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SF Great Poul Anderson, 1926-2001
"Friends,
Poul Anderson passed away last night, July 31-August 1, around midnight. During the afternoon, he received hundreds of emails and messages from friends and readers and fellow writers, which Astrid and Karen printed out and read to him. He died knowing (and how!) that he was loved and valued, and hearing how much his work had entertained and moved so many. Though he was weak at the end, there was no loss of mental capacity, and my last conversation with him was slow but sparkling with the curiosity and deep-seated gentlemanliness that Poul always had, and which was, I think, built into his whole body and being.
He is survived by his wife and writing partner, Karen, his daughter Astrid, brother John, grandchildren Erik and Alexandra, nieces Janet and Cathy, and by millions of readers.'
Poul Anderson was an extraordinarily rare kind of man, a brilliant writer with an impressive intellect who was yet always open, friendly, approachable, and a downright decent human being. I had the pleasure of meeting him and his wife Karen on several occasions over the years at BayCon, and I will always treasure the experience. I extend my sympathies to Karen and condolences to his family.
You can look up Poul's impressive bibliography or read an interview he did for Locus a few years ago. You can also read an obituary at the Locus site, or this notice at SFWA."
If Orson Scott Card quits writing, I don't know what I'll do :-(
I gave up Card a while back, but have you tried George R.R. Martin, Neal Stephenson, Dan Simmons, Greg Egan, Connie Willis, Tony Daniel, Michael J. Straczynski, Harlan Ellison, Larry Niven, or Ben Bova? Gardner Dozois makes a valid claim that there are good new authors out there. You just have to look for them.
For those who must have a morbid fascination with not dead yet lists see: Oldest Living Authors/Editors/Artists Obviously they haven't had time to remove Poul's name from that list. It is from the Internet Science Fiction Database (ISFDB) Derived Information page.
The question should be how many "Golden Age" authors are left that are still writing?
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
My favorite Poul Anderson work is the Time Patrol story "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth", which brings a tear to my eye every time I read it. It would have to be closely followed by The Boat of a Million Years, which makes being immortal sound like a burden. These show Anderson at his best, either taking the long view of history or making some ancient piece of the past seem alive and exciting. No other author I've read has had that delicate touch for history, and for that he will be missed.
Little known-fact: I read somewhere that Anderson's novel Three Hearts and Three Swords was one of the strong influences on the creation of Dungeons and Dragons.
As a side note, Greg Bear is also scheduled to be the Keynote Speaker at this year's LISA conference in San Diego. The speech is titled "Slime vs. Silicon--Life's a Bitch, But Would You Want to Be a Computer?" -- sounds like great fun :)
Poul Anderson touched many people as a writer, as a storyteller. He did not write abstruse literary fiction aimed only at those who wished to decode the symbolism and disregarded the story. His gift was an ancient one, that of drawing others into the web of his imagination and holding them there until he had said his peace.
Whatever his beliefs about the nature of man, Poul will live on in his work and in the hearts of those he inspired and enchanted both as a writer and as a man.
Northern skies, behold! A noble comes forth to take his place among you.
Additionally, if you like Sword, I highly recommend Anderson's Hrolf Kraki's Saga, his retelling of a Danish saga that is related to Beowulf. This story features Hrothgar, and Beowulf is essentially a footnote in Hrolf Kraki's tale. Operation Chaos is also a good fantasy by Anderson, much in the spirit of Heinlein's Magic, Inc.
--
"Deep in the ocean are treasures beyond compare,
Deep in the ocean are treasures beyond compare; but if you seek safety, it is on the shore.
May he go forth in the sunrise boat,
May he come port in the sunset boat,
May he go among the imperishable stars,
May he journey in the Boat of a Million Years.
-The Book of Going Forth by Daylight
He will be missed
Cool thing was, the class a few years later than me actually had a phone interview with him about one of his books.
Not much of a remembrance, just an author who'd take time out of his schedule to talk to a freshman writing class had to be pretty cool :)
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
Philip K. Dick... Richard Brautigan... Sturgeon... Avram Davidson... Frank Herbert... Bester... James Tiptree Jr.... Simak... Heinlein... Asimov... Fritz Leiber... Zelazny... A.E. van Vogt... L. Sprague de Camp... Adams.. Anderson...
Almost twenty years ago, as I hit my teens and began actually taking note of the names that appeared again and again under the titles of the stories and books that I loved (and that were teaching me, despite their often other-wordly subjects, more about the world than I ever suspected), I started noticing at the same time the obituaries, one or two a year, in a bad year three...
One after the other, writers who enriched -- and continue to enrich my life -- with their work.
Each death an icicle of regret in my heart. Yet another writer whom I will never have the chance to thank. And, selfishly I know -- another writer whose work has become, suddenly, finite and bounded, whose stories and books I must now ration (if I have not already read them all over and over), to stretch out my enjoyment as long as possible.
I will take Tau Zero and The Boat of a Million Years on my weekend trip tomorrow, and reread each for the third, or is it fourth, time... Paul Anderson wasn't even one of the authors whom I sought out most eagerly, but his work has rarely disappointed me, and he certainly places well in my personal "top 100" list. I'm sure he is near the top of the list for many. His death is a deeply felt loss to all lovers of SF. Thank you, Poul Anderson, and thank you again to all the other writers, living and no longer living, who have helped to make our lives worth living.
Kiscica (Adam Jacobs)
Locus Online.
No Truce With Kings...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Actually I'm sure it is...
/. story after this is about all messages being imbedded in Pi.
The
Which reminds me of what I believe was a Poul Anderson story, titled "Blip" or "Bleep" or "Bzzzt", or something like that.
In essence, they had an FTL communications method which always had a burst of static at the start of every message. At some point, our hero (in law enforcement) starts getting crime tips and information about his organization's activities that are supposed to be secret.
It turns out that the static burst contains ALL messages ever transmitted this way: past, present, and future, merely time-compressed into a brief burst of noise. Our heroine (the previously unknown party) decompressed this burst and began reading them, sending the tips to our hero.
Of some interest was that some of the messages were perfectly legible, but could not be understood for lack of cultural or scientific references. Our hero heard a call for help from the far future, but couldn't understand either the distress or what form help might be.
Kind of like fishing for messages in the digits of Pi.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
--
A warm night, a rumpled bed, crickets chirping outside, the scents of love's aftermath. She snuggled against him. Her locks spilled over the arm he had brought around her shoulders. "I've thought of what I want on my tombstone," he laughed.
"Each man dies
And ends his day.
Here he lies
Who used to lay."
"I won't get that after all," Guthrie said.
"But I will remember it," the robot said.
"Right. That's enough. Listen," Guthrie hissed. "I want
"Strange," the robot confessed. "A kind of--lightness? I'm an abstraction, I think." He sought for words. "But there is a, a drive yet, and I'm fond of my old friends, my old memories, yours. Not quite the same way as before--as you've been--but--but No, you were not very kind to Sheila today."
"Take care
"I will. She has." This also the robot shared. "Okay, what've you got to tell me about Fireball?"
Guthrie gathered strength.
"They're swarming around you already, aren't they?" he began. "Advice, requests, demands.... And you know
The seizure contorted him.
The robot knelt and held him close, mummy against metal, while it ran its course. "Shall I ring for help?" the robot asked. Anyone else would have done so immediately.
The expected "No" shivered to him. His vibrosensors felt the racking heartbeat, his chemosensors drank the swell of clam-cold sweat. "Hell with that. Never mind."
The spasm ended. The robot lowered the man to the pillow. Guthrie's right hand trembled toward him. "Stars," Guthrie pleaded. "Keep us aimed
"That night at the lake is in me too," the robot assured him.
The air was utterly still and unbelieveable clear, especially since the altitude was not much. Above the woods, stars were beyond counting. Their reflections gleamed everywhere on the lake. Anson and Juliana had the campsite to themselves; in those days, you had to backpack to here. They stripped and went for a swim. The water caressed them, almost warm. At each stroke it ran back down into itself with a clear clinking like laughter. They swam among stars. "Someday we'll do this for real," Juliana said. "Promise?"
"Good," Guthrie whispered. "Grand. That's what counts." He rested until he could speak a bit louder. "I'll drink to theat. The Scotch
"Better not," the robot counseled.
"I'm still in command."
The robot yielded. "You are." He crossed the room, fetched the bottle from a drawer as directed, returned, and poured into a tumbler meant for water. Kneeling again, he lifted the knaggy head and brought rim to lips.
"The stars," Guthrie mumbled.
Curtains rippled evening-lit in a gathering breeze. The grandfather clock reached another hour and boomed it away.
Alakaboo
Don't think anyone mentioned "The High Crusade" which is a very strong and funny book where English knights take over a UFO and take the Crusade back to the aliens. Funny, moving, just like a lot of his books.
Perhaps they'll re-release Three Hearts and Three Lions again. What a great book -- I have two copies. Surprised to read that it's hard to get, it's SUCH a good read.
Goodbye, Pohl, you'll be missed.
Agreed. Unfortunately, the "Science Fiction/Fantasy" section in the bookstore is about 98% fantasy nowadays (WHY do they throw those two together???) Good, hard science fiction is pretty rare nowadays, although not unheard of. I particularly like the Uplift series of books by Brin, who is a relatively young guy.
I've come to the point where I pretty much hate fantasy. I simply can't read another unicorn/elf/wizard book with the same plot about "geeky guy becomes hero" that basically tried to fill some geeky writer's personality holes. :)
Memo to bookstore owners: Separate the sections!!!
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Sadly, the way the mass culture is developing with visual media, with things like quake and MTV, well these things are not the things of great literature.
In history, during times when many men did not read, nothing much was written in the way of literature. This seems rather obvious to say it that way.
The question is, with the passing of these great authors, are we entering into another age when many men do not read?
We seem to be in an age of shallow men.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I remember when I finished Harvest of Stars, and then a few years later picked up The Stars Are Also Fire. Magnificent, both of them were absolutely awesome. It's a shame that he died before the ability to download himself became reality. He dealt with issues of liberty and self reliance, and also the morality of questioning authority when authority is Corrupt, yet is considered by most to be good(sounds like a country I live in). It opened my eyes to my own blind faith in Government(I was raised to have it). I've read many sci-fi novels, but no other books impacted my view of authority and reality. His books did and I will always remember those 2 works, especially the sequel. Good Bye Poul!(I'd say Mr. Anderson, but there's something too sinister about that ever since the Matrix).
Show me an effect without cause and then I'll believe in chaos.
Having watched someone fight along and often hopeless fight with cancer, I extend deepest condolences to the Anderson family. I can only hope that their loss will be made more bearable by the great legacy that Poul left behind.
:-(
Like (I'm sure) many slashdotters, I grew up reading as much science fiction as I could get my hands on. Poul Anderson was one of those who produced a great deal of the best work which I so eagerly digested, along with the likes of Heinlein, Asimov, Foster, and Bradbury. (antiflame: this list is by no means intended to be complete) Lately, it seems that there are fewer and fewer such bright lights in this trade. If Orson Scott Card quits writing, I don't know what I'll do
Take care, Poul.
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