cultural fusion is demonstrated when Kossara Vymezal tells Dominic Flandry that, as a child, she would beg Trohdwyr for Ri stories. Human Dennitzans see an orlik - a winged theroid - in the pattern on the Mesyatzan surface.

Zmayi have been on Dennitza for four centuries, plenty of time to create fairy tales. However, since Merseia has four moons (see here), it is possible that the Ri stories originated there.

Five Senses By The Lyubisha

See By The Lyubisha River.

Flandry:

sees the broad brown river flowing between blue-green and plum-colored trees, braes, bluffs, coombs, flashing brooks, ocherous palisades and forest, with hundreds of wings flying overhead;

hears the river chuckle, the brooks sing and guslars trill;

feels a mild breeze;

smells soil and growth;

will shortly taste a frying riba caught from the river and cloud apples gathered for dessert.

Dennitza And Ys

(i) Ys was a Carthaginian colony. Dennitza is a human colony.

(ii) Ys is a subordinate ally of the Roman Empire. Dennitza is the capital planet of the Taurian Sector of the Terran Empire.

(iii) Non-human intelligences:
Ys has a covenant with the Three;
Dennitza is close to the Merseian Roidhunate and Dennitzans include descendants of immigrants from Merseia.

(iv) Both Ys and Dennitza have a parliament.

(v) The Roman centurion, Gratillonius, becomes King of Ys. The Terran agent, Dominic Flandry, temporarily administers Dennitza during a crisis.

(vi) Gratillonius' daughter becomes the Gods' agent for the destruction of Ys. Flandry's son works for Merseia.

(vii) Both Gratillonius and Flandry are reluctant to face the truth about their offspring.

(viii) When the Roman Empire withdraws from Northern Europe, Gratillonius organizes what will become medieval European feudalism. Flandry hopes that several planets, including Dennitza, will survive the Fall of the Terran Empire.

Monday 26 March 2018

Zoria

Zoria is the sun of the planet Dennitza in Poul Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows. I have encountered "Zoria" as a feminine name and am surprised not to find it with that spelling on Wikipedia. It seems to be the same as "Zorya."

In Slavic mythology, Zorya Utrennyaya is the Morning Star and Zorya Vechernyaya is the Evening Star. Thus, "Zoria," if this is the same name, is equivalent to Venus.

The speaker of the italicized opening passage of A Knight... says that Yovan Matavuly:

"...led the Founders the long lightless way to this our Morning Star..." (p. 341) (For full reference, see here.)

Googling suggests that "Dennitza" is a feminine personal name. "Gospodar" is defined here. No doubt other Dennizan terms could be tracked down but it would take some digging.

Across The Milky Way

We might start a sub-thread of objects seen in front of the Milky Way:

"Aycharaych nodded, his crest a scimitar across the Milky Way."
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT IX, p. 461.

A scimitar is a weapon and Aycharaych works for the Merseians who aim to conquer the Milky Way.

"They had left the shining nebula far behind; an unlit mass of cosmic dust reared thunderhead tall across the Milky Way."
-op. cit., XII, p. 503.

The Hooligan flies from light towards darkness and a metaphorical thunder storm threatens the Empire.

"...the dreadnought...was Nova class; its hull curved over him, monstrous as a mountain, guns raking the Milky Way."
-Poul Anderson, "Hunters of the Sky Cave" IN Sir Dominic Flandry..., pp. 149-301 AT XV, p. 266.

"...guns raking..." is not metaphorical but quite explicit.

"His profile, vaguely seen against the Milky Way..."
-Poul Anderson, The Byworlder (London, 1974), VI, p. 62.

"Silhouetted athwart the Milky Way, as if hovering free among clustered stars, Ahasuerus' pine-cone bulk..."
-The Byworlder, XIV, p. 166.

"A gob of thick digestive fluid sailed past the Milky Way." (XV, p. 185)

See also:

Night On Ivanhoe
Starting The Jumps
Shadows And Milky Way
Blaze Of Stars, Milky Way And Meditation
The Milky Way And The Promised Land
The Voyage Begins
Zamok Sabyel'
Progress
A Reminiscence Of Ferune
Five Interesting Features In "Cold Victory"
Coffin's Coffin
Mercury, Milky Way And Moon
Past The Milky Way
A Mountain Against The Milky Way
Embarrassment And The Milky Way
Hirharouk's Head
Athwart The Milky Way
Mirkheim And The Milky Way
Fringe Of Battle
Leaving Hermes
Night On Avalon
Lissa's Sister And The Milky Way
Galactic Vastness And The Milky Way
Tjorr And The Milky Way
Irony, Highlanders And The Milky Way
The Trader Team On Merseia
Abrams II
Clans And Tribes
Diomedes, Starkad And Talwin
Djana Remembers And Imagines
Near The End Of The Rebel Worlds...
Battlements Against The Milky Way
Falkayn's Father's Castle Or Mansion And The Milky Way
A Flying Mountain Across The Milky Way
Gigantic Against The Milky Way

Against Sagittarius
A Turban Against The Milky Way
A Scullery And A Glade

Vor, Varrak And Taurus

(This map shows place-names relevant to Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization. See Political Galactography.)

In "The Warriors from Nowhere":

the Terran Empire has a Taurian Sector;

the Sector Governor, Duke Alfred of Tauria, has his palace on Vor, the capital planet;

Varrak is another planet in the sector.

In A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, Dominic Flandry refers to "'...Duke Alfred of Varrak...'" (I, p. 349) (For full reference, see here.) So maybe the author has misremembered Alfred's title and confused Varrak with Vor?

"Judge Not"

"Judge not, that ye be not judged." See here.

Dominic Flandry says that he and Chives will:

"'...pass no judgment, lest we be judged by ourselves.'"
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT XII, p. 488.

Wondering whether he meant, "...be judged ourselves...," I checked Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows (London, 1978), Chapter Twelve, p. 126, but that also says "...by ourselves." So what did Flandry mean?

Evitable History

Please read (and contribute to) the historical discussion in the combox for The Practice Of Deception. We realize that:

historical developments are neither inevitable nor predictable;

there is a lot of work for Poul Anderson's Time Patrol;

there is also endless scope for alternative histories fiction;

in the words of Shakespeare's Second Witch, every battle is "...lost and won..." (see here) but, from our point of view, it is lost or won with major consequences either way;

also relevant is Marx's and Engels' statement that the outcome of class struggles is never inevitable because every past fight has:

"...each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes."
-Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England, 1985), 1, p. 79.