Books

Short works

Books : reviews

Poul Anderson.
Strangers From Earth.
Ballantine. 1961

Contents

Earthman, Beware!. 1951
Quixote and the Windmill. 1950
Gypsy. 1950
For the Duration. 1957
Duel on Syrtis. 1951
The Star Beast. 1950
The Disintegrating Sky. 1953
Among Thieves. 1957

Poul Anderson.
Time and Stars.
Panther. 1964

(read but not reviewed)

Contents

No Truce with Kings. 1963
Epilogue. 1962
Turning Point. 1963
Escape from Orbit. 1962
The Critique of Impure Reason. 1962

Poul Anderson.
New America.
TOR. 1966

Contents

The Queen of Air and Darkness. 1971
Home. == The Disinherited. 1966
My Own, My Native Land. 1974
Passing the Love of Women. 1974
A Fair Exchange. 1974
To Promote the General Welfare. 1975
Our Many Roads to the Stars. 1975

Poul Anderson.
The Horn of Time.
Corgi. 1968

Contents

A Man to My Wounding. == State of Assassination. 1959
The Horn of Time the Hunter. == Homo Aquaticus. 1963
The High Ones. 1958
The Man Who Came Early. 1956
Marius. 1957
Progress. 1962

Poul Anderson.
Beyond the Beyond.
Coronet. 1969

(read but not reviewed)

Contents

Memory. == A World Called Maanerek. 1957
Brake. 1957
The Sensitive Man. 1953
The Moonrakers. 1966
Starfog. 1967

Poul Anderson.
Conquests (== Seven Conquests) .
Granada. 1969

(read but not reviewed)

Contents

Kings Who Die. 1963
Wildcat. 1958
Cold Victory. 1957
Inside Straight. 1955
Details. 1956
License. 1957
Strange Bedfellows. == To Build a World. 1964

Poul Anderson.
Tales of the Flying Mountains.
Tor. 1970

Contents

Nothing Succeeds Like Failure. 1970
The Rogue. == Industrial Revolution. 1963
Say It with Flowers. 1965
Ramble with a Gamblin' Man. 1970
Que Donn'rez Vous?. == What'll You Give?. 1963
Sunjammer. 1964
Recruiting Nation. 1970

Poul Anderson.
The Queen of Air and Darkness and other stories.
NEL. 1973

Contents

The Queen of Air and Darkness. 1971
Home. == The Disinherited. 1966
The Alien Enemy. 1968
The Faun. 1968
In the Shadow. 1967
Time Lag. 1961

Poul Anderson.
Homeward and Beyond.
Berkley. 1975

Contents

The Visitor. 1974
A man has a surprisingly lucid dream of a little girl living alone in a house. What connection does it have to reality?
Peek! I See You!. 1968
Wings of Victory. 1972
The Long Remembering. 1957
Murphy's Hall. 1971
The Pirate. 1968
Goat Song. 1972
Wolfram. 1975
A fictitious account of the etymology of tungsten's other name.
The Peat Bog. 1975

Poul Anderson.
The Best of Poul Anderson.
Pocket. 1976

(read but not reviewed)

Contents

Kyrie. 1968
The Longest Voyage. 1960
The Barbarian. 1956
The Last of the Deliverers. 1958
My Object All Sublime. 1961
Sam Hall. 1953
The Fatal Fulfillment. 1970
Hiding Place. 1961
The Sky People. 1959

Poul Anderson.
Explorations.
Tor. 1981

Contents

The Ways of Love. 1979
Starfog. 1967
The Saturn Game. 1981
The Bitter Bread. 1975
The Voortrekkers. 1974
Maybe the only way to explore the stars will be to copy human personas into computers. But who will volunteer, and what will be the effect on them?
Epilogue. 1962

Poul Anderson, ed.
Fantasy.
Tor. 1981

Contents

Pact. 1951
The Gate of the Flying Knives. 1979
The Barbarian. 1956
House Rule. 1976
The Tale of Hauk. 1977
Of Pigs and Men. 1979
A Logical Conclusion. 1960
The Valor of Cappen Varra. 1957
On Thud and Blunder. 1978
Interloper. 1959
Superstition. 1952
Fantasy in the Age of Science. 1981
The Visitor. 1974
A man has a surprisingly lucid dream of a little girl living alone in a house. What connection does it have to reality?
Bullwinch's Mythology. 1967
Sandra Miesel. An Invitation to Elfland. 1981

Poul Anderson.
The Dark Between the Stars.
Berkley. 1981

Contents

The Sharing of Flesh. 1968
Call Me Joe. 1957
The Voortrekkers. 1974
Maybe the only way to explore the stars will be to copy human personas into computers. But who will volunteer, and what will be the effect on them?
Night Piece. 1961
Eutopia. 1967
Windmill. 1973
Fortune Hunter. 1972
When only few wild places remain, jealously guarded, what might people do to go there?
The Pugilist. 1973
Gibraltar Falls. 1975

Poul Anderson.
The Gods Laughed.
Tor. 1982

Contents

A Little Knowledge. 1971
The Martyr. 1960
Details. 1956
Night Piece. 1961
When Half Gods Go. 1953
Peek! I See You!. 1968
Captive of the Centaurianess. 1978
Soldier from the Stars. 1955
The Word to Space. 1960

Poul Anderson, ed.
The Long Night.
Tor. 1983

Contents

The Sharing of Flesh. 1968
Starfog. 1967
The Star Plunderer. 1952
Outpost of Empire. 1967
A Tragedy of Errors. 1967
Sandra Miesel. A Chronology of Technic Civilization. 1979

Poul Anderson.
Past Times.
Tor. 1984

Contents

Wildcat. 1958
Welcome. 1960
The Nest. 1953
Eutopia. 1967
The Little Monster. 1974
The Light. 1957
The Discovery of the Past. 1984
Flight to Forever. 1950

Poul Anderson, Karen Anderson, eds.
The Unicorn Trade.
Tor. 1984

Contents

Karen Anderson. Six Haiku. 1962
Poul Anderson. Ballade of an Artificial Satellite. 1958
The Innocent Arrival. == Innocent at Large. 1958
Poul Anderson. Murphy's Hall. 1971
Poul Anderson. Fairy Gold. 1982
Karen Anderson. Haiku for Mars. 1982
Karen Anderson. Think of a Man. 1965
Dead Phone. 1964
Karen Anderson. Bela Lugosi. 1982
The Kitten. 1976
Karen Anderson. Apollo 1. 1982
Karen Anderson, Poul Anderson, Tim Courtney. Planh on the Death of Willy Ley. 1969
Single Jeopardy. 1958
Karen Anderson. In Memoriam: Henry Kuttner. 1958
Karen Anderson. Cyril M Kornbluth. 1984
Feast for the Gods. 1971
Karen Anderson. Theoretical Progress. 1964
Karen Anderson. Investigation of Galactic Ethnology. 1964
Karen Anderson. Look Up. 1965
Karen Anderson. The Sky of Space. 1963
Cosmic Concepts. 1961
Extract from the English Edition of a Guide Michelin. 1973
Karen Anderson. Robert A Heinlein. 1982
Karen Anderson. Treaty in Tartessos. 1963
Poul Anderson. A Philosophical Dialogue. 1971
Professor James. 1965
Karen Anderson. Landscape with Sphinxes. 1962
Karen Anderson. Alpha, Beta. 1982
Poul Anderson. A Blessedness of Saints. 1962
Karen Anderson. Origin of the Species. 1958
Karen Anderson. Conjunction. 1982
Karen Anderson. Adonis Recovered. 1982
Karen Anderson. The Piebald Hippogriff. 1962
Karen Anderson. The Coasts of Faerie. 1982
Karen Anderson. Shanidar IV. 1982

Poul Anderson.
Dialogue with Darkness.
Tor. 1985

Contents

Sister Planet. 1959
SOS. 1970
A Chapter of Revelation. 1972
The Life of Your Time. 1965
Time Heals. 1949
Conversation in Arcady. 1963
Dialogue. 1976
The Communicators. 1969

Poul Anderson.
All One Universe.
Tor. 1996

rating : 2.5 : great stuff
review : 2 January 1998

A collection of relatively recent short stories and non-fiction essays. The fictional premises verge on the 'hard' side of SF, rather than being fantasy. However, any science is kept mainly in the background, with the emphasis being on telling a story about people. There is some good stuff in here. I find the prose style in the fiction just slightly too lyrical for my liking -- but that probably says more about me than about Anderson (it's certainly infinitely preferable to some of the dreadfully clunky writing that gets published); Anderson has a real feel for language.

Contents

The Voortrekkers. 1974
Maybe the only way to explore the stars will be to copy human personas into computers. But who will volunteer, and what will be the effect on them?
The Visitor. 1974
A man has a surprisingly lucid dream of a little girl living alone in a house. What connection does it have to reality?
Wolfram. 1975
A fictitious account of the etymology of tungsten's other name.
Fortune Hunter. 1972
When only few wild places remain, jealously guarded, what might people do to go there?
Neptune Diary. 1990
(essay) An account of a week spent at JPL during the Voyager fly-by of Neptune in August 1989.
Strangers. 1988
Ak'hai'i asks help from the Night People, humans colonists on this planet, against the warring Charioteer race. The humans can help, but it costs both parties dearly.
Requiem for a Universe. 1987
A holothete attempts to calculate the ultimate fate of the Universe, but suffers a breakdown on the way. What terrible thing did he discover?
John Campbell. == Cambell in Memoriam. 1978
(essay) Eulogy for the SF editor John W. Campbell.
In Memoriam. 1992
The long-term future history of the Earth, from the death of the last man after global catastrophe, to the collapse of the sun into a white dwarf.
The House of Sorrows. == In the House of Sorrows. 1991
An alternate history story, where the Judaism never flourished.
Uncleftish Beholding. 1989
A short treatise on Atomic Theory, as it might read if English were restricted to its Anglo-Saxon roots only. So we have tale rather than number, togethermelt rather than fusion, round-around board of the firststuffs rather than periodic table of the elements, and so on.
Losers' Night. 1991
An Old Phoenix inn story. Tonight's guests may all be losers, one way or another.
Science Fiction and History. 1988
(essay) What sort of societies might make realistic SF backgrounds?
Rokuro. 1991
A SF story in the form of a Japanese No play. A priest pays a pilgrimage to a cometary mining colony where Saint Rokuro first sought enlightenment.
Rudyard Kipling. == 'Beyond the loom of the last lone star...'. 1988
(essay) An appreciation of Kipling's works.
The Forest. 1985
A Neolithic hunter searches for new land as the end of the Ice Age affects the climate.
Johannes V. Jensen. == The Fantasy of Johannes V. Jensen. 1981
An appreciation of the Danish writer and poet.
Wellsprings of Dream. 1993
The ideas of some scientists, including Freeman Dyson, Hans Moravec and Frank Tipler, that make much SF look positively pedestrian and conservative.

Poul Anderson.
Starfarers.
Tor. 1998

Poul Anderson.
Genesis.
Tor. 2000

Poul Anderson.
Mother of Kings.
Tor. 2001

Poul Anderson.
For Love and Glory.
Tor. 2003

Poul Anderson, ed.
Agent of the Terran Empire (== We Claim These Stars == A Handful of Stars) .
Ace. 1965

(read but not reviewed)

Contents

Tiger by the Tail. 1951
The Warriors from Nowhere. == The Ambassadors of Flesh. 1954
Honorable Enemies. 1951
Hunters of the Sky Cave. == Handful of Stars / We Claim These Stars!. 1959
Sandra Miesel. Lurex and Gold: Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry Series. 1979

Poul Anderson.
Flandry of Terra.
Coronet. 1965

(read but not reviewed)

Contents

The Game of Glory. 1958
A Message in Secret. == Mayday Orbit. 1959
Plague of Masters. == Earthman, Go Home!. 1960

Poul Anderson.
Harvest the Fire.
Tor. 1995

Poul Anderson.
The Fleet of Stars.
Tor. 1997

Poul Anderson, Gordon R. Dickson.
Earthman's Burden.
Avon. 1957

Contents

The Sheriff of Canyon Gulch. == Heroes are Made. 1951
Don Jones. 1957
In Hoka Signo Vinces. 1953
The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound. 1953
Yo Ho Hoka!. 1955
The Tiddlywink Warriors. 1955

Poul Anderson, Gordon R. Dickson.
Star Prince Charlie.
Berkley. 1975

rating : 4.5 : passes the time
review : 1 August 2002

Charles Edward Stuart, bookish son of a space captain, is off for a tour of Talyina in the charge of his Hoka tutor, currently being stuffy Oxford don Bertram Cecil Featherstone Smyth-Cholmondoley. It looks set to be a straightforward week, until they discover Talyina is ruled by a tyrant, and the Hoka takes it into his head that his young charge is the Prince of the Prophecy, and takes on the persona of Hector MacGregor, sworn man of Bonnie Prince Charlie. Charlie finds himself swept along by events, and maybe helping an even worse tyrant than the one being overthrown.

This is fairly standard coming of age fare, enlivened mainly by the way Charlie manages to perform the Five Feats of the prophecy, and the chapter titles.

Poul Anderson, Gordon R. Dickson.
Hokas Pokas!.
Baen. 2000

rating : 4.5 : passes the time
review : 1 August 2002

Three stories about the Hokas, a teddy-bear-like alien race that live out extreme fantasy lives. The authors keep explaining that the Hokas aren't mad, but I'm afraid I don't believe them.

Contents

Full Pack (Hokas Wild). 1957
First the Hokas read The Jungle Book, then along come Shere-Khan and Kaa
The Napoleon Crime. 1983
Someone is feeding the Hokas warlike histories, stirring up trouble. It's time for Hornblower and Wellington to fight back.
Star Prince Charlie. 1975
[see Star Prince Charlie review]

Poul Anderson.
Operation Chaos.
Baen. 1971

rating : 3.5 : worth reading
review : 7 October 2000

A fixup novel of four short stories, these are stories of a parallel world where the magic-quelling properties of cold iron have been overcome. The stories follow the adventures of Steve Matuchek, werewolf, and Virginia Graylock, witch, as they battle various spirits, elementals and demons. The first three stories are entertaining fluff, full of puns and wordplay that contrast features of the magical universe with our own; the fourth, longer one, whilst still full of the fun of the earlier ones, has more substance to it.

Contents

Operation Afreet. 1956
Steve and Virginia meet during the American-Caliphate war, and battle the enemy's secret weapon
Operation Salamander. 1957
Steve and Virginia are back at college on the GI bill, and battle the result of a student prank that gets out of hand
Operation Incubus. 1959
On their honeymoon, Steve and Virginia face a test of their relationship
Operation Changeling. 1969
Steve and Virginia have to rescue their daughter from Hell

Poul Anderson.
Operation Luna.
Tor. 1999

rating : 3 : worth reading
review : 8 October 2000

It is interesting reading this directly after the earlier Operation Chaos. Again, there is lots of playful fun with names and sayings, but there is yet more substance to the tale. Set ten years or so after "Operation Changeling", Steve and Virginia are involved in the space race, building a vehicle to get to the moon. But someone, actually some rather dark thing, seems determined to sabotage the project, by any means possible. The race is on to find out why, and how, and to foil their plans. Structured like a detective story, this brings together myths and cultures from around the globe: Chinese, Japanese, various Native American, English, Norse.

I found it a little slow to start with (possibly because of the faster pace of the different stories in the earlier fixup novel), but once it gets going, the pace doesn't let up, and has twists and turns in every direction. The prose hints at being a tad too flowery in a few places (do 14-year-olds really use words like "yonder"?), but on the whole the wordplay, the myths, the magic, the characters, and the spaceflight, work wonderfully together.

Poul Anderson.
Maurai and Kith.
Tor. 1982

Contents

Ghetto. 1954
The Sky People. 1959
The Horn of Time the Hunter. == Homo Aquaticus. 1963
Progress. 1962
Windmill. 1973

Poul Anderson.
The Earth Book of Stormgate 1.
NEL. 1978

(read but not reviewed)

Contents

Wings of Victory. 1972
The Problem of Pain. 1973
How to Be Ethnic in One Easy Lesson. == How to Be Ethnic. 1974
Margin of Profit. 1956
Esau. == Birthright. 1970
The Season of Forgiveness. 1973

Poul Anderson.
The Earth Book of Stormgate 3.
NEL. 1978

(read but not reviewed)

Contents

A Little Knowledge. 1971
Lodestar. 1973
Day of Burning. == Supernova. 1967
Wingless. == Wingless on Avalon. 1973
Rescue on Avalon. 1973

Poul Anderson.
The Trouble Twisters (== Trade Team) .
Panther. 1966

(read but not reviewed)

Contents

The Three-Cornered Wheel. 1966
A Sun Invisible. 1966
The Trouble Twisters. == Trade Team. 1966

Poul Anderson.
Trader to the Stars.
Panther. 1964

(read but not reviewed)

Contents

Hiding Place. 1961
Territory. 1964
The Master Key. 1964

Poul Anderson.
The Psychotechnic League.
Ror. 1981

(read but not reviewed)

Contents

The Big Rain. 1954
The Sensitive Man. 1953
Marius. 1957
Un-Man. 1953

Poul Anderson.
Cold Victory.
Tor. 1982

(read but not reviewed)

Contents

Brake. 1957
Cold Victory. 1957
Quixote and the Windmill. 1950
The Troublemakers. 1982
Holmgang. == Out of the Iron Womb. 1957
What Shall It Profit?. 1955

Poul Anderson, ed.
Starship.
Tor. 1982

Contents

The Pirate. 1968
Gypsy. 1950
Star Ship. 1950
Virgin Planet. 1957
Teucan. 1954
The Chapter Ends. 1953
Sandra Miesel. Chronology of the Psychotechnic Series. 1982

Poul Anderson.
Guardians of Time.
Pan. 1961

(read but not reviewed)

Contents

Time Patrol. 1955
Brave To Be a King. 1959
The Only Game in Town. 1960
Delenda Est. 1955

Poul Anderson.
The Time Patrol.
Tor. 1991

(read but not reviewed)

Contents

Time Patrol. 1955
Brave To Be a King. 1959
The Only Game in Town. 1960
Delenda Est. 1955
Gibraltar Falls. 1975
Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks. 1991
The Sorrow of Odin the Goth. 1991
Star of the Sea. 1991
The Year of the Ransom. 1991