Tau Zero - Poul Anderson

I decided to sign up for the 2012 Grand Master Reading Challenge, organized by World Without End. The goal is to read and review a work by a different Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award winner every month. I decided to start with Poul Anderson, who was honoured with the award in 1998. Tau Zero (1970) is one of his better known works. It was nominated for the Hugo Award in 1971 but lost to Larry Niven's Ringworld. It is a very good example of hard science fiction, written in a time when the direction of the genre was being drastically changed by the arrival of new age authors. The novel is an expansion of the short story To Outlive Eternity which was first published in Galaxy Science Fiction in 1967. I'm not going to hold back on spoilers in this review, the title of the short story gives is one already anyway. You have been warned.

Fifty men and women are sent on the spaceship Leonora Christine to explore and, if possible, colonize a planet more than thirty light years away. To make the trip in a reasonable span of time, the spaceship has to approach the speed of light and make use of the time dilation effects that become appreciable at such speeds. Before deceleration can be set in, the engines needed to slow down the ship are severely damaged. Repairing them would mean shutting the acceleration engines off as well, which would result in a quick death from intense radiation. The ship's speeds keeps increasing, hurling the crew ever faster through space and time. Unless they can find a way to slow down the crew is doomed to live out their life on board the space ship.

Tau Zero is science fiction so hard it cuts diamonds. A physics lesson and a novel rolled into one. The publisher kindly provided the formula for the time contraction factor Tau, which equals the square root of 1 minus v squared divided c squared, where v stand for velocity and the constant c is the speed of light. In other words Tau equals zero when v equals c (everybody still with me?). In a more practical sense, the closer the speed of the ship gets to the speed of light, the larger the difference between time passing for the crew and time passing outside the ship. I understand that Anderson's use of Tau is a bit unorthodox but for narrative purposes it serves very well.

In a way, Anderson uses Tau to show us just how large the universe really is, something he is rather fond of doing in his other science fiction novels as well. As the velocity of the ship approaches the speed of light, minutes, hours, days, years and eventually aeons pass for every second of ship time. Galaxies are crossed, then clusters and super clusters to the point where time and distance becomes meaningless. In the end, Anderson takes us to the death of the universe itself and there a bit of speculation seeps in. The debate about the eventual fate of the universe is still raging, Anderson assumes the universe is cyclic and will eventually contract into a new singularity and expand again after a big bang. Although science has not come up with the proof for this yet, in literature the death and rebirth of the universe does make for a wonderful theme.

That's quite a lot of physics and cosmology for the reader to take in. The more experience science fiction reader will have come across these elements before. Alastair Reynolds for instance, include much more exotic science into his works. Anderson explains the physics clearly, even the more counter intuitive elements of relativity, but spares us quantum mechanics. Personally, I enjoyed the scientific passages a lot. That is my personal taste however, it will no doubt put some readers to sleep in a few pages. This novel requires some interest in physics and cosmology to really appreciate.

One might think that this would be enough science for a single novel but Anderson also throws in quite a lot of detail about the Bussard engine of the spaceship. This theoretical way of propelling a ship was first proposed in 1960 and has appeared in a number of science fiction novels by such authors as Larry Niven and Carl Sagan. It is basically a fusion engine which uses the minute quantities of free hydrogen in space to propel the ship. There has been a lot of debate about whether or not a ship powered in such a way would actually be able to reach relativistic speeds, but it's an ingenious idea anyway. Again Anderson explains the design of the engine and its limitations, which play a large part in the efforts to slow the ship down, very clearly. I thought the engineering was a bit less interesting than the cosmology but it is central to the plot and Anderson makes sure not to overdo it.

Hard science fiction has a reputation of paying less attention to character and character development. For Tau Zero that is definitely true. I guess you could consider the two people we meet in the opening chapter, the compassionate Ingrid Lindgren and the brusque Charles Reymont to be the main characters. They appear to be the people who keep the crew together and sane as Earth becomes an ever more distant memory. They are mostly people dealing with problems of the crew's morale and organizing efforts to solve their technical problems. Although towards the end of the book things get a bit more philosophical (the death and rebirth theme does have an effect on them), there is very little in the way of development in their characters.

Most of the novel is set in space so the future history of Earth is not all that important. We do get a glimpse of a society where Sweden has become the centre of power in the world after a nuclear war that almost doomed the planet. IKEA everywhere, surely this must count as a dystopia. Anderson, American of Danish descent, also weaves in some reverences to Scandinavian mythology, something that returns in many of his novel. It's a bit of an odd contrast really, the cyclic nature of the universe as described in this novel, reminded me more of Hindu mythology.

According to the blurb on the cover, James Blish considers this book the ultimate hard science fiction novel. There is something to be said for that. I have rarely read a novel with such rigorous scientific underpinnings. Anderson had a degree in physics and in other novels it is quite clear that he thought about the properties of fictional planets he created. In Tau Zero he takes it way beyond that and makes physics the main character. The scope of the novel, in time and space is almost beyond comprehension (something the author points out several times in the text). Anderson takes hard science fiction as far as it will go, in that sense it is the ultimate novel in this particular sub-genre. That being said, it does not escape the shortcomings generally associated with the sub-genre. I'd say it is a must read for fans of hard science fiction only.

Book Details
Title: Tau Zero
Author: Poul Anderson
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 190
Year: 2006
Language: English
Format: Mass Market Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-575-07732-4
First published: 1970

Flandry's Legacy - Poul Anderson

Flandry's Legacy is the conclusion to Baen's project to publish all Anderson's works in the Technic Civilization in chronological order. In total the series covers seven volumes and over 3,000 pages, all published between 1951 and 1985. This last volume contains two novels and four shorter pieces that cover almost four millennia in Anderson's future history. I must admit that after reading the previous volume, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Kinight of Terra, I suffered from a bit of a Flandry overdose. I'm not a huge fan of this character, it turns out. In this volume, Flandry makes his final appearance before Anderson takes us into the Long Night and out the other end. I had high hopes for this last part in the sage and indeed, I enjoyed the last stories in the collection a lot.

The collection opens with the last novel in which Flandry is the main character: A Stone in Heaven (1979). Miriam Abrams, the daughter of Flandry's mentor Max Abrams is a xenologist studying a primitive culture on a planet where civilization is time and again cast back into the neolithic by the fluctuating output of its sun. The world is moving towards severe glaciation again but this time, the empire is in a position to fix it and save what Miriam considers to be a fascinating culture. The Duke of Hermes, the imperial noble who'd have to provide this aid, is reluctant to do so however. Miriam is forced to go over his head and asks Flandry for aid. Not surprisingly Flandry thinks the matter smells fishy. Especially when the Duke tries to persuade Flandry form taking his side. Why doesn't he want Flandry nosing around this seemingly insignificant planet?

Another plot against the emperor by a man with megalomaniac tendencies. It suits the James Bond like character Flandry I suppose. You can feel Flandry is tired of it all by now though. In this story he is in his sixties and not in the good graces of the emperor. He feels the Long Night rapidly approaching and it hangs like a dark cloud over the story. Even more than in other stories. To indicate Flandy is ready to call it a day, Anderson even has him stay with Miriam permanently. I suppose the plot isn't too surprising but it is one of the better written Flandry novels. It also includes a very interesting planet (seven times Earth's gravity causes some interesting adaptations). His victory is bitter sweet. A fitting end of the adventures of a hero of the Terran Empire.

I consider A Stone in Heaven the last real Flandry novel but he does make a brief appearance in The Game of Empire (1985), which is set a couple of years later. It's the longest piece in this collection and one of the last stories Anderson wrote in the Technic Civilization setting. Perhaps Anderson meant to come full circle in this novel. The novel has strong ties with Ensign Flandry (1966), the first novel Flandry starred in (see Young Flandry). This time it is his illegitimate daughter Diana who is the star of the show however. As resourceful as her father, she ends up in the middle of yet another rebellion against the weak emperor. Although the rebellions admiral has wide support, some still feel all these civil wars are worse for the empire than poor government. Soon it becomes clear that it isn't a purely internal affair either. The Merseians have a hand in the violence as well.

The Game of Empire is a bit unusual in the sense that is shows us most of the action from the point of view of someone who doesn't have all that much information of what is going on. Flandry is always ferreting out information, his daughter is merely trying to make a living. As a result, the involvement of the Merseians remains unclear right until the very end of the novel. It's another ambitious plot that has taken decades to hatch. You'd think a species with that much foresight and patience would have done in the Terran Empire ages ago. Again it's a plot we've come across before but I must admit feisty Diana is a breath of fresh air into the series.

Next up is A Tragedy of Errors (1967), the first story set in the Long Night. As the title suggests it is a tragedy. Both the Merseian and Technic civilisations have collapsed and the galaxy is overrun by pirates and warlords. Some planets have lost space faring technology altogether. The loss of contact from galactic civilization forces some populations to adapt. This can be physically but language also shifts. Communication with isolated populations remains problematic. Something trader and sometimes pirate Roan Tom is about to find out as he approaches a backwater planet. It's an interesting concept, personally I think the story is a tad too long if one reads it on it's own. It does give the readers of the entire series a good look at what is going on during the Long Night though.

The Night Face (1963) shows us a population who has undergone a physical adaptation to their planet after being trapped there during the collapse of the Commonweath. The population of this planet, Gwydion, missed the entire Terran Empire. Now, one of the local powers emerging from the rubble of the Empire sends an expedition to re-establish contact. The Gwydion have developed a culture in which myth and symbolism are extremely important. The significance of the phrase Night Face is hard to unravel through all the linguistic and cultural interference but the expedition can't shake the feeling that something awful is about to happen. I like this story a lot. It strikes the right balance between detail of the planet's culture and environment and the pace at which the riddle is unravelled. Probably the strongest tale in the collection.

In The Sharing of Flesh (1968) we see an even more extreme survival strategy. Again an isolated planet is visited by an expedition of a more advanced culture to see if they can lift the population out of their confinement on the planet. Things go seriously wrong when one of the scientists, a recently married man, is killed and eaten by one of the natives. Cannibalism it turns out, is engrained in every culture on the planet. The widow's own culture demands revenge but the scientist her husband was, would have pointed out that within their cultural framework, there is nothing unusual about the killing. How much cultural relativism is acceptable? Anderson could not have foreseen it but it's a very relevant question at the moment given the western world's struggle with Islamic extremism. The Sharing of Flesh is a very strong and tragic story. Definitely a close second behind The Night Face.

The last story in the collection makes a three thousand year jump in history and shows us a glimpse of what lies on the other side of the Long Night. In Starfog (1967) a more loosely tied group of words called the Commonality has sent and agent to the outlying planet of Serieve, where the local officials are holding the human crew of a space ship claiming to have come from a different dimension. For the fans of hard science fiction there is a lot of interesting astronomy in this story. I liked the bit where the consequences of not being able to see beyond a certain point in space for the development of theoretical physics and astronomy were discussed. Apart from that I didn't think it was a particularly strong story though. I didn't care for the main character or the way in which he holds the whole expedition hostage to chase his own agenda.

And there we have it, Anderson's entire Technic Civilization sage. It's an impressive body of work. Although Anderson repeats himself a number of times, overall I enjoyed reading these stories. They range from rather pulpish (the 1950s Flandry short stories) to the poetic and slightly fantastical story The Saturn Game, which opens the entire saga (see The Van Rijn Method). Reading through these collections, the various stages in Anderson's development as a write are clear to see. I can't say that I enjoyed very story on this long journey but it certainly is an achievement in 20th century science fiction that is not to be overlooked. Baen did us a service by collecting them all in this manner. For the real Poul Anderson fan this series is a treasure. I wish they'd paid a bit more attention to the cover art however. The Flandy books in particular are graced with some of the worst covers that are out there at the moment.

Book Details
Title: Flandry's Legacy
Author: Poul Anderson
Publisher: Baen
Pages: 574
Year: 2011
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-4391-3427-6
First published: 2011

Sir Dominic Flandry - Poul Anderson

Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight of Terra is the sixth part in Baen's project to publish all of Poul Anderson's works in the Technic Civilization universe in chronological order. We're nearing the end of Anderson's future history. The seventh and final volume, Flandry's Legacy, is expected in April. This edition is again marred by some truly horrific cover art. I have a hard time deciding which of the volumes with Flandry in the title has the worst cover. I guess Baen is trying to emphasize the James Bond is space image of Flandry but it could have been done a bit more tastefully. Can you see yourself reading this one the train getting home from work? I'm going to have to keep this cover carefully hidden from visitors. Lets get back to the actual content. This volume contains three full length novels as well as well as a short story. The most interesting piece was the last novel in the collection, A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows.

The collection opens with A Plague of Masters, which fist appeared in Fantastic in 1960 and 1961. On the way back from a successfully completed assignment Flandry notices the isolated planet of Unan Besar that, depending on how you interpret the border, may or may not be part of the Empire. This kind of isolation strikes Flandry as odd. He decides to investigate and uncovers a society in which a small group of people hold the entire population hostage. Flandry himself also seems to have made himself dependent on their hospitality.

The concept of this story is quite intriguing, a component of the planet's ecology being toxic to humans and killing them in a matter of weeks if they do not take a medicine produced by the ruling class. Lest they forget, withholding the treatment is occasionally used as a way to publicly execute criminals. Anderson shows how the ruling class benefits from isolation and how a static society evolves on Unan Besar. Flandry's actions still follow the same mold that Anderson uses in most fo the other Flandry stories though. Flandry spots a problem, gets himself in a terrible mess, figures out a way to defeat impossible odds and rides off into the sunset with the girl. Still, I enjoyed this one more than some other Flandry stories.

The second full novel in Sir Dominic Flandry is Hunters of the Sky Cave (1959), in which our hero is once again pitted against his arch-nemesis Archaraych. On the fringes of the empire, out in the wild, uncontrolled galaxy, countless planets harbouring warlike sophonts have gained access to faster than light technology and massively destructive weapons. One such people is laying siege to the Terran colony of Vixen, only this time, they seem to come from within the empire's borders. Which raises the question who supplied them with the necessary technology? The gas giant dwelling Ymirites are the prime suspect but after a meeting with Mersiean spy Archaraych, Flandry suspects a deeper game.

It's another well-plotted but not terribly surprising novel. It builds one one of the elements that shows up frequently in Anderson's works, namely that conflict between sapient species only arises if they are after the same "real estate", planets with conditions suitable for colonization. It is this string that Flandry yanks to unravel the whole tangle of misdirection, deceit and lies. Once again Flandry saves the Empire from a costly defeat.

The Warriors from Nowhere is the only short story in the collection. It was originally published in 1954 but the revised 1980 version was used for Sir Dominic Flandry. During a raid on one of the Terran colonies at the fringe of the empire, the favourite grand-daughter of the emperor is taken to be sold as a slave. Flandry is sent after the raiders to recover her. The 1980 version isn't all that good, I suspect the original version was quite pulpish indeed. Flandry does live up to his reputation in this one.

The final novel of this volume is A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, which first appeared serialized form in 1974. It was written much later than most of the Flandry novels and stories and it shows in the writing. Although Flandry doesn't shake his James Bond aura entirely, he's not quite the same in this novel either. The empire is in a dreadful state after the death of emperor Josip. After years of civil war it becomes apparent that Hans will take over. He still has much work to do before the empire is stable again however. One such task lies on Dennitza, where the seeds of rebellion are about the sprout in a full blown civil war. A semi-retired Flandry is coaxed back into active duty to meet the threat. He leaves in the company of a slave girl, condemned to slavery for treason on Dennitza.

We get to see a side of Flandry Anderson didn't expose until now. At this point in the overall story is he is a middle-aged man and lost his drive for more adventure on behalf of the empire a bit. This new mission he is sent on certainly revives some of that. I guess it is in part Flandry's On Her Majesty's Secret Service. He finally meets a woman he would want to spend the rest of his life with. This part of the plot ends in predictable tragedy of course. The novel also features the final showdown between Archaraych and Flandry, a part of the novel I was more interested in. One other interesting plot line is provided by Flandry's illegitimate son. You'd think birth control would be a simple matter in the thirty-first century but apparently Flandry has quite a few children. Using these elements Anderson provides us with a plot that is more multi-layered than other Flandry novels. It adds to his up to this point rather one dimensional character. Definitely the best part of this volume.

I must admit that reading Captain Flandry, I had begun to tire of this character. Anderson does use the same basic plot for many of these stories and indeed, this volume contains mostly more of the same. The last novel contained in Sir Dominic Flandry has given me hope that the last volume may contain some more interesting work though. There are two more Flandry novels to go in the next volume, both of them written later in Anderson's career. I seem to like the ones Anderson wrote later in life a lot more than the early stuff. Let see how Anderson takes us into the Long Night and beyond in Flandry's Legacy.

Book Details
Title: Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight of Terra
Author: Poul Anderson
Publisher: Baen
Pages: 432
Year: 2010
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-4391-3401-6
First published: 2010

Captain Flandry - Poul Anderson

Captain Flandry: Defender of the Terran Empire is the fifth part in Baen's project to collect all the stories in Anderson's Technic Civilization and publish them by internal chronology. Three of the previous four books centred on the characters of Nicolas van Rijn and David Falkayn. In book four, aptly named Young Flandry, a new hero takes over. It is graced by one of the most horrific covers I've come across although Captain Flandry is giving it a run for its money. This cover even got the attention of the bad cover art blog Good Show Sir! I suppose it is the content that counts however, so let's have a look at that.

Captain Flandry contains six stories. One full novel and five shorter works, including the first Flandry story ever published. The collection opens with Outpost of Empire (1967). This novella length work does not feature Flandry but is does incorporate many of the elements that return again and again in the Flandry stories. A world far from the centre of the empire is on the brink of rebellion. A rebellion partly incited by the Empire's rivals: the Mersians. Incompetently governed, the local officials are quickly outgunned. Fortunately the empire can draw on more resources. Outpost of Empire is probably the best piece in the collection. It features a well thought out world and an unusual society. As with many of these border conflicts Anderson describes in this series, the ways of warfare are superbly adapted to the local environment. Flandry sometimes takes a rather arrogant view on what he calls barbarism. The voluntary barbarians in this story might have been more to his taste.

Next up is the only full novel in the collection. The Day of Their Return (1975) is the newest work in this book. From a technical point of view it is probably the best written. This novel marks the entry of a notable enemy of Flandry, although the Captain himself will not make an appearance in this book. The Mersian agent and telepath Ayrcharaych visits the world of Aeneas, also the setting of the novel The Rebel Worlds contained in the previous volume, to stir the rebellion on that planet to life. Carefully feeding the fires of religious fanaticism it almost succeeds. I thought the previous novel set on this planet was mediocre but I must admit I quite liked the return to this world. Anderson develops the Aeneas a lot further than he did in the previous book. Part of the story is a bit predictable, one of the main characters is a quite naive young man, but the overarching conflict between de Empire and the Mersians is very well done. I'd rank this one just behind Outpost of Empire.

At this point Flandry himself shows up in the collection and the quality of the stories goes downhill quite a bit. The next story is the very first Flandry story ever published: Tiger by the Tail (1951). Although the version contained in this book has undergone some editing by Anderson in the 1970s, they are still quite pulpish. In Tiger by the Tail Flandry wakes up on an alien space ship after being drugged by an attractive woman. As it turns out Flandry is being abducted by a civilization outside the Empire. It has been fast-forwarded into the space age, not giving the culture the time it needs to catch up. A galactic empire is their dream but Flandry quickly shows them they are terribly naive about galactic politics. Anderson may have polished the original but the plot is still very cliché and quite predictable. I'm not impressed with this first Flandry story.

Nor with the second as it happens. Honourable Enemies (1951) is the first encounter between Flandry and Ayrcharaych. In this story the two empires once again battle for control of a (backward) border world. Flandry can't figure out how Ayrcharaych guesses his every move until they discover he is an exceptionally talented telepath. How do you fool someone who can read your mind? Flandry's (very beautiful) colleague Aline knows the answer. The story is too cheesy for words, especially the fact that Aline is secretly in love with Flandy. I know James Bond hadn't been invented yet when Anderson wrote this but I am still surprised he actually managed to sell it to a magazine. Besides Flandry's romantic entanglements, the plot is self is very straightforward and won't fool the reader for a second about how Flandry is going to fool his enemy. This is by far the weakest story I have encountered in this series. Fortunately Anderson grew a lot as a writer in later decades.

The collection then moves on to The Game of Glory (1958). In this story chases a lead on a possible rebellious movement on the aquatic world of Nyanza. When he arrives at the planet the official Empire representative on the planet has been murdered and Flandry rolls right into a deadly situation. Slightly better than the two previous two stories, the setting in particular is quite interesting. And Flandry doesn't even get the girl this time! A Message in Secret (1959) is the final story in the collection. Set on an interesting world where the dominant culture seems to have reverted to a kind of central Asian nomadic existence, Flandry is yet again faced with the task of rooting out a possible uprising. The way he goes about asking the Empire to send in the cavalry is quite interesting.

All in all I was not too impressed with this collection. Thankfully the two works really worth reading make up some two-thirds of the total collection so the four mediocre stories ending it don't make it a disappointment. Captain Flandry does suffer from repetitions of various kinds. Flandry or another protagonist states the inevitability of the Long Night in each story at least once. A number of them also follow the same plot. The Mersians try to shake a border world loose from the empire, Flandry finds out about it and investigates, Flandry finds he is hopelessly ill prepared, Flandry overcomes these challenges anyway (and gets the girl). This volume offers very little variation compared to the previous books (Rise of the Terran Empire in particular). It wasn't a punishment to read but Anderson has written better material. I hope the sixth volume, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight of Terra, expected in December 2010, contains better stories.

Book Details
Title: Captain Flandry: Defender of the Terran Empire
Author: Poul Anderson
Publisher: Baen
Pages: 405
Year: 2010
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-4391-3333-0
First published: 2010

Young Flandry - Poul Anderson

This book is part four in Baen's ongoing project to publish all of Anderson's work in the Technic Civilization in chronological order. The cover of this book is so hideous that I almost gave up on this project. It left Aiden at A Dribble of Ink speechless. After reading the first three, none of which were graced by particularly good cover art, I thought it would be a shame to give up now though. In part three, Rise of the Terran Empire, we witnessed the last adventures of Nicolas van Rijn and David Falkayn, marking the end of the Polesotechnic league era of Anderson's future history. We also see humanity slip into a dark age and witness the rise of the Terran Empire. In this Terran Empire phase of history most of the remaining stories in the Technic civilization is set. As the title of the book suggests a new hero enters the stage. Dominic Flandry.

Young Flandry contains three full length novels depicting Fandry in his younger years. As the cover suggests Flandry is something of a James Bond in space so I was not entirely sure I wanted to read this book. I must say, the James Bond thing was not quite as bad as I feared. In the first novel Ensign Flandry (1966) we meet naval pilot Fandry fresh out of the academy and posted on the planet Starkad where the Empire and the Merseians are at a stand off. Each is supporting one of the two primitive sentient species living on the planet. Each supporting one species in a conflict over resources. The fate of these two species is of course not why the Terran Empire bothers with a planet that offers little in the way of resources. They are merely trying to block Merseian expansion. Merseia on the other hand seems to be heading for outright conflict, gradually scaling up the level of hostilities on the planet. Nobody quite understands why. Flandry will be instrumental in finding out.

I liked this first novel more than I expected I would. The Merseian plot turns out to be quite complicated and it helps open Flandry's eyes to the faults of the Empire and it's inevitable demise. The instruction he receives from Max Abrams, an intelligence officer who recognizes competence when he sees it. This encounter on Starkad will determine the shape of Flandry's career. It sets the tone for the rest of this volume, introducing a tired and decadent empire but also pointing out why it is still useful and why men like Flandry can still make their fortune serving it. Interesting politics, interesting description of the planet and the Bond theme not too obvious. A good start of this book.

In A Circus of Hells (1970) we fast-forward a couple of years. Flandry has gained a bit of a reputation on Starkad and has received additional training for service as an intelligence officer. Two years after the events in Ensign Flandry he has been promoted to Lieutenant stationed on the planet Ironclaw. Flandry finds himself with what looks like quite a shady business opportunity when one of the local underworld figures asks him to swing by a rogue planet on one of the patrols he's scheduled on. This would of course be reason for a court martial if his superiors learnt of it but the deal is sweetened by a female companion and a heap of cash. Flandry accepts, but not for the obvious reasons as we'll find out.

This novel contains a lot of references to stories in the Polesothechnic League phase of the Technic Civilization which was one of the more interesting parts. On the whole I didn't like this book much. Flandry's female companion annoyed me to no end. I thought she was a very unconvincing character. For someone who's had a pretty rough life she's painfully naive at times. She combines phases of competence with hysterics and is frequently used by the author to offer Flandry a chance to be hero. Anderson makes up for some of this by introducing one of the more interesting planets I've come across in his work. A world with such and elliptic orbit that temperatures change dramatically during the seasons. The way life has adapted to such an environment is one of the more interesting aspects of the novel. It doesn't save it from being mediocre though.

The final novel contained in this book is The Rebel Worlds (1969). In this novel Flandry deals with a different kind of threat to the empire. As always the Merseians are causing trouble on the border and most of the attention of the empire is directed in that direction. On the other side of the empire a cruel governor has managed to spark a rebellion against imperial rule. Lead by one of the empire's most respected admirals it poses a serious risk to the stability of the empire. It must be crushed quickly no matter what the grievances that caused it. With most of the fleet on the Merseian border not many men are available to take on the job. Flandry, for the occasion raised to commander, is sent to the region to investigate.

I guess this novel shows the choice Flandry has made to work to maintain the empire as long as possible best of all three novels in this book. It's an interesting choice, for most heroes in such tales it would be more obvious to look ahead. Flandry only sees the Long Night, an alternative worse than anything the empire can throw at its people. It also shows that Flandry will not shun ethically dubious actions to prolong the empire's life. His attitude towards the rebellion is one of the things I found most interesting about this novel. It does include a woman of course, Flandry stories can't seem to do without, but this time she is portrayed as unfailingly competent. Their relationship contains some unnecessary drama but it does not have quite as much impact on the novel as a whole as in A Circus of Hells. I'd rate this one somewhere between the first and second novel in Young Flandry.

A tired old empire doomed to go under and a young hero fighting to maintain it. Besides the parallel with James Bond I wonder if there is a connection with Asimov's Foundation series. The first book in this series was published in 1951, the same year as Anderson's first Flandry story, although short stories that eventually lead to the novel were published as early as 1942. I guess I am going to have to read Asimov some time to find out. I have mixed feelings about this book, in part I quite enjoyed it but Flandry's Wein, Weib und Gesang attitude does become annoying at times. I think I'll stick around to see how Anderson manages Flandry in shorter works though. Captain Flandry, the next volume in this project, contains some of the earliest Flandry stories and will also introduce his Blofeld, a Merseian agent by the name of Ayrcharaych. In other words, to be continued when I get around to reading the next volume.

Book Details
Title: Young Flandry
Author: Poul Anderson
Publisher: Baen
Pages: 526
Year: 2010
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-4391-3327-9
First published: 2010

The van Rijn Method - Poul Anderson

I'm currently reading The Terror by Dan Simmons which is a massive book. Over 900 pages in mass market paperback. Obviously I will not be able to finish this for a midweek review so to keep you all entertained I put up an older review I meant to add a while ago already.

In my efforts to get a bit better acquainted with the classics of the science fiction genre I came across this book. Poul Anderson was a prolific author in fantasy, science fiction and historical fiction. A couple of years ago I read one of his last novels Mother of Kings, a historical work based on the life of the tenth century Norse queen Gunnhild. The prose of that book requires a bit of patience on the reader’s part but both the subject and style of that book appealed to me. In science fiction Anderson is probably best know for his work in the long running Technic civilization setting. Between 1951 and 1985 Anderson wrote countless novels and stories in this universe. Baen is now collecting these in seven books, The van Rijn Method being the first.

Although the Technic civilization stories share a setting there is no overarching story, all the works in this volume can be read independently. The editor, Hank Davies, has chosen to order the stories by internal chronological, which differs greatly from the order they were published in. Although Anderson rarely mentions years or even references to other stories in the setting the order seems to be roughly correct, the historical progress matches at least. According to the chronology in the back of the book, drawn up by Sandra Miesel, this first book encompasses the period from ca. 2055 to the 2420s. A period where humanity is exploring the galaxy and colonizing new worlds. This era also sees the rise of the Polesotechnic League, a galactic mercantile organisation of significant power and influence. Many of the stories in The van Rijn Method deal with representatives of this league.

The first story in the collection the Hugo and Nebula Award winning The Saturn Game (1981) does not feature the league however. It is set in the 2050s when humanity has started exploring the gas giants and their moons. On the journey to Saturn, which at sub light speeds takes years, a fantastic role-playing game provides part of the crew with relief from the tedium of space travel and the claustrophobic environment of their spacecraft. But when distinction between reality and fantasy start to blur the game becomes a danger to the crew. This novella is a beautiful piece of fiction. With his poetic style he manages to make the transitions between the game and reality so smooth as to be hardly noticeable. Like the characters the reader could easily loose itself in the game. A stronger opening of this collection is hardly imaginable.

In the stories Wings of Victory (1972) and The Problem of Pain (1973) we fast-forward a couple of centuries to the time when humanity has developed faster than light travel. The galaxy is still an awfully big and dangerous place though. In both these stories Anderson exposes us to earth-like world where, despite their deceptively familiar environment, danger lurks in every corner. Anderson also spends quite a bit of time on the problems of communication with alien species. These stories show the thought Anderson put into the physics of the planets he describes. There is quite a bit of scientific explanation on the how and why of unexpected events and encounters on these alien worlds. I’m not quite sure I agree with his approach on evolution though, he seems to believe a similar environment will send species down a similar evolutionary path. In a way that makes sense but I have to feeling it is too simplistic, and too linear, a view of evolution. It does provide a good rationalization for encountering numerous humanoid aliens though.

In Margin of Profit (1956, revised 1978) we are introduced to the man who gives the collection it’s name. Nicholas van Rijn is a big, loud, influential and rather rude space trader. He appears to be of Dutch origin and regularly butchers the English language (apparently on purpose). The original story Margin of Profit was published in 1956 but Davis included the 1978 rewritten version in this collection. In the story van Rijn outsmarts his opponents by pointing out simple economic principles. Van Rijn is one of Anderson’s most popular characters. I must admit, I am not sure why. The man is never seems to have escaped the Dutch East India company mentality that made the Dutch rich at the expense of Indonesia in particular. Pretty much all he does is complain he is too old and fat for a job and moan that the whole universe is against him, a simple poor trader. Obnoxious to say the least. Van Rijn does have his talents though. Mostly for thinking his way out of difficult situations and, preferably, have someone else do the hard work.

Anderson cleverly creates a lot of uncertainty about van Rijn’s motives by mostly portraying him through the eyes of other characters. We are never quite sure about why he does things or whether his ignorance, blunt language or anger are real or a mask. His opponents invariably end up underestimating him. This technique is very prominent in the full length novel contained in this collection, the author preferred text of The Man Who Counts, first published in serialized form in Astounding Science Fiction in 1956.

One of Anderson’s other recurring characters is David Falkayn, van Rijn’s most promising employee. Falkayn is a rather cocky young man. In the 1966 story A Sun Invisible he tries to charm a young woman out of information about her home planet she is not supposed to reveal to him. Another story, The Three-Cornered Wheel (1963), see him reinvent the wheel to get around the religious restrictions in a society who’s help Falkayn and his companions need to get their broken down ship of the planet. By the end of this volume he is still in his twenties so maybe he’ll overcome that much too high opinion of himself in later stories. The second volume in this series, David Falkayn: Star Trader, will feature a number of Falkayn stories.

On the whole Anderson’s stories are rather light on character development so whether Falkayn will become more likeable remains to be seen. Anderson stories contain a lot of interesting scientific concepts and studies of various religions and social structures. It makes for interesting reading even if the quality of the stories is a bit uneven. The choice to present these stories in chronological rather than publication order means the reader frequently moves between various stages in Anderson’s development as a writer. Just the setting does not quite provide enough continuity to make this collection a coherent whole in my opinion. Still, there’s some pretty interesting short fiction here, if you can overcome an unsympathetic main character in some of them. Anderson’s rigorous scientific underpinning combined with a more literary style compared to his contemporaries sets his work apart in a way. Like much of the golden age science fiction it is a bit dated but I think this collection is definitely worth reading. I will be reading the second part in this series to see where Anderson’s future history takes us.

Book Details
Title: The van Rijn Method
Author: Poul Anderson
Publisher: Baen
Pages: 450
Year: 2008
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-4165-5569-8
First published: 2008

Rise of the Terran Empire - Poul Anderson

Rise of the Terran Empire is the third in a series of seven books collecting all of Anderson's writings in the Technic civilization setting. The stories are presented by internal chronology and in this book we have reached the boundary between the two eras Anderson put most of these stories in. The time of the Polesotechnic league, Nicolas van Rijn and David Falkayn and the era of the Terran Empire and Dominic Flandry. The previous two books contained quite a few pieces of short fiction but this third tome includes two full novels with room left over for four shorter works. One of these, Sargasso of Lost Starships, originally published in Planet Stories, appears for the first time in book form so if you are a completist this is a must have.

The collection opens with the 1977 novel Mirkheim. It features both Falkayn and van Rijn in what will be their last adventure. A war between a recently civilized alien species and the Commonwealth over a planet rich in rare metals Falkayn discovered earlier in his career, shows just how unprepared, weak and utterly divided the Commonwealth and the Polesotechnic league have become. Van Rijn decides to gather the crew of spaceship Muddlin' Trough for a mission of intelligence gathering before hostilities break out.

It features some peculiar monologues by van Rijn of the virtues of being an independent trader and the evils of government and regulations. Given the state of the league and van Rijn's unmistakable dissatisfaction with it, I must say I have some trouble grasping his position at times. Anderson creates a very dark, gloomy atmosphere in this book, as if everybody is waiting for the end of an era, which I suppose is what this book heralds. I thought it was an interesting read but the second novel contained in this volume is more interesting.

Before we get to that there are a few shorter pieces first though. Wingless (1973, sometimes referred to as Wingless on Avalon) is the first of a number of stories in this collection featuring the birdlike Ythrians, and a joint human/Ythri colony on Avalon. A descendant young descendant of Falkayn spends a lot of time in the company of a group of rather condescending Ythrian youths. They soon find out that being able to fly isn't a benefit in all situations. This story was a bit too moralizing for my taste. It doesn't help that the next one is a variation on this theme.

Rescue on Avalon (1973) is another story of Ythrian/human interaction on Avalon. A young human finds himself the only one close enough to assist a Ythrian in serious trouble after a big storm. He secretly holds a grudge against the Ythrians but rescues him anyway and learns there is strength in diversity. Same comment as the previous story really.

In the next story, The Starplunderer (1952), we meet the founder of the Terran Empire. The commonwealth has weakened to a point where human controlled space is being overrun by barely civilized alien races. During the second sack of earth John Henry Reeves is taken prisoner by the Gorzuni. On the ship carrying him away from earth he meets Manuel, a man with designs to take over the ship and he can use John's help to achieve this aim. Manuel has quite a megalomaniac streak. It makes him a very interesting character. Given the pivotal moment in Technic history it describes I am surprised it never made it into one of the earlier collections of Technic history material. I quite liked it.

In Sargasso of Lost Starships (1951) we see the empire several generations after Manuel founds it. It's still expanding rapidly. Basil Donovan, former nobleman from a recent addition to the empire is dragged away on a mission to explore a nearby nebula. The Terrans do not know what to expect but he has been there before. It is not a place he particularly wants to return to. This 1950s story is a bit pulpy, which I generally do not like. Anderson creates a very alien and somewhat scary atmosphere in Sargasso of Lost Starships that made me overcome my usual feelings of pulp SF. It's creepy but I liked it a lot.

The novel People of the Wind (1973), which got Anderson Nebula, Hugo and Locus award nominations, closes this volume. In this novel a large Terran fleet sets out to readjust the border with the Ythrian dominated Dominion. The Dominion does not seem to stand a chance against the might of the Terran Empire but especially on Avalon, people have decided to make conquest as expensive as possible. For such a short novel Anderson uses an awful lot of different points of view. On the one hand this gives us a very detailed idea of what is going on. On the other, I didn't quite grow attached to any of them. Anderson includes quite a bit of personal drama in his story. I think it could have had a bigger impact if he had focussed to story on a few less characters. It is nonetheless the best piece in this collection, not at all hard to see why it got all those award nominations.

The two stories I did not like where the shortest of the bunch, so overall I liked this volume quite a lot. Without the focus on van Rijn and Falkayn it is a bit more varied than the previous volume David Falkayn: Star Trader. The transition from the Commonwealth to the Empire is, despite the fact that these stories were written over a period of twenty-five years, a recognizable overarching theme in all if them. When you think about this, it certainly is an achievement to write such an impressive future history completely out of chronological order and end up with something that on most levels makes sense. The fourth volume, Young Flandry, is published this month. Despite me liking this book a lot, I still haven't decided whether I will buy a copy. The cover art is an atrocious for one thing. For another, Flandry is something of a James Bond in space. I am not entirely sure if that kind of story suits me. No regrets on purchasing Rise of the Terran Empire though, I just wish Baen had continued this series in hardcover instead of switching to paperback.

Book Details
Title: Rise of the Terran Empire
Author: Poul Anderson
Publisher: Baen
Pages: 480
Year: 2009
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-4391-3275-3
First published: 2009

David Falkayn: Star Trader - Poul Anderson

David Falkayn: Star Trader is the second in a series of seven books collecting the writings of Anderson in his Technic Civilization universe. Publisher Bean has decided to publish them in order of internal chronology, which is not the order in which they were written. In the first instalment, The van Rijn Method, we see humanity's first exploration of the universe, the origins of the Technic Civilization and the formation of the Polesotechnic League, a mercantile organisation that soon acquires vast fortunes and political influence beyond that of a mere government. In this book the Polesotechnic League is at the height of it's power. The seven works collected in this volume mostly deal with the exploits of members of the league. Most notably Nicholas van Rijn and David Falkyan.

Territory (1961), the opening story of the collection, sets a pattern we'll see throughout this book. It is set on a planet where van Rijn sees trade opportunities. Van Rijn has taken it upon himself to investigate thee situation on the planet and finds a colony of idealists from the planet Esperance already there, trying to guide the rather primitive population into the modern age. For some reason the creatures take offence and attack. Van Rijn and one of the Esperancian Joyce Davidson have to find a way to survive long enough for help to arrive. Of course van Rijn won't settle for mere survival, he is in the game to make a profit and, as usual, understanding the alien culture is key to achieving both these goals.

Like many van Rijn stories, we get to see the man through the eyes of another character, in this case Joyce. These stories show us that neither van Rijn nor Falkayn are very sympathetic characters. Van Rijn is loud, rude, at times condescending and a sexist. That last quality is something he shares with Falkayn, who seems to think he is James Bond. Women in these stories are usually somewhat helpless creatures, irresistibly attracted to Falkyan or to a lesser degree van Rijn. This is one of the things I didn't like about these stories, especially since this shallow portrayal of women is present in just about any story featuring either van Rijn of Falkayn. Territory is worse than most in this respect however.

The Trouble Twisters (1965) is one of the longer stories in the collection and introduces us the regular crew of Falkayn and his ship Muddlin' Through. Again they are on a planet trying to negotiate a trade agreement with the largest empire around when Falkayn takes it upon himself to rescue a damsel in distress (how typical). This act may seem noble but it does lead to series trouble with the empire they are trying to negotiate with. Soon Falkayn finds himself up to his eyeballs in political intrigue. Not a very profitable situation. He will need all his skill as well as the help of his crew mates Chee and Adzel to find a way out of this mess.

This story clearly shows that the Polesotechnic League is not above a little arm twisting. There is no such thing as a prime directive, whether the culture is in the stone age or on the brink of leaving the planet, as soon as there is a trade opportunity, the merchants move in. Even in The Day of Burning (1967), where Falkayn is trying to convince a primitive alien culture to prepare themselves for the effects of a supernova in their neighbourhood that threatens to wipe out their civilization, a profit is still required. That is not to say these cultures are helpless however. Another major theme in these stories is (not) underestimating the capabilities of a primitive culture. More than once the characters find themselves in very difficult situations because of an unexpected and in their minds irrational outbreak of violence.

One such outbreak is documented in the story The Master Key (1971), in which van Rijn hears the report of one of his crews on recent events on a planet that might be profitable. Although initially everything went fine and attack by the natives forced the party to return. In the conversation between the crew and van Rijn, the master merchant works out what provokes the attack. It is this ability to work our such matters than makes van Rijn so successful as a merchant. It is also by far the most interesting part in these stories. Anderson gives the environments in which he sets them and the cultures the traders encounter a lot of thought.

It's an ability he is going to need in Satan's World (1969), the only novel length work in this collection. It features both Falkayn and van Rijn. Looking for new trading opportunities they consult Serendipity Inc. An corporation that trades in information is such a way it is seen as strictly impartial. Their policy is such that people are willing to sell it information that they would otherwise keep secret. The universe has become so large that keeping up with even the smallest detail of it, has become impossible. Serendipity Inc. uses huge databases and computers to find and analyse information that may be useful to their clients. Sounds a bit like Google avant la lettre. They soon discover that maybe the company is not quite as neutral as it pretends to be. This story intrigued me early on, but later it fell into the pattern of the other stories, figure out the motives of an alien culture and how to make a profit out of it. The story does show the first cracks in the Polesotechnic League however. Falkayn at least is beginning to see there is more to the universe than profit.

A crack that is widened in Lodestar (1973), the final story of the collection. I am skipping A Little Knowledge (1971) here, a story that again is based on underestimating a less advanced culture, good read but not all that interesting. Lodestar is a van Rijn story that introduces his favourite grand daughter (and as far as I can tell the only (human) female in any of these tales with a decent brain). It is clear that van Rijn is up to something but we don't find out what until the last moment. Throughout the story we get hints that the Polesotechnic League is becoming more and more ruthless in it's operations, not shying away from violence, torture and murder if need be. Van Rijn still sticks with them however but we get to see in this story that Falkayn has decided to do things differently.

At the end of this book we near the end of the League phase of Anderson's future history. The next volume, Rise of the Terran Empire, will introduce the next phase in Technic History. Dominic Flandry, the main character in most of the stories from the Terran Empire period will not show up until part four however. I think this change of scene will be good for the readers not familiar with Anderson's work. The stories in this volume are starting to feel like repetitions and at times van Rijn's East India Company mentality annoys me tremendously. Anderson has shown he is not blind for the risks of an organisation like the Polesotechnic League however, it will be interesting to see what it's fate will be and what follows this era of uncut capitalism. This books has its ups and downs but Anderson's future history intrigues me none the less. I'd say the downs do not outweigh the ups in this volume, overall I liked it slightly better than The van Rijn Method.

Book Details
Title: David Falkayn: Star Trader
Author: Poul Anderson
Publisher: Baen
Pages: 492
Year: 2009
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-4165-5520-9
First published: 2009