Wace and van Rijn struggle for more than survival. The more effective man will win the favor of Sandra Tamarin, the third castaway. Tamarin, heiress to a planet-sized duchy, is seeking the best possible mate in order to forestall a political crisis on her home world. She departs from the pulp formulas which demanded that heroines be either clinging damsels or haughty amazons. Instead, Tamarin is consistently wiser, steadier, more perceptive and sophisticated than Wace. She saves his life in battle, sacrifices her rations to keep him functioning, and patiently endures his bumbling attempts at chivalry. Her competence and bravery are typical of Anderson's heroines. (The same traits appear in Rodnis sa Axollon, a local alien female who boasts of her sex, "We are the strong ones.")
External and internal problems running in parallel constitute the author's favorite plot structure. In The Man Who Counts he also superimposes the physical and personal struggles of the humans upon those of the native Diomedeans.
The humans' aircraft has crashed in an area where two groups of winged autochthones are fighting for their existence. The sea-roving Fleet of Drak'ho has invaded and nearly conquered the land-based Great Flock of Lannach. The process resembles the impact of European colonists on tribal societies in Africa, the Americas, and Oceania. The culture of the patrilineal, aristocratic, work-oriented Fleet is antagonistic to that of the matrilineal, egalitarian, leisure-oriented Flock. Moreover, there is a biological divergence which makes each an abomination to the other: the fleet experiences year-round sexual desire and the Flock seasonal. (This same psychological revulsion is a key element in Ursula K. Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness, 1969, published eleven years after The Man Who Counts' original publication in Astounding Science Fiction magazine.) And aside from these group hostilities, the aliens are also real individuals with private rivalries of their own.
Embroiling humans in this conflict gives the author the opportunity to dramatize questions of cultural and biological determinism. Van Rijn is able to understand and manipulate both races of Diomedeans because experience has made him extraordinarily flexible. His persuasive skills can charm almost any kind of intelligent creature. Wace and Tamarin, on the other hand, feel the effects of their backgrounds. His class-consciousness makes him socially awkward. An aristocratic upbringing has instilled dignity in her. As she remarks, "The high-born of Hermes have their customs and taboos, also for the correct way to die. What else is man if not a set of customs and taboos?" Danger gives both of them as well as the Diomedeans opportunities to move beyond the horizons of their cultures.
Van Rijn is also ingenious in exploiting the biochemical aspects of their situation. Knowing that human and Diomedean proteins are incompatible lets him bring the adventure to its low-comedy climax. Eventually all parties learn that biology is a more fundamental reality than culture, whether the survival of individuals or whole people is at stake.
Biology and anthropology are only two of the many types of knowledge Anderson used in the construction of Diomedes. The Man Who Counts was the author's earliest novel-length attempt at worldsmithing, a craft which he practiced superbly. Creating an entire extraterrestrial world from the astronomical specifications of its sun to the myths of its sophonts is one of the joys of writing science fiction. Anderson communicates the sheer delight of this intellectual game in his essay "The Creation of Imaginary Worlds: The World-Builder's Handbook and Pocket Companion" for Reginald Bretnor's Science Fiction, today and Tomorrow (New York: Harper & Row, 1974).
The careful thought that went into The Man Who Counts is an Anderson trademark. He deplores clumsy science fiction which gives us "either a world exactly like our own except for having neither geography nor history, or else . . . an unbelievable mishmash which merely shows us that still another writer couldn't be bothered to do his homework."
Anderson has assigned Diomedes to a suitable size and type of sun, chosen its size, mass, and atmosphere, calculated its orbit, period of rotation, and axial tilt, devised its weather, drawn its maps, seeded it with unique flora and fauna, traced the physical and cultural evolution of its sentient life-form, and as a final touch, bestowed splendid proper names as needed. None of these parameters is arbitrary, each contributes content to the story. The dense atmosphere makes winged sophonts possible; the extent of the polar circles forces them to migrate; the lack of heavy metals restricts them to a Stone Age technology; and so forth.
The native Diomedeans themselves are the most interesting creation of all. They belong to a class of six-limbed creatures Anderson terms "cherubim." But it is not enough to design alien bodies without alien personalities inside them. The kinds of gestures Diomedeans use reveal their non-humanness. In the opening chapter alone, we are shown their signs for surprise, anger, challenge, reproach, and submission. One punitive practice is also mentioned—Diomedeans cut off the wings of vanquished enemies to shame them.
The opposing cultures of Fleet and Flock are plausible. Their separate ways of breeding, making, and thinking shape consistent behavioral patterns. For instance, the Fleet enjoys the higher level of technology—won by proportionately greater effort—but economic pressures have made the Drak'honai status-conscious and individualistic. But since the Flock does not need to struggle as hard to survive, the Lannachska are more casual and group-oriented. Even trivial details spotlight cultural differences. Among the Flock, "motherless" is the insult equivalent to "bastard," a concept only Fleet members would understand.
Each people has its own form of religion. The Flock follows a non-speculative system of ancestral rituals comparable to Shinto. The Fleet, on the other hand, is formally monotheistic despite traces of earlier paganism, a situation analogous to that of Christianity in medieval Europe or Zoroastrianism in ancient Persia. The author realizes differences exist within species as well as between them.
The Diomedeans did not exhaust Anderson's fascination with winged sophonts. Fifteen years later, in response to a challenge by John Campbell to design a post-mammalian being, he created the magnificent Ythrians for The People of the Wind (1973) and other stories. Intervening experience had honed his skills so well that the newer work is scientifically and aesthetically richer.
Yet events in the two novels are connected, for they belong to the same future history series. Van Rijn's protégé and grandson-in-law David Falkayn founds the colony on Avalon, the setting of The People of the Wind. In that story, Falkayn's granddaughter has an affair with an ancestor of Dominic Flandry, flawed hero of the series' later installments. Flandry's lost beloved from The Rebel Worlds is a foremother of the people encountered in the final episode, "Starfog," set about 4700 years after the birth of van Rijn.
Such are the internal plot strands connecting Anderson's major future history, the Technic Civilization series, Anderson's distaste for self-advertisement has tended to obscure the scope of this enterprise: more than 40 separate titles including 13 novels covering five millennia, published over the course of 34 years. Baen Books is bringing all these works together for the very first time in seven matching volumes.
Anderson's earlier future history, the Psychotechnic League series, dealt with political changes on Earth, the settlement of the solar system and the beginnings of interstellar expansion. It had to be terminated in 1966 after 20 items in 19 years because, as Anderson explained, "World War II didn't start on schedule." The headaches of organizing the necessary volume of data for future histories led the author to remark that constructing a perfectly consistent secondary universe would be fine therapy for a mental patient afflicted with delusions of godhood.
As outlined the accompanying chronology, the theme of the Technic Civilization series is the cyclic rise and fall of civilization. This is not an exercise in prediction but "it is assumed that the same kind of human follies as the real past has known will continue through the future for a long time to come, with the same resultant pattern." This is the framework supporting a wonderful kaleidoscope of future societies spread across the stars.
The series opens in the
near future with "The Saturn Game" (winner of the 1982 Hugo and Nebula awards for best novella). Enough of this century's problems have been solved to allow significant numbers of people to move into space. Earth and her colonies confederate in the Commonwealth.
A faster-than-light drive and other discoveries permit far-ranging interstellar exploration. Among the alien races contacted are the Ythrians (in "Wings of Victory" and "The Problem of Pain"). Human colonists scatter across the starways and begin diversifying into unique societies, a process called the Breakup.
This period resembles Europe's Age of Exploration of the sixteenth and seventh centuries. In both cases expansion breeds enormous trade profits and merchant princes to harvest them. Here the companies form a mutual-assistance organization more powerful than any government—the Polesotechnic League. (The name was coined by Poul's wife Karen from the Greek for "selling skills".) Green and ambition corrupt the League, transforming its free-enterprise companies into ruthless cartels.
Nicholas van Rijn, who is partly modeled on seventeenth century Danish king Christian IV thrives in this turbulent period. He has profitable adventures in his own person ("Margin of Profit," The Man Who Counts, "Hiding Place," "Territory") and directs those of subordinates ("The Master Key," "'The Three Cornered Wheel," "A Sun Invisible," "The Trouble Twisters ," "Day of Burning," "Esau"). He staunchly disclaims any motive beyond self-interest despite the many beneficial effects of his actions until forced to admit the claims of conscience near the end of his life (Satan's World, "Lodestar" and Mirkheim). Van Rijn is usually considered an unvarying "template character" but he does grow progressively more somber with age. Other stories from the same general period are: "How to Be Ethnic in One Easy Lesson," "A Little Knowledge," and "The Season of Forgiveness."
Just before the League collapses and the chaotic Time of Troubles begins, David Falkayn establishes the joint human-Ythrian colony on Avalon ("Rescue on Avalon" and "Wingless on Avalon"). New worlds everywhere must defend themselves or perish.
Peace slowly returns under the aegis of the Terran Empire ("The Star Plunderer" and "Sargasso of Lost Starships"). The expanding Empire absorbs many star systems but Avalon successfully resists conquest (The People of the Wind). Eventually the Empire collides with a younger and fiercer imperium, the Roidhunate of Merseia, which would never have come into existence save for Falkayn's actions in "Day of Burning."
The decaying Empire is propped up for a while by men like Dominic Flandry in Ensign Flandry, A Circus of Hells, The Rebel Worlds, "Tiger by the Tail," "Honorable Enemies," "The Game of Glory," "A Message in Secret," A Plague of Masters, Hunters of the Sky Cave, "Warriors from Nowhere," A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows (which includes scenes on Diomedes where the effects of events in War of the Wing-Men are still being felt centuries later), and A Stone in Heaven. Other heroes also do their part ("Outpost of Empire" and The Day of Their Return). But inevitably the Terrans and Merseians exhaust each other into oblivion. The Long Night falls.
Surviving islands of civilization, human and non-human, renew interstellar contact ("Tragedy of Errors," "The Night Face," and "The Sharing of Flesh," winner of the 1969 novelette Hugo.) The new modes of life developing may prove freer, richer and more durable than the old ways of Technic Civilization ("Starfog").
The Man Who Counts can be read as the earliest novel-length item in a sprawling series or as a historically important component of that series because it marks the first fully rounded appearance of Anderson's most popular character. (The van Rijn in "Margin of Profit" is a malaprop-less shadow of the scalawag to come.) It is also the author's first systematic venture in world-building, a promise of subsequent marvels in this series and elsewhere. Finally, it is enjoyable in its own right as a lively, convention-toppling adventure yarn. On all these levels, art weds knowledge to produce those fresh wonders that are the special province of science fiction.
Sandra Miesel
Indianapolis
THE END
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The Van Rijn Method
Table of Contents
PLANETS AND PROFITS:
THE SATURN GAME
I
II
III
IV
INTRODUCTION
Wings of Victory
WINGS OF VICTORY
INTRODUCTION
The Problem of Pain
THE PROBLEM OF PAIN
INTRODUCTION
Margin of Profit
MARGIN OF PROFIT
INTRODUCTION
How to be Ethnic in One Easy Lesson
HOW TO BE ETHNIC IN ONE EASY LESSON
INTRODUCTION
The Three-Cornered Wheel
THE THREE-CORNERED WHEEL
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
INTRODUCTION
A Sun Invisible
A SUN INVISIBLE
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
INTRODUCTION
The Season of Forgiveness
THE SEASON OF FORGIVENESS
INTRODUCTION
The Man Who Counts
THE MAN WHO COUNTS
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
INTRODUCTION
Esau
ESAU
INTRODUCTION
Hiding Place
HIDING PLACE
CHRONOLOGY OF TECHIC CIVILIZATION
Compiled By Sandra Miesel
APPENDIX I: The Original Version of "Margin of Profit"
APPENDIX II: The Man Who Counts and the Technic Civilization Series
by Sandra Miesel
The Van Rijn Method Page 59