Search Results for: Poul Anderson

The Beating Heart of Science Fiction: Poul Anderson and Tau Zero

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Science fiction — what is it, really? What elements place a story firmly in the genre? For any requirement that you can think of, there is probably a great sf story that violates it, and rather than cobble together some dictionary-ready definition, it’s easier to just think of particular books that you would hand to someone unacquainted with the genre with the words, “Here — read this; this is science fiction!” Everyone would have their own choices for such a…

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Vintage Treasures: Fire Time by Poul Anderson

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Fire Time by Poul Anderson (Ballantine Books, November, 1975). Cover by Darrell Sweet Poul Anderson was a terrifically prolific and popular science fiction writer, in a way I don’t think it’s possible to be today. I mean that in the sense that, yes, he wrote a lot of books — a ridiculous number of books, really. He published hundreds of novels and short stories in his lifetime. (How many, exactly? I have no idea. No one knows. Modern counting methods…

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Vintage Treasures: Maurai & Kith by Poul Anderson

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Maurai & Kith (Tor Books, 1982). Cover art by Thomas Kidd Uber-editor Jason M. Waltz kindly invited me to write the introduction to his new anthology The Lost Empire of Sol: A Shared World Anthology of Sword & Planet Tales, co-edited by Black Gate blogger Fletcher Vredenburgh, a terrific new shared-world volume that contains new stories by Howard Andrew Jones, E.E. Knight, Mark Finn, Keith Taylor, Joe Bonadonna and David C. Smith, and many more. As I was putting it…

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The Art of Author Branding: The Berkley Poul Anderson

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The first six of what would eventually be fourteen Berkley Poul Anderson paperbacks with this design, including the first three books of the Polesotechnic League. Covers by Rick Sternbach (Satan’s World) and Richard Powers (all others). July 1976 – December 1977 Back in May, inspired by Mark R. Kelly’s review of one of the very first science fiction novels I ever read, the 1977 Ace paperback edition of Robert Silverberg’s Collision Course, I took an extended look at Silverberg’s mid-70s career…

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Humanity Uplifted: Poul Anderson’s Brain Wave

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Brain Wave by Poul Anderson; First Edition: Ballantine Books, 1954 Cover art by Richard Powers Brain Wave by Poul Anderson Ballantine Books (164 pages, $0.35, paperback, June 1954) Cover by Richard Powers Poul Anderson was a prolific writer of both science fiction and fantasy from the late 1940s to his death in 2001. He was especially known for a couple space opera series, one about the Psychotechnic League and others about Dominic Flandry and Nicholas Van Rijn (I have not…

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Vintage Treasures: Beyond the Beyond by Poul Anderson

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Beyond the Beyond paperback original (Signet first edition, August 1969). Cover artist unknown. When I pick up an old paperback these days, it tends to be an anthology or collection. There aren’t very many published nowadays, and I miss them. So naturally I’m reading many of the old paperbacks I missed out on in my youth. One of my recent favorites is Beyond the Beyond, a thick collection of six stories by Poul Anderson. Anderson was one of the most…

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There Will Never Be an End to Wonder: James Davis Nicoll on Poul Anderson

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Brain Wave by Poul Anderson (Ballantine Books, 1954). Cover by Richard Powers. Poul Anderson was one of my favorite science fiction writers when I first discovered the genre. That interest didn’t survive into adulthood. While I still read Vance, Zelazny, Delany, I probably haven’t picked up a Poul Anderson novel in 30 years. It’s mostly neglect, rather than any conscious choice. It’s simply been too long since a Poul Anderson book survived the cut in my to-be-read pile. I finally read James…

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Rich Horton on Poul Anderson, Frederik Pohl, and L. Sprague de Camp

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Cover art by John Pederson, Jr., Richard Powers, and Bob Pepper I know a lot of writers, and one of the reasons I hang out on Facebook is to find out what the heck they’re all up to. For example, this morning Rich Horton left this brief but intriguing update: For the third day in a row, I have posted a Birthday Review compendium of reviews of older short fiction from an SFWA Grand Master. In this case, it’s for…

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Golden Age of Science Fiction: The 1973 Nebula and Hugo Award for Best Novelette: “Goat Song,” by Poul Anderson

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Cover by Bert Tanner Steven Silver has been doing a series covering the award winners from his age 12 year, and Steven has credited me for (indirectly) suggesting this, when I quoted Peter Graham’s statement “The Golden Age of Science Fiction” is 12, in the “comment section” to the entry on 1973 in Jo Walton’s wonderful book An Informal History of the Hugos. You see, I was 12 in 1972, so the awards for 1973 were the awards for my…

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Birthday Reviews: Poul Anderson’s “The Valor of Cappen Varra”

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Poul Anderson was born on November 25, 1926 and died on July 21, 2001. Anderson won the Hugo Award for Short Fiction for “The Longest Voyage” and “No Truce with Kings.” He won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette for “The Sharing of Flesh,” “Goat Song,” and “Hunter’s Moon.” Anderson won the Hugo for Best Novella for “The Queen of Air and Darkness” and “The Saturn Game.” Both of those novellas and “Goat Song” also earned the Nebula Award. His…

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