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Overview
Poul Anderson himself has put together a retrospective collection of his recent writings, fiction and nonfiction, under the title All One Universe. This is the first major Poul Anderson collection in a decade. It encompasses all his strengths as a teller of tales and, in addition, provides a running commentary in the story notes and in the essays on other literary figures such as Rudyard Kipling, Johannes B. Jensen, and John W. Campbell, Jr., commentary that illuminates the fiction, gives personal insight into the mind of this fine writer, and provides a unifying personality for All One Universe. All One Universe, then, represents the new best of Poul Anderson. It is a rich, varied selection of quintessential science fiction as well as four essays, mostly from recent years, by one of the great science fiction writers of the century. His stories are filled with roaring energy, the soul of poetry, and dark imaginings.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780312870652 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tor Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 05/15/1997 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 309 |
| Sales rank: | 333,278 |
| File size: | 511 KB |
About the Author
The bestselling author of such classic novels as Brain Wave and The Boat of a Million Years, Poul Anderson won just about every award the science fiction and fantasy field has to offer. He has won multiple Hugos and Nebulas, the John W. Campbell Award, The Locus Poll Award, the Skylark Award, and the SFWA Grandmaster Award for Lifetime Achievement. His recent books include Harvest of Stars, The Stars are also On Fire, Operation Chaos, Operation Luna, Genesis, Mother of Kings, and Going for Infinity, a collection and retrospective of his life's work. Poul Anderson lived in Orinda, California where he passed away in 2001.
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) grew up bilingual in a Danish American family. After discovering science fiction fandom and earning a physics degree at the University of Minnesota, he found writing science fiction more satisfactory. Admired for his “hard” science fiction, mysteries, historical novels, and “fantasy with rivets,” he also excelled in humor. He was the guest of honor at the 1959 World Science Fiction Convention and at many similar events, including the 1998 Contact Japan 3 and the 1999 Strannik Conference in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Besides winning the Hugo and Nebula Awards, he has received the Gandalf, Seiun, and Strannik, or “Wanderer,” Awards. A founder of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, he became a Grand Master, and was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
In 1952 he met Karen Kruse; they married in Berkeley, California, where their daughter, Astrid, was born, and they later lived in Orinda, California. Astrid and her husband, science fiction author Greg Bear, now live with their family outside Seattle.
Read an Excerpt
All One Universe
By Paul Anderson
Tom Doherty Associates
Copyright © 1996 The Trigonier TrustAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-312-87065-2
CHAPTER 1
Strangers
We begin with a motif traditional but ageless, space travel and the beings that might live on other worlds.
This story is "hard" science fiction, meaning that it assumes nothing a present-day scientist would consider physically impossible. True, in it humans have reached a distant star, but they did not necessarily travel faster than light. Perhaps their ship got close to that speed, giving them the benefit of time dilation, or perhaps they passed a voyage of centuries in some kind of suspended animation, or perhaps—? Questions like this lie beyond the narrator's horizons. What questions lie beyond yours and mine?
Really hard science fiction implies more than a certain conservatism in the postulates. The details should be worked out to the best of the author's ability. I went to some trouble about stellar type, planetary masses and orbits, precession effects, evolutionary biology, and the consequences of these parameters. If, even so, the tale has a mystical quality, it's because that's how the narrator thinks, and because science itself opens our eyes to wonders and mysteries.
LAST NIGHT AS I stood on the clifftop at Hrau, seeking dreams, a ghost sailed by. The moon was well aloft, full, so bright that it flooded most stars out of heaven, for clouds had whitened nearly all its face. The light shimmered over darkful waves as if to make a path to Lost Motherland. Afar on my left, the northern horizon flickered with the campfires of the dead.
Wind lulled and ruffled my fur. It was cool, and full of salt odors to which my tendrils quivered. The surf broke utterly white, so far beneath me that the sound came low and steady, like the murmur of First River on its way to the sea when I was young. Here was a good loneliness in which to hope for dreams that would help me understand what this life has meant that now nears its end. I had not thought myself to be the kind that does—I am no saint or familiar of the Unseen—but the Watermother says I should, because of what happened long ago. Aia, how long ago!
Then as I waited, something glimmered yonder. It might have been a leaf, pale with autumn, which the wind hunted along the foam-crests. Yet it was too large, and fared too steadily, and it came not down the wind but across, from the east. Was this the form of my guide into sleep? A shiver and a shiver passed through me.
Still it neared, until suddenly it swung about. By that time it was so close that I could see what was below, the knife-lean shape cleaving its way, with a wake behind on which the moonlight shattered and swirled. My fin, already lowered, shut itself hard against my back. That was no canoe of ours passing by. That was a boat of the Night Folk.
Why have they come to seek us out, after these many years? What has changed in the Forest or in Lost Motherland, and is it of horror or of hope? Almost, I called out, but fear choked me and I crouched down, not to be seen against the western stars and the Sky Flow.
The ghost boat sailed in its swiftness and silence, following the shoreline but well clear of the breakers. As it moved away, dread left me. Might those be aboard whom I had known? I leaped to my feet, raised my fin to the full that moonlight might gleam off it, shouted and sprang about.
The boat sailed on. I do not know if they saw me. Surely they could have, as great as their powers are; but I do not know. The boat vanished southward. Grief welled up in me. I dropped to all fours, my tail lashed to and fro, I wailed for my loss, if it was indeed a loss.
No dream would come to me before dawn. Presently, though, calm did. I rose again and sang the song of farewell. After that I went home. Today I tell you of this that I have seen.
Most of you are young. You have heard the tales and learned the songs, but you do not know Lost Motherland as we few aged do who were born there and once walked on the downs and offered at the ancestral tombs. And I alone remain of those who ever saw the Night Folk. I alone sought them out in the Forest. We who remember have paid that price and suffered that loss which mortals must who deal with them; but mine was the sacrifice over and above this. Therefore you others do not know what you believe you know. I must try to tell you. Hear me.
It may be that the ghost boat was bound past on its way to some mystery beyond sight. It may be that the Night Folk have many times flitted about these islands unbeknownst to us. Did I only chance to see last night, or did they want me to see? That may have been the sending I sought, to make me ready; and after I am in my dolmen they will come by moonlight and whisper to me. Who can say? If they do seek you out, you will need the awe, the wariness, and also the eerie gladness that were ours, not as words but deep in your dreams. It is for your children and their children, who will not have countless ancestors to watch over them as we did, but merely us. Though you believe you have heard my story before, you have not really. Hear me.
For two days, people at home saw smoke drift up in the distance above Gneissback Fell. Ktiya had been a large thorp; it and its croplands were long in burning and longer still in smoldering after the Charioteers torched them. The sullen sight brooded behind us through our return to Oaua and haunted the following sunrise. At last it grew thin and the merciful winds scattered what was left. They could not blow the memories out of us, nor the forebodings. Ktiya was large, I say, and it had gotten the help of such other Wold People as spied the beacon fires that meant Charioteers were on their way to it. Nevertheless Ktiya perished. Oaua was small; and belike it would stand alone when next the destroyers came, for our kindred around the land would be in despair.
"But we drove them off, Ak'hai'i," my oath-comrade Izizi protested when I forced myself to utter this. "We killed several and hurt more—as you know better than anyone else among us—until they wheeled about and lashed their ehins to full speed eastward."
"They were a small party," I answered. "We had thrice the count of them, I think. Even so, they left our dead and wounded widestrewn. They withdrew in good order, taking their own fallen along, except for those two it happened we surrounded."
"You should sing of that, Ak'hai'i," he said.
I might well have, for it was I who led the charge that split the enemy line. We cut a single chariot off from the rest, and Ngi of Thunder Bay put a spear in the driver but it was I—I—I who sprang up over the rail and killed the warrior himself. My ax smashed his head before his blade gave me more than a shallow slash, and now that blade rested sheathed upon my breast.
But darkness had risen in me with the smoke of Ktiya. "They rallied at once," I said. "They could have cloven us asunder and hunted us down one by one as we fled. They did not, because it was not worth their trouble. They had done what they meant to do, and longed back to their horde."
We lay in the Male Lodge, we who had gone forth to battle and lived. Soon we would seek the females and their wisdom, but first we must come to terms with those of us whom we had carried home for burial, and with ourselves. Afterward we would explain as best we could to the females, and take counsel, and all together try to come to terms with the Unseen. Thus did the Wold People do in the old times. It is different today. Everything is different.
Coolness dwelt within the thick clay walls. Sunlight filtered through the matting in the doorway to make dusk for us. The thatch smelled of nightwort and dry forage, a peaceful smell. Our gaze we kept on the lampflame on top of the Block.
"What was it, then, that the Charioteers came to do?" asked Ngi. He and his family lived by themselves, strandfishing or venturing out into the bay on a raft more than they worked the soil. Therefore he had not heard as much as we did in our thorp, and until this moment, time and breath had been lacking for him to learn.
"To lay waste," I told him. "They have cleared that vale of people and crops. Naught will meet them when they return but the whistlewing above and the wanderbeast on the ground. Naught will be growing but forage for their herds. In this wise, piece by piece they take the world away from the Wold People."
"What drives them to such deeds?" Izizi cried.
I shrugged my fin. "Who knows? Maybe not even themselves. Or maybe the years have worsened still more in the far east than they have here, as the sun slips from her rightful path."
"They fall on us who never harmed them!"
"A flippertail may think the same of me when my net hauls him from the water," said Ngi harshly.
"They have the power, true," breathed from me, "the chariots and the iron." So did we call the terrible material that cut and stabbed, unbreakable, keener than the finest-knapped sharpstone. Nobody knew who first named it. The Watermother said the word might have come from the users. Sometimes they bore off captives, and maybe a very few of these had escaped over the years and made their way back.
"If I did," rumbled Ngi, "I would use it against them just as they do against us."
"But the fate is otherwise," I replied. "Now let us be silent, mingle our spirits with the lampflame, and find peace."
Stillness fell. It did not in me. I lay there with rage on my right side and grief on my left. What to do? At heavy cost, we had slain four or eight of a raiding party and I had brought back a weapon of theirs. What good was that when the horde had blades like stalks in a swale and we knew not how to make a single one?
At last I drew mine. The others were rapt and did not see. I looked at it and felt of it as I had done whenever we stopped to rest while homebound. It was almost as long as my arm, but at the middle no more thick than my outer thumb. A stone blade shaped like that could only be for ceremony, would shatter in use; the iron did not even chip. It sheened darkly, ice-smooth. The edges, which drew blood if I stroked them, had the beautiful curve of a sunseeker leaf. There was a guardian crosspiece at their top. The haft beyond was not merely shaped, it was a thing to itself, carven hardwood somehow fastened on and wrapped with leather, flaring out to a knob in which was set a crystal. When I lifted the weapon, it was heavy as stone, but so balanced that it came alive in my hand. The crystal gleamed in the dusk, an eye that watched me like the eye of a beast of prey.
For I was the prey. My people were. Surely I was not the first who ever won an iron blade for himself. It must have happened here and there, as our kind met the invaders. But what was the use? Unskilled, its possessor would fare worse in his next battle than if he bore familiar arms. Better he leave his prize behind in the tomb of his ancestors, to wait for him. Better still, maybe, that he sink it in a pool or thrust it into a hilltop. The Unseen might accept such an offering and grant peace of soul, or the Night Folk might take it and be pleased enough to give his kindred some small help.
The flame on the Block wavered. It called me, and my spirit followed. I came back to my body knowing what I must do.
In those days the Watermother of Oaua was Riao, old, wise, and deep in the mysteries. When I told her of my intent, we two alone in her house, she said more quietly than I had awaited, "This is a wildness in you."
"It is a hope," I answered. "I see none other."
"You are likeliest to find death or worse, you who have wife and children."
"I go because I have them."
"What is your plan?"
"None. How can I make any when I know naught? I will seek until I find the Night Folk, then I will beg of them or try to compel them, whatever seems best. There are tales of ancestors who had to do with them. My own grandmother saw one."
"They flit from the Forest, across the Wold, sometimes—oftener than we know, I think," Riao agreed. "Most people who have a glimpse are afraid to tell of it afterward. If you must venture this, why do you not rove the darkness closer to home?"
"How can I be sure I will meet any, though years pass in waiting? They come and go like the wind. Or they may well spy me and stay clear of me. Also, should I catch one, their anger may fall on the whole thorp; they may blight the crops and put a murrain on the livestock. By myself, off in their own country, I may well draw them to me, and they should understand that any offense against them is mine alone."
"That is well spoken," she said, "and you have hunted in the fringes of the Forest, at least. Depart, keep silence, and let me dream on this."
I left that dim hut behung with strange things and went to my home. When I entered, Hroai looked hard at me and sent our young outside. "Your fin is nearly white," she whispered. Waves of violet pulsed between the ribs of hers.
"It is in my mind to brave a certain danger," I told her.
"Again?"
"This is not another battle. It would be unlucky for you to hear more. Have I your leave to fare?"
She was a long while mute, though her fin darkened and lightened and darkened, her tail twitched, her fur stood briefly on end. At last she said, "I believe I know what you intend. For the children's sake, I will not speak of it. For good or ill, there is a fate in you. Let us have each other while we still may." And that night she loved me often and fiercely.
In the morning I went back to Riao. "You shall go," she declared, "but first I will teach you and give you that which may help."
And so I abode with her for three days and nights. What she taught me I may not reveal, only that certain signs I could watch for and certain spells I could cast were therein. At the end she took me to First River, where it cascaded into a shadowy coomb otherwise forbidden to males, and purified me. After that she gave me a lasso. "The groundvine whose fiber is in this grew on the tomb of my ancestors," she said. "I twisted it together by night, singing moonbeams in among the strands. It may bind one of those whom you seek. Be on your way."
"Let me return home and make my farewell," I asked.
"You dare not," the Watermother said.
Dawn was breaking above the mist and clangor in the hollow. I prostrated myself before her, rose, and climbed out to begin my journey.
From a hilltop I looked widely across the land. That sight is before me as I tell of it, clearer and more colored than this around us; but I was young then.
Shadows reached long and blue in the morning light. They brought forth the strong curves of the Wold, the downs rolling away and away on every side until I saw a thin gleam in the west that was the sea, the vales between their slopes, the river winding and shining through a web of lesser streams that trickled or tumbled to mingle with it. Autumn-tawny the land was, save where cultivation made small dark patches. A few scattered trees stood northward, stunted and wind-gnarled, forerunners of the Forest. Dolmens and passage graves brooded gray on heights.
Tiny and very dear was Oaua, the round huts clustered close together, hearthfire smoke seeping up out of their thatch. Hurdle-fenced pens encircled it like a lover's arms and legs. I knew the bustle and clatter of awakening, I knew that Hroai was already out in our fleshroot field with her digging stick while little Uo fed the animals and littler Lyang cleaned house and cared for the infant yet nameless, but none of this could I hear or see from where I was. I whispered, "Farewell" and started north.
The weather was chill. Even in the afternoon I needed only half unfold my fin to stay cool. Clouds drove low on blustery airs. It should not have been so. The sallowness of forage and shrubs recalled a wet, cold summer. When my mother was a child, snow seldom fell in winter; now most years saw several nights of black frost.
Late that day, following the river upstream, I came upon the Henge. I did not linger; those standing stones were too grim. The Wold People no longer met there for rites, as my grandparents had told me they once did. It was not that we believed a curse had fallen on the halidom. But when a watcher stood on the Flagstone at solstice, the sun did not rise above either Altar of the Seasons. Sacredness had gone after the heavenly paths turned awry; and weather bleakened and presently the Charioteers began arriving.
Nevertheless this remained a good land, Motherland, and I would keep it for us if my fate had might enough. So did I vow, then.
At eventide I made camp. My plan was to enter the Forest when the moon was full. Belike it would give more power to the Night Folk, but it would give sight to me. Meanwhile, though, I would use the dark for resting. I cut some withes, fashioned a weir, and staked it in the stream hoping my breakfast would be there at sunrise. I kindled no fire, which would have been troublesome to do and might draw a heed I did not yet want. Instead, I found pebbles to serve as a henge around me, within which I unrolled my blanket hide and ate of the dried provisions I carried.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from All One Universe by Paul Anderson. Copyright © 1996 The Trigonier Trust. Excerpted by permission of Tom Doherty Associates.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Strangers
Neptune Diary
Requiem for a Universe
John Campbell
In Memoriam
The House of Sorrows
Uncleftish Beholding (from The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle)
Losers' Night
Science Fiction and History
Rokuro
Rudyard Kipling
The Forest
Johannes V. Jensen
Fortune Hunter
Wolfram
The Visitor
Wellsprings of Dream
The Voortrekkers