Poul Anderson
Encyclopedia
Poul William Anderson (November 25, 1926 – July 31, 2001) was an American science fiction
author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages
of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Award
s and three Nebula Award
s.
Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota
in 1948. He married Karen Kruse
in 1953. They had one daughter, Astrid, who is married to science fiction author Greg Bear
. Anderson was the sixth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
, taking office in 1972. He was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America
, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy
authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's
Flashing Swords!
anthologies. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism
. Robert A. Heinlein
dedicated his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
to Anderson and eight of the other members of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy
.
Poul Anderson died of cancer on July 31, 2001, after a month in the hospital. Several of his novels were published posthumously.
, of Scandinavian parents.
Shortly after his birth, his father, Anton Anderson, an engineer, moved the family to Texas, where they lived for over ten years. Following Anton Anderson's death, his widow took her children to Denmark. The family returned to the United States after the outbreak of World War II, settling eventually on a Minnesota farm.
Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1948. Although he earned his baccalaureate degree with honors, Anderson made no serious attempt to work as a physicist. His first story was published in 1947 while he was still an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota, and he worked as a free-lance writer after his college graduation in 1948.
Anderson married Karen Kruse in 1953 and moved with her to the San Francisco Bay area. Their daughter, Astrid, was born in 1954. They made their home in Orinda, California, near Berkeley.
Much of his science fiction is thoroughly grounded in science (with the addition of unscientific but standard speculations such as faster-than-light
travel). A specialty was imagining scientifically plausible non-Earthlike planets. Perhaps the best known was the planet of The Man Who Counts — Anderson adjusted its size and composition so that humans could live in the open air but flying intelligent aliens could evolve, and he explored consequences of these adjustments.
The connection between space flight and freedom is clearly (as is stated explicitly in some of the stories) an extension of the nineteenth-century American concept of the Frontier
, where malcontents can advance further and claim some new land, and pioneers either bring life to barren asteroids (as in Tales of the Flying Mountains) or settle on Earth-like planets teeming with life, but not intelligent forms (such as New Europe in Star Fox).
As he repeatedly expressed in his nonfiction essays, Anderson firmly held that going into space was not an unnecessary luxury but an existential need, and that abandoning space would doom humanity to "a society of brigands ruling over peasants".
This is graphically expressed in the chilling short story "Welcome". In it, humanity has abandoned space and is left with an overcrowded Earth where a small elite not only treats all the rest as chattel slaves, but also regularly practices cannibalism
, its members getting their chefs to prepare "roast suckling coolie
" for their banquets.
Conversely, in the bleak Orwellian
world of "The High Ones" — where the Soviets have won the Third World War and gained control of the whole world — the dissidents still have some hope, precisely because space flight has not been abandoned. By the end of the story, rebels have established themselves at another stellar system — where their descendants, the reader is told, would eventually build a liberating fleet and set out back to Earth.
in "Solution Unsatisfactory
", Anderson assumed that the imposition of an American military rule over the rest of the world would necessarily entail the destruction of American democracy and the imposition of a harsh tyrannical rule over the United States' own citizens.
Both Anderson's depiction of a Soviet-dominated world and that of an American-dominated one mention a rebellion breaking out in Brazil
in the early 21st century, which is in both cases brutally put down by the dominant world power — the Brazilian rebels being characterized as "Counter-Revolutionaries" in the one case and as "Communists" in the other.
In the early years of the Cold War
— when he had been, as described by his later, more conservative
self, a "flaming liberal
" — Anderson pinned his hopes on the United Nations
developing into a true world government
. This is especially manifest in "Un-man
", a future thriller where the Good Guys are agents of the UN
Secretary General working to establish a world government
while the Bad Guys are nationalists (especially American nationalists) who seek to preserve their respective nations' sovereignty at all costs. (The title has a double meaning — the hero is literally a UN man and has superhuman abilities which make his enemies fear him as an "un-man").
In later years Anderson completely repudiated this idea (a half-humorous remnant is the beginning of Tau Zero
— a future where the nations of the world entrusted Sweden with overseeing disarmament and found themselves living under the rule of the Swedish Empire). In Star Fox, his unfavorable depiction of a future peace group called "World Militants for Peace" indicates clearly where he stood with regard to the Vietnam War
, raging when the book was published. A more explicit expression of the same appears in the later The Shield of Time where a time-traveling young American woman from the 1990s pays a brief visit to a university campus of the 1960s and is not enthusiastic about what she sees there.
manner: The protagonist, who is hunted by various power groups for the secret of a personal impregnable force field which he brought from Mars
, finally decides to simply reveal it to the entire world, so that every individual could thumb his or her nose at each and every Authority.
Anderson often returned to libertarianism
(which accounts for his Prometheus Award
s) and to the business leader as hero, most notably his character Nicholas van Rijn
. Van Rijn is, however, far from the modern type of business executive, being a kind of throwback to the merchant venturer of the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century. If he spends any time in boardrooms or plotting corporate takeovers, the reader remains ignorant of it, since virtually all his appearances are in the wilds of a space frontier.
Beginning in the 1970s, Anderson's historically grounded works were influenced by the theories of the historian John K. Hord, who argued that all empires follow the same broad cyclical pattern — in which the Terran Empire of the Dominic Flandry
spy stories
fit neatly.
The writer Sandra Miesel
(1978) has argued that Anderson's overarching theme is the struggle against entropy
and the heat death of the universe, a condition of perfect uniformity where nothing can happen.
and attributed to the book's fictional protagonist, but seems to reflect Anderson's own views, sharply criticizes the American Left of 1972 (when it was written) for two instances of a double standard
: for neglecting to address human rights violations in the Soviet Union
and for failing to notice Israel
's treatment of the Palestinians.
References to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
crop up quite frequently in Anderson's fiction, through various analogues and the conflict's past, future, and alternate permutations. Significantly, Anderson's position on the Middle East conflict was considerably more dovish than his stance towards the United States' own wars, such as his aforementioned support for the military involvement in Vietnam. Consistently, he regarded the conflict as one in which both Israelis and Palestinians have some measure of justice on their side, and Israeli characters often express criticism of their country's policies.
Thus, in the story "Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks," the Time Patrol's resident agents in the Tyre of King Hiram are a twentieth century Israeli couple, who express their wish to help the ancient Tyrians "in order to compensate a bit for what our country is going to do here." (The story was written during the Lebanon War
of 1982, when Israeli planes bombed the modern Tyre and caused heavy civilian casualties).
The aggressive mutants of Dromm in "Inside Straight
", who totally subdued their own planet and embarked on interstellar conquest, had started as a persecuted minority. The Dromman character in the story — who is clearly the villain but is nevertheless depicted with considerable empathy — thinks of his people's history of having been the target of "whipped up xenophobia
, pogroms and concentration camps," in one of which his own grandfather died. He also thinks of how angry his people were when an off-world philosopher told them: "Unjust treatment is apt to produce paranoia in the victim. Your race has outlived its oppressors, but not the reflexes they built into your society. Your canalised nervous system make you incapable of regarding anyone else as anything but a dangerous enemy."
"Fire Time
" gives the detailed history of a prolonged escalating conflict on a planet colonized simultaneously by humans who call it Mundomar and the nonhuman Naqsans who call it Tseyakka: The historical film of the human leader Sigurdsson declaring the independent republic of Eleutheria in the midst of war is clearly reminiscent of Ben Gurion
declaring Israel's independence in 1948; in a later war, the Eleutherians conquer the Naqsan continent of G'yaaru, rename it Sigurdssonia and establish settlements in it.
There is in this context a short reappearance of Gunnar Heim, the protagonist of Star Fox. In the earlier book, Heim personally, as a privateer waging an undeclared war on the Aleriona, forced a reluctant Earth into an all-out war — which Heim felt was needed since the Aleriona were ideologically committed to the universal conquest of everybody else (apparently, in this context, the analogue of Communism
— though the Aleriona do not resemble Communists in any particular detail). With regard to Mundomar/Tseyakka, however, the same Heim is the voice of moderation, calling for compromise and coexistence between the two warring parties and strongly condemning the uncritical support of Earth for the aggressive Eleutherians (which seems an analogue of US support of Israel).
In a related story, a group of isolated humans had been living for several generations on an alien planet, on extremely good terms with its non-human inhabitants and without the slightest conflict with them. Nevertheless, the captain of an arriving Earth ship forces them at gunpoint to leave the planet, stating: "Can you speak for your grandchildren and for their grandchildren, for generations which will grow more and more numerous and need more and more land? When my ancestors arrived in Palestine, they did not intend to depose the local Arabs and drive them into refugee camps — but in the end, that's what they did." (The captain's family name is "Ben Yehuda" — the name of the noted Zionist linguist Eliezer Ben Yehuda who had a major share in transforming Hebrew
, a purely liturgical language for many centuries, into a spoken language again.)
This is a typical example of Anderson's frequent motif of a tragic conflict — a story with no villains at all, with all protagonists having the best of good intentions and still forced into bitter conflict.
A common theme in Anderson's works, and one with obvious origins in the Northern European legends, is that doing the "right" (wisest) thing often involves performing actions that, at face value, seem dishonorable, illegal, destructive, or downright evil. The Man who Counts, Nicholas van Rijn is "The Man" because he is prepared to be tyrannical and callously manipulative so that he and his companions can survive. In "High Treason" the protagonist disobeys orders and betrays his subordinates to prevent a war crime that would bring severe retribution upon Humanity. In A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, Dominic Flandry first (effectively) lobotomizes his own son and then bombards the home planet of the Chereionite race in order to do his duty and prop up the Terran Empire. These actions affect their characters in different ways, and dealing with the repercussions of having done the "right" (but unpleasant) thing is often the major focus of his short stories. The general lesson seems to be that guilt is the penalty for action.
In Star Fox, a relationship of grudging respect is built up between the hero, space privateer Gunnar Heim, and his enemy Cynbe — an exceptionally gifted member of the Alerione, trained from a young age to understand his species' human enemies to the point of being alienated from his own kind. In the final scene, Cynbe challenges Heim to a space battle which only one of them would survive. Heim accepts, whereupon Cynbe says, "I thank you, my brother."
(Hrolf Kraki's Saga
) and Haddingus (The War of the Gods). Frequently he presented such worlds as superior to the dull, over-civilized present. Notable depictions of this superiority are the prehistoric world of The Long Remembering, the quasi-medieval
society of No Truce with Kings
, and the untamed Jupiter
of Call Me Joe
and Three Worlds to Conquer. He handled the lure and power of atavism satirically in Pact, critically in The Queen of Air and Darkness and The Night Face, and tragically in Goat Song.
His 1965 novel, The Corridors of Time, alternates between the European Stone Age
and a repressive future. In this vision of tomorrow, almost everyone is either an agricultural serf
or an industrial slave
, but the rulers genuinely believe they are creating a better world. Set largely in Denmark
, it treats the Neolithic
society with knowledge and respect while not hiding its own faults — and it is there that the protagonist, having access to literally all periods of the past and future, finally decides to settle down and finds a happy and satisfying life.
In many stories, a representative of a technologically advanced society underestimates "primitives" and pays a high price for it. In The High Crusade
, aliens who land in medieval England in the expectation of an easy conquest find that they are not immune to swords and arrows. In The Only Game in Town, a Mongol warrior, while not knowing that the two "magicians" he meets are time travelers from the future, correctly guesses their intentions — and captures them with the help of the "magic" flashlight they had given him in an attempt to impress him. In another time-travel tale, The Shield of Time, a "time policeman" from the Twentieth Century, equipped with information and technologies from much further in the future, is outwitted by a medieval knight and barely escapes with his life. Yet another story, The Man Who Came Early
, features a 20th-century United States Army
soldier stationed in Iceland
who is transported to the tenth century. Although he is full of ideas, his lack of practical knowledge of how to implement them and his total unfamiliarity with the technology and customs of the period lead to his downfall.
Anderson wrote Uncleftish Beholding
, an introduction to atomic theory, using only Germanic-rooted words. Fitting his love for olden years, this kind of learned writing has been named Ander-Saxon after him.
In The Sorrow of Odin the Goth a time-travelling American anthropologist is assigned to study an ancient Gothic
tribe and study its culture by regular visits every few decades. Gradually he is drawn into close involvement, feeling protective towards the Goths (many of them his own descendants, following a brief and poignant liaison with a Gothic girl who died in childbirth) — and they identify him as the god Odin
/Wodan. Then he finds that he must cruelly betray his beloved Goths, since an ancient ballad says that Odin did so — and that failure to fulfill his prescribed role might change history and bring the whole of the Twentieth Century as we know it crashing down. In the final scene he cries out in anguish: "Not even the gods can defy the Norns!" — giving a new twist to this central aspect of the Norse
religion.
In The Pirate
, the hero is duty-bound to deny a band of people from societies blighted by poverty the chance for a new start on a new planet — because their settling the planet would eradicate the remnants of the artistic and articulate beings who lived there before. A similar theme but with much higher stakes appears in Sister Planet: although terraforming
Venus
would provide new hope to starving people on the overcrowded Earth, it would exterminate Venus's just-discovered intelligent race — and the hero can avert genocide only by murdering his best friends.
In Delenda Est
the stakes are the highest imaginable. Time-travelling outlaws have created a new 20th Century — "not better or worse, just completely different". The hero can fight the outlaws and restore his (and our) familiar history — but only at the price of totally destroying the world which has taken its place. "Risking your neck in order to negate a world full of people like yourself" is how the hero describes what he eventually undertakes.
Reissued by Baen as:
Polesotechnic League period of Nicholas van Rijn
(by internal chronology):
Terran Empire period of Dominic Flandry
(by internal chronology):
Technic Civilization Saga (Omnibus reprints of the Nicholas van Rijn
The shorter works in the series have been collected numerous times over the years, in Guardians of Time (1960, contains 1, 2, 4 and 5; expanded 1981 edition adds 3), Time Patrolman (1983, contains 6 and 7), Annals of the Time Patrol (1983, contains 1-7), The Time Patrol (1991, contains 1-9), and Time Patrol (2006, contains 1-9 and 11).
, a persecuted starfaring civilization, is featured in:
story "Waterspider
" features Poul Anderson as one of the main characters.
By Poul Anderson
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages
Golden Age of Science Fiction
The first Golden Age of Science Fiction — often recognized as the period from the late 1930s through the 1950s — was an era during which the science fiction genre gained wide public attention and many classic science fiction stories were published...
of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Award
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
s and three Nebula Award
Nebula Award
The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
s.
Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
in 1948. He married Karen Kruse
Karen Kruse Anderson
Karen Kruse Anderson is the widow and sometime co-author of Poul Anderson, and mother-in-law of writer Greg Bear.She is noted as the first person to use the term filk music in print. She also wrote the first published science fiction haiku , "Six Haiku"...
in 1953. They had one daughter, Astrid, who is married to science fiction author Greg Bear
Greg Bear
Gregory Dale Bear is an American science fiction and mainstream author. His work has covered themes of galactic conflict , artificial universes , consciousness and cultural practices , and accelerated evolution...
. Anderson was the sixth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, or SFWA is a nonprofit association of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. It was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight under the name Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc. and it retains the acronym SFWA after a very brief use of the SFFWA...
, taking office in 1972. He was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America
Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America (SAGA)
The Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America is the name of a literary group of American fantasy authors active from the 1960s through the 1980s, noted for their contributions to the fantasy subgenre of heroic fantasy or "Sword and Sorcery."...
, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy
Heroic fantasy
Heroic fantasy is a sub-genre of fantasy which chronicles the tales of heroes in imaginary lands. Unlike stories of sword and sorcery, heroic fantasy narratives tend to be intricate in plot, often involving many peoples, nations and lands. Grand battles and the fate of the world are common themes,...
authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's
Lin Carter
Linwood Vrooman Carter was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor and critic. He usually wrote as Lin Carter; known pseudonyms include H. P. Lowcraft and Grail Undwin.-Life:Carter was born in St. Petersburg, Florida...
Flashing Swords!
Flashing Swords!
Flashing Swords! was a series of fantasy anthologies published by Dell Books from 1973 to 1981 under the editorship of Lin Carter. It showcased the heroic fantasy work of the members of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America , a somewhat informal literary group active from the 1960s to the...
anthologies. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism
Society for Creative Anachronism
The Society for Creative Anachronism is an international living history group with the aim of studying and recreating mainly Medieval European cultures and their histories before the 17th century...
. Robert A. Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
dedicated his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls: A Comedy of Manners is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein published in 1985. Like many of his later novels, it features Lazarus Long and Jubal Harshaw as supporting characters.-Plot summary:...
to Anderson and eight of the other members of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy
Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy
The Citizen's Advisory Council on National Space Policy was a group of prominent US citizens concerned with the space policy of the United States of America...
.
Poul Anderson died of cancer on July 31, 2001, after a month in the hospital. Several of his novels were published posthumously.
Early life
Poul Anderson was born on November 25, 1926, in Bristol, PennsylvaniaBristol, Pennsylvania
Bristol is a borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, northeast of Philadelphia opposite Burlington, N.J. on the Delaware River. Bristol was first incorporated in 1720. Although its charter was revised in 1905, the original charter remains in effect, making Bristol one of the older boroughs in...
, of Scandinavian parents.
Shortly after his birth, his father, Anton Anderson, an engineer, moved the family to Texas, where they lived for over ten years. Following Anton Anderson's death, his widow took her children to Denmark. The family returned to the United States after the outbreak of World War II, settling eventually on a Minnesota farm.
Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1948. Although he earned his baccalaureate degree with honors, Anderson made no serious attempt to work as a physicist. His first story was published in 1947 while he was still an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota, and he worked as a free-lance writer after his college graduation in 1948.
Anderson married Karen Kruse in 1953 and moved with her to the San Francisco Bay area. Their daughter, Astrid, was born in 1954. They made their home in Orinda, California, near Berkeley.
Political, moral and literary themes
Anderson is probably best known for adventure stories in which larger-than-life characters succeed gleefully or fail heroically. His characters were nonetheless thoughtful, often introspective, and well developed. His plot lines frequently involved the application of social and political issues in a speculative manner appropriate to the science fiction genre. He also wrote some quieter works, generally of shorter length, which appeared more often during the latter part of his career.Much of his science fiction is thoroughly grounded in science (with the addition of unscientific but standard speculations such as faster-than-light
Faster-than-light
Faster-than-light communications and travel refer to the propagation of information or matter faster than the speed of light....
travel). A specialty was imagining scientifically plausible non-Earthlike planets. Perhaps the best known was the planet of The Man Who Counts — Anderson adjusted its size and composition so that humans could live in the open air but flying intelligent aliens could evolve, and he explored consequences of these adjustments.
Space and liberty
In many stories, Anderson commented on society and politics. Whatever other vicissitudes his views went through, he firmly retained his belief in the direct and inextricable connection between human liberty and expansion into space — for which reason he strongly cried out against any idea of space exploration being "a waste of money" or "unnecessary luxury".The connection between space flight and freedom is clearly (as is stated explicitly in some of the stories) an extension of the nineteenth-century American concept of the Frontier
Frontier
A frontier is a political and geographical term referring to areas near or beyond a boundary. 'Frontier' was absorbed into English from French in the 15th century, with the meaning "borderland"--the region of a country that fronts on another country .The use of "frontier" to mean "a region at the...
, where malcontents can advance further and claim some new land, and pioneers either bring life to barren asteroids (as in Tales of the Flying Mountains) or settle on Earth-like planets teeming with life, but not intelligent forms (such as New Europe in Star Fox).
As he repeatedly expressed in his nonfiction essays, Anderson firmly held that going into space was not an unnecessary luxury but an existential need, and that abandoning space would doom humanity to "a society of brigands ruling over peasants".
This is graphically expressed in the chilling short story "Welcome". In it, humanity has abandoned space and is left with an overcrowded Earth where a small elite not only treats all the rest as chattel slaves, but also regularly practices cannibalism
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
, its members getting their chefs to prepare "roast suckling coolie
Coolie
Historically, a coolie was a manual labourer or slave from Asia, particularly China, India, and the Phillipines during the 19th century and early 20th century...
" for their banquets.
Conversely, in the bleak Orwellian
Orwellian
"Orwellian" describes the situation, idea, or societal condition that George Orwell identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free society...
world of "The High Ones" — where the Soviets have won the Third World War and gained control of the whole world — the dissidents still have some hope, precisely because space flight has not been abandoned. By the end of the story, rebels have established themselves at another stellar system — where their descendants, the reader is told, would eventually build a liberating fleet and set out back to Earth.
World government
While horrified by the prospect of the Soviets winning complete rule over the Earth, Anderson was not enthusiastic about having Americans in that role, either. In fact, several stories and books describing the aftermath of a total American victory in the Third World War — such as "Sam Hall" and its loose sequel "Three Worlds to Conquer" as well as "Shield" — are scarcely less bleak than the above-mentioned depictions of a Soviet victory. Like HeinleinRobert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
in "Solution Unsatisfactory
Solution Unsatisfactory
"Solution Unsatisfactory" is a 1940 science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein. It describes the US effort to build a nuclear weapon in order to end the ongoing World War II, and its dystopian consequences to the nation and the world....
", Anderson assumed that the imposition of an American military rule over the rest of the world would necessarily entail the destruction of American democracy and the imposition of a harsh tyrannical rule over the United States' own citizens.
Both Anderson's depiction of a Soviet-dominated world and that of an American-dominated one mention a rebellion breaking out in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
in the early 21st century, which is in both cases brutally put down by the dominant world power — the Brazilian rebels being characterized as "Counter-Revolutionaries" in the one case and as "Communists" in the other.
In the early years of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
— when he had been, as described by his later, more conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
self, a "flaming liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
" — Anderson pinned his hopes on the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
developing into a true world government
World government
World government is the notion of a single common political authority for all of humanity. Its modern conception is rooted in European history, particularly in the philosophy of ancient Greece, in the political formation of the Roman Empire, and in the subsequent struggle between secular authority,...
. This is especially manifest in "Un-man
Un-Man
Un-Man is a science fiction novella by Poul Anderson that was first published in the January 1953 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. It was included in the 1962 collection Un-Man and Other Novellas, and the 1981 collection The Psychotechnic League...
", a future thriller where the Good Guys are agents of the UN
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
Secretary General working to establish a world government
World government
World government is the notion of a single common political authority for all of humanity. Its modern conception is rooted in European history, particularly in the philosophy of ancient Greece, in the political formation of the Roman Empire, and in the subsequent struggle between secular authority,...
while the Bad Guys are nationalists (especially American nationalists) who seek to preserve their respective nations' sovereignty at all costs. (The title has a double meaning — the hero is literally a UN man and has superhuman abilities which make his enemies fear him as an "un-man").
In later years Anderson completely repudiated this idea (a half-humorous remnant is the beginning of Tau Zero
Tau Zero
Tau Zero is a hard science fiction novel by Poul Anderson. The novel was based upon the short story "To Outlive Eternity" appearing in Galaxy Science Fiction in 1967. It was first published in book form in 1970....
— a future where the nations of the world entrusted Sweden with overseeing disarmament and found themselves living under the rule of the Swedish Empire). In Star Fox, his unfavorable depiction of a future peace group called "World Militants for Peace" indicates clearly where he stood with regard to the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, raging when the book was published. A more explicit expression of the same appears in the later The Shield of Time where a time-traveling young American woman from the 1990s pays a brief visit to a university campus of the 1960s and is not enthusiastic about what she sees there.
Libertarianism
Instead of a world government, the above-mentioned "Shield" resolves the problem of an American-dominated world dictatorship in a truly libertarianLibertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
manner: The protagonist, who is hunted by various power groups for the secret of a personal impregnable force field which he brought from Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
, finally decides to simply reveal it to the entire world, so that every individual could thumb his or her nose at each and every Authority.
Anderson often returned to libertarianism
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
(which accounts for his Prometheus Award
Prometheus Award
The Prometheus Award is an award for libertarian science fiction novels given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society, which also publishes a quarterly journal Prometheus. L. Neil Smith established the award in 1979, but it was not awarded regularly until the newly founded Libertarian Futurist...
s) and to the business leader as hero, most notably his character Nicholas van Rijn
Nicholas van Rijn
Nicholas van Rijn is a fictional character who plays the central role in the first half of Poul Anderson's Technic History. He is a flamboyant capitalist adventurer, and is Dutch, apparently a resident of Djakarta...
. Van Rijn is, however, far from the modern type of business executive, being a kind of throwback to the merchant venturer of the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century. If he spends any time in boardrooms or plotting corporate takeovers, the reader remains ignorant of it, since virtually all his appearances are in the wilds of a space frontier.
Beginning in the 1970s, Anderson's historically grounded works were influenced by the theories of the historian John K. Hord, who argued that all empires follow the same broad cyclical pattern — in which the Terran Empire of the Dominic Flandry
Dominic Flandry
Dominic Flandry is the central character in the second half of Poul Anderson's Technic History science fiction. He first appeared in 1951.The space opera series is set in the 31st century, during the waning days of the Terran Empire...
spy stories
Spy fiction
Spy fiction, literature concerning the forms of espionage, was a sub-genre derived from the novel during the nineteenth century, which then evolved into a discrete genre before the First World War , when governments established modern intelligence agencies in the early twentieth century...
fit neatly.
The writer Sandra Miesel
Sandra Miesel
Sandra Louise Miesel is an American medievalist, writer and science fiction and fantasy fan. Her early work was science fiction and fantasy criticism, fields in which she has remained active. She is a literary analyst; has described herself as "the world's greatest expert" on Poul Anderson and...
(1978) has argued that Anderson's overarching theme is the struggle against entropy
Entropy
Entropy is a thermodynamic property that can be used to determine the energy available for useful work in a thermodynamic process, such as in energy conversion devices, engines, or machines. Such devices can only be driven by convertible energy, and have a theoretical maximum efficiency when...
and the heat death of the universe, a condition of perfect uniformity where nothing can happen.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict
A nonfiction essay that is embedded in There Will Be TimeThere Will Be Time
There Will Be Time is a science fiction novel by Poul Anderson. It was published in 1972 in a hardback edition by Doubleday and in 1973 in a paperback edition by New American Library....
and attributed to the book's fictional protagonist, but seems to reflect Anderson's own views, sharply criticizes the American Left of 1972 (when it was written) for two instances of a double standard
Double standard
A double standard is the unjust application of different sets of principles for similar situations. The concept implies that a single set of principles encompassing all situations is the desirable ideal. The term has been used in print since at least 1895...
: for neglecting to address human rights violations in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and for failing to notice Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
's treatment of the Palestinians.
References to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...
crop up quite frequently in Anderson's fiction, through various analogues and the conflict's past, future, and alternate permutations. Significantly, Anderson's position on the Middle East conflict was considerably more dovish than his stance towards the United States' own wars, such as his aforementioned support for the military involvement in Vietnam. Consistently, he regarded the conflict as one in which both Israelis and Palestinians have some measure of justice on their side, and Israeli characters often express criticism of their country's policies.
Thus, in the story "Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks," the Time Patrol's resident agents in the Tyre of King Hiram are a twentieth century Israeli couple, who express their wish to help the ancient Tyrians "in order to compensate a bit for what our country is going to do here." (The story was written during the Lebanon War
Lebanon War
The term Lebanon War can refer to any of the following wars, fought in Lebanon:*Lebanese Civil War *Hundred Days' War 1978 *1982 Lebanon War...
of 1982, when Israeli planes bombed the modern Tyre and caused heavy civilian casualties).
The aggressive mutants of Dromm in "Inside Straight
Inside Straight
Inside Straight may refer to:* An inside straight is type of hand in poker—see Draw #Inside straight draw, Rank of hands .*Inside Straight , an album by jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley...
", who totally subdued their own planet and embarked on interstellar conquest, had started as a persecuted minority. The Dromman character in the story — who is clearly the villain but is nevertheless depicted with considerable empathy — thinks of his people's history of having been the target of "whipped up xenophobia
Xenophobia
Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...
, pogroms and concentration camps," in one of which his own grandfather died. He also thinks of how angry his people were when an off-world philosopher told them: "Unjust treatment is apt to produce paranoia in the victim. Your race has outlived its oppressors, but not the reflexes they built into your society. Your canalised nervous system make you incapable of regarding anyone else as anything but a dangerous enemy."
"Fire Time
Fire Time
Fire Time is a science fiction novel by Poul Anderson, first published in 1974. It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1975.- Plot introduction :...
" gives the detailed history of a prolonged escalating conflict on a planet colonized simultaneously by humans who call it Mundomar and the nonhuman Naqsans who call it Tseyakka: The historical film of the human leader Sigurdsson declaring the independent republic of Eleutheria in the midst of war is clearly reminiscent of Ben Gurion
Ben Gurion
Ben Gurion can refer to the following persons:* Nicodemus ben Gurion, a Biblical figure, probably a rich Jewish member of the Sanhedrin that felt sympathetic to Jesus Christ...
declaring Israel's independence in 1948; in a later war, the Eleutherians conquer the Naqsan continent of G'yaaru, rename it Sigurdssonia and establish settlements in it.
There is in this context a short reappearance of Gunnar Heim, the protagonist of Star Fox. In the earlier book, Heim personally, as a privateer waging an undeclared war on the Aleriona, forced a reluctant Earth into an all-out war — which Heim felt was needed since the Aleriona were ideologically committed to the universal conquest of everybody else (apparently, in this context, the analogue of Communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
— though the Aleriona do not resemble Communists in any particular detail). With regard to Mundomar/Tseyakka, however, the same Heim is the voice of moderation, calling for compromise and coexistence between the two warring parties and strongly condemning the uncritical support of Earth for the aggressive Eleutherians (which seems an analogue of US support of Israel).
In a related story, a group of isolated humans had been living for several generations on an alien planet, on extremely good terms with its non-human inhabitants and without the slightest conflict with them. Nevertheless, the captain of an arriving Earth ship forces them at gunpoint to leave the planet, stating: "Can you speak for your grandchildren and for their grandchildren, for generations which will grow more and more numerous and need more and more land? When my ancestors arrived in Palestine, they did not intend to depose the local Arabs and drive them into refugee camps — but in the end, that's what they did." (The captain's family name is "Ben Yehuda" — the name of the noted Zionist linguist Eliezer Ben Yehuda who had a major share in transforming Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, a purely liturgical language for many centuries, into a spoken language again.)
This is a typical example of Anderson's frequent motif of a tragic conflict — a story with no villains at all, with all protagonists having the best of good intentions and still forced into bitter conflict.
Fairness to the adversaries
In his numerous books and stories depicting conflict in science-fictional or fantasy settings, Anderson takes trouble to make both sides' points of view comprehensible. Even where there can be no doubt as to whose side the author is on, the antagonists are usually not depicted as villains but as honourable on their own terms. The reader is given access to their thoughts and feelings, and they often have a tragic dignity in defeat. Typical examples are The Winter of the World and The People of the Wind.A common theme in Anderson's works, and one with obvious origins in the Northern European legends, is that doing the "right" (wisest) thing often involves performing actions that, at face value, seem dishonorable, illegal, destructive, or downright evil. The Man who Counts, Nicholas van Rijn is "The Man" because he is prepared to be tyrannical and callously manipulative so that he and his companions can survive. In "High Treason" the protagonist disobeys orders and betrays his subordinates to prevent a war crime that would bring severe retribution upon Humanity. In A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, Dominic Flandry first (effectively) lobotomizes his own son and then bombards the home planet of the Chereionite race in order to do his duty and prop up the Terran Empire. These actions affect their characters in different ways, and dealing with the repercussions of having done the "right" (but unpleasant) thing is often the major focus of his short stories. The general lesson seems to be that guilt is the penalty for action.
In Star Fox, a relationship of grudging respect is built up between the hero, space privateer Gunnar Heim, and his enemy Cynbe — an exceptionally gifted member of the Alerione, trained from a young age to understand his species' human enemies to the point of being alienated from his own kind. In the final scene, Cynbe challenges Heim to a space battle which only one of them would survive. Heim accepts, whereupon Cynbe says, "I thank you, my brother."
Underestimating "primitives" as a costly mistake
Anderson set much of his work in the past, often with the addition of magic, or in alternate or future worlds that resemble past eras. A specialty was his ancestral Scandinavia, as in his novel versions of the legends of Hrólf KrakiHrólf Kraki
Hrólfr Kraki, Hroðulf, Rolfo, Roluo, Rolf Krage was a legendary Danish king who appears in both Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian tradition. His name would in his own language have been *Hrōþiwulfaz .Both traditions describe him as a Danish Scylding, the nephew of Hroðgar and the grandson of Healfdene...
(Hrolf Kraki's Saga
Hrolf Kraki's Saga
Hrolf Kraki's Saga is a fantasy novel by Poul Anderson. It was first published by Ballantine Books as the sixty-second volume of the celebrated Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in October, 1973, and has been reprinted a number of times since...
) and Haddingus (The War of the Gods). Frequently he presented such worlds as superior to the dull, over-civilized present. Notable depictions of this superiority are the prehistoric world of The Long Remembering, the quasi-medieval
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
society of No Truce with Kings
No Truce with Kings
"No Truce With Kings" is a science fiction short story by Poul Anderson. It won the Hugo Award for Best Short Fiction 1964, and the Prometheus Award for Classic Fiction in 2010...
, and the untamed Jupiter
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...
of Call Me Joe
Call me Joe
Call Me Joe is a science fiction story by Poul Anderson about an attempt to explore the surface of the planet Jupiter using remotely controlled artificial life-forms. It focuses on the feelings of the disabled man who operates the artificial body. The story was published in Astounding Science...
and Three Worlds to Conquer. He handled the lure and power of atavism satirically in Pact, critically in The Queen of Air and Darkness and The Night Face, and tragically in Goat Song.
His 1965 novel, The Corridors of Time, alternates between the European Stone Age
Stone Age
The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period, lasting about 2.5 million years , during which humans and their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporary genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus, widely used exclusively stone as their hard material in the...
and a repressive future. In this vision of tomorrow, almost everyone is either an agricultural serf
SERF
A spin exchange relaxation-free magnetometer is a type of magnetometer developed at Princeton University in the early 2000s. SERF magnetometers measure magnetic fields by using lasers to detect the interaction between alkali metal atoms in a vapor and the magnetic field.The name for the technique...
or an industrial slave
Industrial slave
An industrial slave is a type of slave who typically worked in an industrial setting. These slaves often had work that was more dangerous than agricultural slaves.-United States:...
, but the rulers genuinely believe they are creating a better world. Set largely in Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, it treats the Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
society with knowledge and respect while not hiding its own faults — and it is there that the protagonist, having access to literally all periods of the past and future, finally decides to settle down and finds a happy and satisfying life.
In many stories, a representative of a technologically advanced society underestimates "primitives" and pays a high price for it. In The High Crusade
The High Crusade
The High Crusade is a science fiction novel by Poul Anderson about the consequences of an extraterrestrial scoutship landing in Medieval England...
, aliens who land in medieval England in the expectation of an easy conquest find that they are not immune to swords and arrows. In The Only Game in Town, a Mongol warrior, while not knowing that the two "magicians" he meets are time travelers from the future, correctly guesses their intentions — and captures them with the help of the "magic" flashlight they had given him in an attempt to impress him. In another time-travel tale, The Shield of Time, a "time policeman" from the Twentieth Century, equipped with information and technologies from much further in the future, is outwitted by a medieval knight and barely escapes with his life. Yet another story, The Man Who Came Early
The Man Who Came Early
"The Man Who Came Early" is a science fiction short story by Danish-American author Poul Anderson. Similar in some respects to Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, the story is in fact its antithesis; Anderson sharply differs from Twain in his treatment of the "primitive"...
, features a 20th-century United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
soldier stationed in Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
who is transported to the tenth century. Although he is full of ideas, his lack of practical knowledge of how to implement them and his total unfamiliarity with the technology and customs of the period lead to his downfall.
Anderson wrote Uncleftish Beholding
Uncleftish Beholding
Uncleftish Beholding is a short text written by Poul Anderson. It is written using almost exclusively words of Germanic origin, and was intended to illustrate what the English language might look like if it had not received its considerable number of loanwords from other languages, particularly...
, an introduction to atomic theory, using only Germanic-rooted words. Fitting his love for olden years, this kind of learned writing has been named Ander-Saxon after him.
Tragic conflicts
The story told in The Shield of Time is also an example of a tragic conflict, another common theme in Anderson's writing. The knight tries to do his best in terms of his own society and time, but his actions might bring about a horrible Twentieth Century (even more horrible than the one we know). Therefore, the Time Patrol protagonists, who like the young knight and wish him well (the female protagonist comes close to falling in love with him), have no choice but to fight and ultimately kill him.In The Sorrow of Odin the Goth a time-travelling American anthropologist is assigned to study an ancient Gothic
Goths
The Goths were an East Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin whose two branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe....
tribe and study its culture by regular visits every few decades. Gradually he is drawn into close involvement, feeling protective towards the Goths (many of them his own descendants, following a brief and poignant liaison with a Gothic girl who died in childbirth) — and they identify him as the god Odin
Odin
Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....
/Wodan. Then he finds that he must cruelly betray his beloved Goths, since an ancient ballad says that Odin did so — and that failure to fulfill his prescribed role might change history and bring the whole of the Twentieth Century as we know it crashing down. In the final scene he cries out in anguish: "Not even the gods can defy the Norns!" — giving a new twist to this central aspect of the Norse
Norse paganism
Norse paganism is the religious traditions of the Norsemen, a Germanic people living in the Nordic countries. Norse paganism is therefore a subset of Germanic paganism, which was practiced in the lands inhabited by the Germanic tribes across most of Northern and Central Europe in the Viking Age...
religion.
In The Pirate
The Pirate (Anderson)
"The Pirate" is a science fiction short story by Poul Anderson that first appeared in the October 1968 issue of Analog. "The Pirate" was a prequel to the earlier Psychotechnic League novel Star Ways , and was the last story in the Psychotechnic series to be published...
, the hero is duty-bound to deny a band of people from societies blighted by poverty the chance for a new start on a new planet — because their settling the planet would eradicate the remnants of the artistic and articulate beings who lived there before. A similar theme but with much higher stakes appears in Sister Planet: although terraforming
Terraforming
Terraforming of a planet, moon, or other body is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to those of Earth, in order to make it habitable by terrestrial organisms.The term is sometimes used more generally as a...
Venus
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows...
would provide new hope to starving people on the overcrowded Earth, it would exterminate Venus's just-discovered intelligent race — and the hero can avert genocide only by murdering his best friends.
In Delenda Est
Delenda Est
"Delenda Est" is a short story written by Poul Anderson, part of his Time Patrol series. The title alludes to the Latin phrase Carthago delenda est from the Third Punic War.-Plot summary:...
the stakes are the highest imaginable. Time-travelling outlaws have created a new 20th Century — "not better or worse, just completely different". The hero can fight the outlaws and restore his (and our) familiar history — but only at the price of totally destroying the world which has taken its place. "Risking your neck in order to negate a world full of people like yourself" is how the hero describes what he eventually undertakes.
Awards
- Gandalf Grand MasterGandalf AwardThe Gandalf Awards, honoring achievement in fantasy literature, were conferred by the World Science Fiction Society annually from 1974 to 1981. They were named for Gandalf the wizard, from the Middle-earth stories by J. R. R. Tolkien. The award was created and sponsored by Lin Carter and the...
(1978) - Hugo AwardHugo AwardThe Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
(seven times) - John W. Campbell Memorial AwardCampbell award (best novel)The John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel for best science fiction novel was created in 1973 by writers and critics Harry Harrison and Brian W. Aldiss to honor Campbell's name...
(2000) - Locus AwardLocus AwardThe Locus Award is a literary award established in 1971 and presented to winners of Locus magazine's annual readers' poll. Currently, the Locus Awards are presented at an annual banquet...
(41 nominations; one win (1972)) - Mythopoeic Fantasy Award (one win (1975))
- Nebula AwardNebula AwardThe Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
(three times) - Pegasus Award (best adaptation, with Anne PassovoyAnne PassovoyAnne Passovoy is active in science fiction fandom and filk music, and has won two Pegasus Awards. She is married to Dr. Bob Passovoy. She has written many of the seminal filk songs, including "Marcon Ballroom" and writing perhaps the most widely-sung tune for Poul Anderson's poem, "Mary...
) (1998) - Prometheus AwardPrometheus AwardThe Prometheus Award is an award for libertarian science fiction novels given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society, which also publishes a quarterly journal Prometheus. L. Neil Smith established the award in 1979, but it was not awarded regularly until the newly founded Libertarian Futurist...
(four times, including Special Prometheus Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2001) - SFWAScience Fiction and Fantasy Writers of AmericaScience Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, or SFWA is a nonprofit association of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. It was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight under the name Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc. and it retains the acronym SFWA after a very brief use of the SFFWA...
Grand Master Award (1997)
Hoka
- Earthman's BurdenEarthman's BurdenEarthman's Burden is a collection of science fiction and fantasy stories by Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson. It was first published by Gnome Press in 1957. The story "Don Jones" was original to this collection...
(1957) with Gordon R. DicksonGordon R. DicksonGordon Rupert Dickson was an American science fiction author.- Biography :Dickson was born in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1923. After the death of his father, he moved with his mother to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1937... - Star Prince Charlie (1975) with Gordon R. Dickson
- Hoka!Hoka!Hoka! is a collection of science fiction and fantasy stories by Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson. It was first published by Wallaby in 1983...
(1983) with Gordon R. Dickson
Reissued by Baen as:
- Hoka! Hoka! Hoka!Hoka! Hoka! Hoka!Hoka! Hoka! Hoka! is a collection of science fiction stories by Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson. It was first published by Baen Books in 1998 and reprints the authors' earlier collection, Earthman's Burden, expanding with two additional stories from Hoka!. The story "Don Jones" originally...
(1998) with Gordon R. Dickson - Hokas Pokas!Hokas Pokas!Hokas Pokas! is a collection of science fiction stories, and the novel Star Prince Charlie by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson. It was first published by Baen Books in 2000. The stories originally appeared in the magazines Fantasy and Science Fiction and Analog Science Fiction and Fact....
(2000) with Gordon R. Dickson
The Psychotechnic League
- Star Ways (also known as The Peregrine) (1956)
- The Snows of Ganymede (1958)
- Virgin Planet (1959)
- The Psychotechnic League (1981)
- Cold Victory (1982)
- Starship (1982)
Tomorrow's Children
- Tomorrow's Children (1947) with F. N. Waldrop
- Chain of Logic (1947)
Polesotechnic League period of Nicholas van RijnNicholas van RijnNicholas van Rijn is a fictional character who plays the central role in the first half of Poul Anderson's Technic History. He is a flamboyant capitalist adventurer, and is Dutch, apparently a resident of Djakarta...
(by internal chronology):
- War of the Wing-Men (original book publication heavily edited; author's preferred text [and title] later issued as The Man Who Counts) (1958)
- Trader to the Stars (1964) (Prometheus AwardPrometheus AwardThe Prometheus Award is an award for libertarian science fiction novels given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society, which also publishes a quarterly journal Prometheus. L. Neil Smith established the award in 1979, but it was not awarded regularly until the newly founded Libertarian Futurist...
), collects:- "Hiding Place" (1961)
- "Territory" (1961)
- "The Master Key" (1971)
- The Trouble Twisters (features David Falkayn, not Van Rijn) (1966), collects:
- "The Three-Cornered Wheel" (1963)
- "A Sun Invisible" (1966)
- "The Trouble Twisters" (also known as "Trader Team") (1965)
- Satan's World (1969)
- The Earth Book of Stormgate (many stories do not feature Van Rijn) (1978). It collects:
- "Wings of Victory" (1972)
- "The Problem of Pain" (1973)
- "How to be Ethnic in One Easy Lesson" (1974)
- "Margin of Profit" (1956)
- "Esau" (also known as "Birthright") (1970)
- "The Season of Forgiveness" (1973)
- The Man Who Counts (first appearance of the unedited version of War of the Wing-Men) (1958)
- "A Little Knowledge" (1971)
- "Day of Burning" (also known as "Supernova") (1967)
- "LodestarLodestar (Anderson)"Lodestar" is a short story by Poul Anderson. The idea was proposed to the author in a letter from editor John W Campbell in 1970, but not developed into a story until the publication of Astounding: The John W Campbell Memorial Anthology.-Plot introduction:...
" (1973) - "Wingless" (also known as "Wingless on Avalon") (1973)
- "Rescue on Avalon" (1973)
- Mirkheim (1977)
- The People of the Wind (does not feature Falkayn or Van Rijn) (1973) -- Hugo and Locus SF Awards nominee, 1974 Nebula Award nominee, 1973
Terran Empire period of Dominic FlandryDominic FlandryDominic Flandry is the central character in the second half of Poul Anderson's Technic History science fiction. He first appeared in 1951.The space opera series is set in the 31st century, during the waning days of the Terran Empire...
(by internal chronology):
- The Imperial Stars (2000), collects:
- Ensign Flandry (1966)
- A Circus of Hells (1970)
- The Rebel Worlds (1969)
- The Day of Their Return (does not feature Flandry) (1973)
- Agent of the Terran Empire (1965), collects:
- "Tiger by the Tail" (1951)
- "The Warriors From Nowhere (1954)
- "Honorable Enemies" (1951)
- "Hunters of the Sky Cave" (also known as "A Handful of Stars" and We Claim These Stars) (1959)
- Flandry of Terra (1965), collects:
- "The Game of Glory" (1958)
- "A Message in Secret" (also known as Mayday Orbit) (1959)
- "The Plague of Masters" (also known as "A Plague of Masters" and Earthman, Go Home!) (1960)
- A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows (1974)
- A Stone in Heaven (1979)
- The Game of Empire (features a daughter of Flandry) (1985)
- The Long Night (features a Dark Age after Flandry's era) (1983), collects:
- "The Star Plunderer" (1952)
- "Outpost of Empire" (1967)
- "A Tragedy of Errors" (1967)
- "The Sharing of Flesh" (1968) (HugoHugo AwardThe Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
, NebulaNebula AwardThe Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
) - "Starfog" (1967)
- Let the Spacemen Beware (also known as The Night Face, does not feature Flandry, a shorter 1960 version was known as "A Twelvemonth and a Day) (1963)
Technic Civilization Saga (Omnibus reprints of the Nicholas van RijnNicholas van RijnNicholas van Rijn is a fictional character who plays the central role in the first half of Poul Anderson's Technic History. He is a flamboyant capitalist adventurer, and is Dutch, apparently a resident of Djakarta...
and Dominic FlandryDominic FlandryDominic Flandry is the central character in the second half of Poul Anderson's Technic History science fiction. He first appeared in 1951.The space opera series is set in the 31st century, during the waning days of the Terran Empire...
series)
- The Van Rijn Method (2008), collects:
- "The Saturn Game" (1981)
- "Wings of Victory" (1972)
- "The Problem of Pain" (1973)
- "Margin of Profit" (1956)
- "How to Be Ethnic in One Easy Lesson" (1974)
- "The Three-Cornered Wheel" (1963)
- "A Sun Invisible" (1966)
- "The Season of Forgiveness" (1973)
- "The Man Who Counts" (1958)
- "Esau" (also known as "Birthright") (1970)
- "Hiding Place" (1961)
- David Falkayn: Star Trader (2009)
- Rise of the Terran Empire (2009), collects:
- Mirkheim (1977)
- "Wingless" (also known as "Wingless on Avalon") (1973)
- "Rescue on Avalon" (1973)
- "The Star Plunderer" (1952)
- "Saragasso of Lost Starships" (1951)
- The People of the Wind (1973)
- Young Flandry (2010), collects:
- Ensign Flandry (1966)
- A Circus of Hells (1970)
- The Rebel Worlds (1969)
- Captain Flandry: Defender of the Terran Empire (2010), collects:
- "Outpost of Empire" (1967)
- The Day of Their Return (1975)
- "Tiger by the Tail" (1951)
- "Honorable Enemies" (1951)
- "The Game of Glory" (1957)
- "A Message in Secret" (1959)
- Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight of Terra (2010), collects:
- "The Warriors From Nowhere" (1954)
- "Hunters of the Sky Cave" (also known as "A Handful of Stars" and We Claim These Stars) (1959)
- "The Plague of Masters" (also known as "A Plague of Masters" and Earthman, Go Home!) (1960)
- "A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows" (1974)
- Flandry's Legacy (2011) collects:
- "A Stone in Heaven" (1979)
- "The Game of Empire" (features a daughter of Flandry) (1985)
- "A Tragedy of Errors" (1967)
- "The Sharing of Flesh" (1968) (HugoHugo AwardThe Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
, NebulaNebula AwardThe Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
) - "Starfog" (1967)
- "Let the Spacemen Beware" (also known as The Night Face, does not feature Flandry, a shorter 1960 version was known as "A Twelvemonth and a Day) (1963)
Time Patrol
- "Time Patrol" (1955)
- "Brave to be a King" (1959)
- "Gibraltar Falls" (1975)
- "The Only Game in Town" (1960)
- "Delenda EstDelenda Est"Delenda Est" is a short story written by Poul Anderson, part of his Time Patrol series. The title alludes to the Latin phrase Carthago delenda est from the Third Punic War.-Plot summary:...
" (1955) - "Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks" (1983)
- "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" (1983)
- "Star of the Sea" (1991)
- The Year of the Ransom (1988)
- The Shield of Time (1990)
- "Death and the Knight" (1995)
The shorter works in the series have been collected numerous times over the years, in Guardians of Time (1960, contains 1, 2, 4 and 5; expanded 1981 edition adds 3), Time Patrolman (1983, contains 6 and 7), Annals of the Time Patrol (1983, contains 1-7), The Time Patrol (1991, contains 1-9), and Time Patrol (2006, contains 1-9 and 11).
History of Rustum
- Orbit UnlimitedOrbit UnlimitedOrbit Unlimited is a science fiction novel by Poul Anderson, first published in 1961. Essentially a linked group of short stories, it recounts the colonisation of the planet Rustum, a fictional terrestrial world orbiting Epsilon Eridani, by a group of refugees from an authoritarian planet Earth...
(1961) - Fix-upFix-upA fix-up is a novel created from short stories that may or may not have been initially related or previously published. The stories may be edited for consistency, and sometimes new connecting material—such as a frame story—is written for the new novel. The term was coined by the science fiction...
novel created from "Rustum" short storiesShort StoriesShort Stories may refer to:*A plural for Short story*Short Stories , an American pulp magazine published from 1890-1959*Short Stories, a 1954 collection by O. E...
first published in magazines from 1959 to 1961. - New America (1982) - Collection that includes four "Rustum" stories plus two unrelated stories.
- My Own, My Native Land - Rustum story first published in the anthology Continuum 1 (1974) edited by Roger ElwoodRoger ElwoodRoger Elwood was an American science fiction writer and editor, perhaps best known for having edited a large number of anthologies and collections for a variety of publishers in the early 1970s.-Biography:...
. - Passing the Love of Women - Rustum story first published in Continuum 2 (1974)
- A Fair Exchange - Rustum story first published in Continuum 3 (December 1974)
- To Promote the General Welfare - Rustum story first published in Continuum 4 (September 1975)
- The Queen of Air and Darkness - First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1971 and the winner of the Nebula Award for Best NoveletteNebula Award for Best NoveletteWinners of the Nebula Award for best Novelette. The stated year is that of publication; awards are given in the following year. Winning titles are listed first, with other nominees listed below.-External links:* * *...
(1971), Hugo Award for Best NovellaHugo Award for Best NovellaThe Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...
(1972), and Locus Poll Award, Best Short Fiction (1972). - Home (1966) - First published in the anthology Orbit One (1966). Also published as The Disinherited.
- My Own, My Native Land - Rustum story first published in the anthology Continuum 1 (1974) edited by Roger Elwood
Maurai
- MauraiMauraiThe Maurai series was a series of short stories and a novel by Poul Anderson set in a resource depleted, post-apocalyptic earth several centuries in the future. The series is named after its most frequent protagonists, citizens of the Maurai Federation...
and KithKith (Poul Anderson)The Kith are a starfaring culture featured in a number of stories by Poul Anderson:*"Ghetto" *"The Horn of Time the Hunter" *The novel Starfarers - John W. Campbell Memorial Award nominee, 1999...
(1982), collects: - "Ghetto" (1954)
- "The Sky People" (1959)
- "Progress" (1961)
- "The Horn of Time the Hunter" (also known as "Homo Aquaticus", 1963)
- "Windmill" (1973)
- Orion Shall RiseOrion Shall RiseOrion Shall Rise is a science fiction novel by Poul Anderson as part of his Maurai series, published in 1983.The novel is set several hundred years after a devastating nuclear war which has pushed back the level of technology....
(1983) - Related: There Will Be TimeThere Will Be TimeThere Will Be Time is a science fiction novel by Poul Anderson. It was published in 1972 in a hardback edition by Doubleday and in 1973 in a paperback edition by New American Library....
Kith
The KithKith (Poul Anderson)
The Kith are a starfaring culture featured in a number of stories by Poul Anderson:*"Ghetto" *"The Horn of Time the Hunter" *The novel Starfarers - John W. Campbell Memorial Award nominee, 1999...
, a persecuted starfaring civilization, is featured in:
- "Ghetto" (1954)
- "The Horn of Time the Hunter" (also known as "Homo Aquaticus", 1963)
- The novel Starfarers (1998) -- Campbell Award nominee, 1999
Harvest of Stars
- Harvest of Stars (1993)
- The Stars Are Also Fire (1994) (Prometheus AwardPrometheus AwardThe Prometheus Award is an award for libertarian science fiction novels given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society, which also publishes a quarterly journal Prometheus. L. Neil Smith established the award in 1979, but it was not awarded regularly until the newly founded Libertarian Futurist...
) - Harvest the Fire (1995)
- The Fleet of Stars (1997)
Other novels
- Flight to Forever (1950)
- Vault of the Ages (1952)
- Brain WaveBrain WaveBrain Wave is a science fiction novel by Poul Anderson first published in serial form in Space Science Fiction in 1953, and then as a novel in 1954...
(1954) - Question and AnswerQuestion and AnswerQuestion and Answer is a science fiction novel by Poul Anderson that originally appeared in the June and July 1954 issues of Astounding Science Fiction...
(also known as Planet of No Return) (1954) - No World of Their Own (1955)
- The Long Way Home (1958)
- Perish by the Sword (1959)
- War of Two Worlds (1959)
- The Enemy Stars (also known as "'We have fed our sea—'") (1959) -- Hugo Award nominee, 1959
- The High CrusadeThe High CrusadeThe High Crusade is a science fiction novel by Poul Anderson about the consequences of an extraterrestrial scoutship landing in Medieval England...
(1960) -- Hugo Award nominee, 1961 - Murder in Black Letter (1960)
- Twilight World (1961)
- After DoomsdayAfter DoomsdayAfter Doomsday is a science fiction novel by American writer Poul Anderson. It was published as a complete novel in 1962, having been serialized as The Day after Doomsday in the magazine Galaxy, between December 1961 and February 1962....
(1962) - The Makeshift Rocket (1962) (expansion of "A Bicycle Built for Brew")
- Murder Bound (1962)
- Shield (1963)
- Three Worlds to Conquer (1964)
- The Corridors of Time (1965)
- The Star Fox (1965) -- Nebula award nominee, 1965, Prometheus AwardPrometheus AwardThe Prometheus Award is an award for libertarian science fiction novels given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society, which also publishes a quarterly journal Prometheus. L. Neil Smith established the award in 1979, but it was not awarded regularly until the newly founded Libertarian Futurist...
winner - The Fox, the Dog and the Griffin: A Folk Tale Adapted from the Danish of C. Molbeck (1966)
- World Without Stars (1966)
- Tau ZeroTau ZeroTau Zero is a hard science fiction novel by Poul Anderson. The novel was based upon the short story "To Outlive Eternity" appearing in Galaxy Science Fiction in 1967. It was first published in book form in 1970....
(1970) (expansion of "To Outlive Eternity") -- Hugo Award nominee, 1971 - The Byworlder (1971) -- Nebula Award nominee, 1971
- The Dancer from Atlantis (1971)
- There Will Be TimeThere Will Be TimeThere Will Be Time is a science fiction novel by Poul Anderson. It was published in 1972 in a hardback edition by Doubleday and in 1973 in a paperback edition by New American Library....
(1972) -- Hugo Award nominee, 1973
- NOTE: The future history of this novel includes the Maurai Federation mentioned above.
- Fire TimeFire TimeFire Time is a science fiction novel by Poul Anderson, first published in 1974. It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1975.- Plot introduction :...
(1974) -- Hugo Award nominee, 1975 - Inheritors of Earth (1974) with Gordon Eklund
- The Winter of the World (1975)
- The Avatar (1978)
- The Demon of Scattery (1979) with Mildred Downey Broxon
- The Devil's Game (1980)
- The Boat of a Million YearsThe Boat of a Million YearsThe Boat of a Million Years is a science fiction novel by Poul Anderson first published in 1989 and nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel that same year. It was also nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel and the Prometheus Award in 1990....
(1989) -- Hugo Award nominee, 1990; Nebula Award nominee, 1989 - The Longest VoyageThe Longest Voyage"The Longest Voyage" is a science fiction short story by Poul Anderson. It won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1961.-Plot summary:On a distant world the age of exploration is beginning. A party of daring explorers attempts to circumnavigate their world...
(1991) - War of the Gods (1997)
- Genesis (2000) -- John W. Campbell Memorial AwardCampbell award (best novel)The John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel for best science fiction novel was created in 1973 by writers and critics Harry Harrison and Brian W. Aldiss to honor Campbell's name...
, 2001 - Mother of KingsMother of KingsMother of Kings is a historical novel by Poul Anderson. It was first published in 2001 by Tor Books. The book is an account of the life of Gunnhild, Mother of Kings, a tenth-century queen of Norway and wife of King Eirik Bloodaxe. It is based largely on the accounts of Gunnhild's life given in...
(2001) - For Love and Glory (2003)
- Fire Time
Collections
- Orbit Unlimited (1961)
- Strangers from Earth (1961)
- Twilight World (1961)
- Un-Man and Other Novellas (1962)
- Time and StarsTime and StarsTime and Stars is a collection of science fiction short stories by Poul Anderson, published in 1964."Dangerous universe: Faced with machines that think by and for themselves, super-intelligent space beings bent on a suicidal course and a galaxy teeming with dangerous alien life, man had to invent...
(1964) - The Fox, the Dog, and the Griffin (1966)
- The Horn of Time (1968)
- Beyond the Beyond (1969, contains: MemoryMemory (Poul Anderson)Memory is a science fiction narration by Poul Anderson, first published in 1957.- Plot :In a far future, people are distributed over a large number of planets, many of which have lost contact with Earth's civilisation...
[originally A World Called Maanerek], 1957; Brake, 1957; Day of the Burning [originally Supernova], 1967; The Sensitive Man, 1954; The Moonrakers, 1966; Starfog, 1967) - Seven Conquests (1969)
- Tales of the Flying Mountains (1970)
- The Queen of Air and Darkness and Other Stories (1973)
- The Worlds of Poul Anderson (1974)
- The Many Worlds of Poul Anderson (also known as The Book of Poul Anderson) (1974) — Edited by Roger Elwood
- Homeward and Beyond (1975)
- The Best of Poul Anderson (1976)
- Homebrew (1976)
- The Night Face & Other Stories (1979)
- The Dark Between the Stars (1981)
- Explorations (1981)
- Fantasy (1981)
- The Guardians of Time (1981)
- Winners (1981) (a collection of Anderson's HugoHugo AwardThe Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
-winners) - Cold Victory (1982)
- The Gods Laughed (1982)
- New America (1982)
- Starship (1982)
- The Winter of the World / The Queen of Air and Darkness (1982)
- Conflict (1983) (including, among other stories, the 1966 High TreasonHigh Treason (Anderson story)High Treason is a 1966 Science Fiction story by Poul Anderson.The story consists of the last words of Colonel Edward Breckinridge of Earth's space-bound armed forces, as he is about to executed by being ejected without a specesuit into the vacuum of interstellar space...
) - The Long Night (1983)
- Past Times (1984)
- The Unicorn Trade (1984) with Karen Anderson
- Dialogue With Darkness (1985)
- Space Folk (1989)
- The Shield of Time (1990)
- Alight in the Void (1991)
- The Armies of Elfland (1991)
- Inconstant StarInconstant StarInconstant Star is a science fiction novel by Poul Anderson. The stories Iron and Inconstant Star were first published in The Man-Kzin Wars and Man-Kzin Wars III, respectively.-Plot introduction:...
(1991) — Stories set in Larry NivenLarry NivenLaurence van Cott Niven / ˈlæri ˈnɪvən/ is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld , which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics...
's Man-Kzin WarsMan-Kzin WarsThe Man-Kzin Wars is a series of military science fiction short story collections , as well as the eponymous conflicts between mankind and the Kzinti that they detail...
universe. - Kinship with the Stars (1991)
- All One Universe (1996)
- Going for Infinity
King of Ys
- Roma Mater (1986) with Karen AndersonKaren Kruse AndersonKaren Kruse Anderson is the widow and sometime co-author of Poul Anderson, and mother-in-law of writer Greg Bear.She is noted as the first person to use the term filk music in print. She also wrote the first published science fiction haiku , "Six Haiku"...
- Gallicenae (1987) with Karen Anderson
- Dahut (1987) with Karen Anderson
- The Dog and the Wolf (1988) with Karen Anderson
Operation Otherworld
- Operation Chaos (1971)
- Operation LunaOperation LunaOperation Luna is a science fantasy novel by American writer Poul Anderson, published in 2000; it is the sequel to the 1971 fixup novel Operation Chaos by the same author....
(1999) - Operation Otherworld (1999) — omnibus containing "Operation Chaos" and "Operation Luna"
Other novels
- Three Hearts and Three LionsThree Hearts and Three LionsThree Hearts and Three Lions is a 1961 fantasy novel by Poul Anderson. It is also a 1953 novella by Poul Anderson which appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction.-Plot:...
(1953) - The Broken SwordThe Broken SwordThe Broken Sword is a fantasy novel written by Poul Anderson in 1954. It was issued in a revised edition by Ballantine Books as the twenty-fourth volume of their Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in January 1971. The original text was returned to print by Gollancz in 2002.-Plot:The book tells the...
(1954, revised in 1971) - Hrolf Kraki's SagaHrolf Kraki's SagaHrolf Kraki's Saga is a fantasy novel by Poul Anderson. It was first published by Ballantine Books as the sixty-second volume of the celebrated Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in October, 1973, and has been reprinted a number of times since...
(1973) -- British Fantasy Award, 1974 - A Midsummer TempestA Midsummer TempestA Midsummer Tempest is an 1974 alternate history fantasy novel by Poul Anderson. In 1975, it was nominated for the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel and Nebula Award for Best Novel and won the Mythopoeic Award.- Plot introduction :...
(1974) -- Nebula and World Fantasy Awards nominee, 1975
- NOTE: One character who appears in this novel is Valeria Matucheck, eldest daughter of Steve and Ginny Matuchek, protagonists of "Operation Chaos" and "Operation Luna". Though written between these two books, "A Midsummer Tempest" takes place after both. Holger Carlsen, of Three Hearts and Three Lions, also appears.
- The Merman's ChildrenThe Merman's ChildrenThe Merman's Children is a 1979 fantasy novel by Poul Anderson, inspired by Danish legends of Mermen and Mermaids from Danish folklore. Portions of the work had previously been published as an identically titled novella and the novelette "The Tupilak" in the anthologies Flashing Swords! #1 and...
(1979) -- Locus Fantasy Award nominee, 1980 - Conan the RebelConan the RebelConan the Rebel is a 1980 fantasy novel written by Poul Anderson featuring Robert E. Howard's seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. It was first published in paperback by Bantam Books in July 1980. It was reprinted once by Bantam and twice by Ace Books...
(1980) - War of the Gods (1997)
- The Merman's Children
The Last Viking
(biography of King Harald Hardråde)- The Golden Horn (1980) with Karen Anderson
- The Road of the Sea Horse (1980) with Karen Anderson
- The Sign of the Raven (1980) with Karen Anderson
Other novels
- The Golden Slave (1960) — Historical novel
- Rogue Sword (1960) — Historical novel
Anthologies
- Nebula Award Stories Four (1969)
- The Day the Sun Stood Still (1972) with Gordon R. Dickson and Robert Silverberg
- A World Named Cleopatra (1977)
Fictional appearances
Philip K. Dick'sPhilip K. Dick
Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...
story "Waterspider
Waterspider
"Waterspider" is a science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick, first published in 1964 in If magazine.Dick's story "Waterspider" features Poul Anderson as one of the main characters. The author refers also to himself and his stories, "The Variable Man" and "The Defenders". He also mentions...
" features Poul Anderson as one of the main characters.
External links
- Bio, bibliography and book covers at FantasticFiction
- Obituary and tributes from the SFWAScience Fiction and Fantasy Writers of AmericaScience Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, or SFWA is a nonprofit association of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. It was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight under the name Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc. and it retains the acronym SFWA after a very brief use of the SFFWA...
- Time Travel and Poul Anderson, by Dr Paul Shackley
- Poul Anderson's Future Histories, by Dr Paul Shackley
- Poul Anderson, an essay by William TennWilliam TennWilliam Tenn was the pseudonym of Philip Klass , a British-born American science fiction author, notable for many stories with satirical elements.-Early life:...
- The Society for Creative Anachronism, of which Poul Anderson was a founding member
- The King of Ys review at FantasyLiterature.net
By Poul Anderson
- On Thud and Blunder, an essay by Anderson on fantasy fiction, from the SFWA
- Poul Anderson's online fiction at Free Speculative Fiction Online