Call Me Joe
EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
This is the first in a multi-volume collection of Poul Anderson stories. The stories are not in any discernible pattern. I hope to include at least one story from the Pulps in each volume. Future volumes will also contain selected portions of his non-fiction writing on science fiction topics.
In this volume you will find a selection of his earliest works from his first published story, «Tomorrow’s Children», to «Genius», which discusses the dangers in social experimentation.
There are the stories of time travel. We meet, for the first time, Manse Everard in «Time Patrol». Poul wrote many stories about him. In «Wildcat» we are drilling for oil in prehistoric times to feed America’s needs. «The Man Who Came Early» shows us just how far a modern soldier suddenly sent back in time to the era of the Vikings can progress. «A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court», it isn’t. «Time Lag» explores war between two planets, separated by light years and without faster-than light drive.
The near future is represented by «Kings Who Die» showing the effects of war on society and the soldier who fight. There is «The Martian Crown Jewels» in which some priceless jewelry is stolen from an unmanned spaceship. A Martian detective, who bears a striking resemblance to a 19th century Earth detective who also appeared in «Time Patrol», solves the problem. «The Alien Enemy» examines the after effects on a colony invaded by an unknown enemy.
«The Double-Dyed Villains», «The Live Coward» and «Enough Rope» are three stories describing the adventures of Wing Alak. In his introduction to «The Double-Dyed Villains», in Astounding Science Fiction John W. Campbell noted that E. E. Smith described one way to run an empire, and that Poul Anderson described another.
We have the far future. The Hugo winning «The Sharing of Flesh» and «Starfog» both of which look at the reintegration of planets into a Galactic civilization after the collapse of empire.
Poul also wrote a huge amount of verse. A small but representative example will be found scattered throughout this volume.
Space considerations prevent a discussion of all the stories in this volume. You will find ideas and concepts in the stories that seem familiar and standard. That is because later writers incorporated the ideas that Poul articulated for the first time.
Rick Katze
November 2008
POUL ANDERSON
In 1962, at age ten, I came across Poul Anderson’s novel The High Crusade in a navy station library in Kodiak, Alaska. The library was well-stocked with science fiction novels and anthologies from the 1950s and 60s, but I remember being bowled over by this lean, elegant, and funny tale, full of unexpected twists and turns.
I followed Poul’s works with respect and admiration for years, but in 1970, his full range and brilliance became even more obvious when I read The Broken Sword and Tau Zero back to back. In 1972, I arranged to have Poul come south to speak at San Diego State College. When asked by a member of the audience (me) what it felt like to write a masterpiece like Tau Zero, he answered, from behind a wall of humility in which I could find no flaw, «Well, it was a good yarn, but really, just another story.» Utterly charming.
The story-tellers we discover in our own golden age of literature fill special places in our lives. They become part of our growing bones and blood, and our gratitude is almost that of child for parent. Ultimately, I was privileged not just to be guided by Poul Anderson’s fiction, but by the man and his family. I was brought into his life as with no other writer. He remains with me as a powerful presence, gentle and kindly, but also uniquely intelligent. His slightly veiled gaze, a paternal generosity of eyelids, seemed at once patient and friendly, but brows and lids could unpredictably vault to high and expressive arcs, revealing startled pale blue eyes. At rest, his face showed pleasantly bowed lips through which he delivered halting but well-formed speech, hands ascribing unbalanced curves in space. Hunched shoulders belied the strength of a man who fought in Society for Creative Anachronism tourneys; his face-folding smile, eyes almost disappearing, went perfectly with the slow rumble of his voice.
He had the gait of a wanderer who could go incredible distances—light years, really—without making a fuss.
Fine European beers were sipped on many afternoons of almost effortless conversation, punctuated by reflective moments of silence as we gathered our wits and reached for new words and fresh thoughts. Karen sat by him, symbiotic; doing embroidery, taking notes, planning trips to other lands for research, laughing and breaking into song at some fond memory of a convention or a filking festival; making sure that receipts were kept and novels were written to reflect the things learned on those journeys, for the tax man’s critical gaze.
Poul’s only enemy, I believe, was the tax man. But if a tax collector had dared show his face at the Anderson door in Orinda, he would have been treated with civility. He might not have been invited to stay or offered a beer, but I think he might have acknowledged having read Poul Anderson… and Poul might have thanked him and wondered what other bitter ironies the Norns had in store.
Poul was a modern skald, heir to the traditions of those who entertained weary Vikings centuries past. He could sing songs sad and happy with equal grace—crack a joke, spin out a yarn, create a wholly convincing world, with no apparent effort. He was an arch-libertarian, yet lived in the gentle and liberal climate of Orinda, near the People’s Republic of Berkeley; reveled in physics and math, yet wrote raucous limericks and rollicking comedies; was a wizard at describing strange aliens, asteroids, and spaceships, yet deft at creating entertaining and convincing human characters…
Some writers you picture sweating and swearing as they plot and compose. Poul I see grinning. This is not to say that Poul’s work is not serious, or that it came easily to him, or that he was not a master craftsman. He was just not the type to self-analyze or complain.
Poul’s first story was published in 1947. His first major fantasy novel was THE BROKEN SWORD (1954); the first major science fiction novel, BRAIN WAVE, was published in the same year. (Daughter Astrid also arrived in 1954.) He has since earned more Nebulas, Hugos, and other awards than any mortal fireplace mantle can hold.
As with so many writers in the mid-twentieth century, Poul was mentored by John W. Campbell, Jr., editor of Astounding Science Fiction, later Analog. Poul was not averse to incorporating some of Campbell’s ideas and storytelling prejudices, but more often than not, the result was original, more illustrative of Poul’s talent than Campbell’s philosophy. Their correspondence was long and fruitful. We still have a few letters to Campbell, but unfortunately, a peculiar sense of honor kept Poul from saving Campbell’s replies.
His fiction emphasizes the trials, contradictions, and victories of the competent and thoughtful individual. The long and tortuous travels of characters in history fascinated Poul, and he earned a reputation for mastering tales of time travel and alternate realities. Both wings of Poul’s eagle-span—the fantasy and the science fiction—seem to me superior in both spirit and discipline to most of the fiction of its day.
The Broken Swords chilly portrait of the relationships between elves and men was published just as the long reign of Tolkien began in the United States, though no doubt Poul and Karen had already read The Hobbit. Poul derived his material from the same sources as Tolkien—the Northern myths, and of course Wagner. But his take was Nordic. The woods are deeper in the far north—darker and colder.