See chart of Poul Anderson's Future History (of Technic civilization, including the "Polesotechnic League")
See essay on the Dominic Flandry Saga, "Lurex and Gold" (posting complete May 17, 2003)
See essay on Technic Future History, "The Price of Buying Time"
Some Poul Anderson book covers
Here's a list of novels by Poul Anderson that I have (updated May 22, 2004)

Note to parents: some "Parental Guidance" material follows.

From my own experience, I recommend mostly waiting until your late twenties to start reading Poul Anderson; most of his books require a good deal of emotional maturity before they can be appreciated, but then they are extremely emotionally powerful. I found that books such as "World Without Stars" and "Fire Time" didn't do much for me when I was a teenager, but now (in my 30s) they pack quite a wallop. "People of the Wind" and "The Enemy Stars" would be in this category. You could try reading his Dominic Flandry tales when younger, for the action, wit and humor, but then re-read them a decade later and discover a whole new meaning to them. As the author went on, his world-building skills became greater and greater, but the stories became darker and sadder.

"Vault of Ages" is one of those cool SF "juveniles" (aimed at boys) that largely avoids talking down to the reader and thus can be read by all ages.

Mon, 17 Mar 2003 16:22:00 EST (-0500)

I continue to read Poul Anderson in my (copious) spare time. He
graduated as an engineer, but decided to take a year off living
off of his typewriter. The year stretched out, and the world lost
an engineer but gained a bard. His first novels, "Brain Wave"
(SF) and "The Broken Sword" (Fantasy) came out in 1954, the same
year as "Lord of the Rings". "Brain Wave" was about the
consequences of the Earth leaving a region of space in which
bio-electrical performance was inhibited, resulting in all
neurologically-equipped organisms receiving a perfomance boost
and the IQs of people and animals were boosted by about a factor
of five...

"The Broken Sword" drew on many of the same sources that Tolkien
used, and a dwarf named "Durin" is alluded to. The main element
of the story is "the sword that was broken and was reforged",
which was a strong motif in ancient tales. However, the story
draws more heavily on ancient Norse culture and there is a good
deal of evil and woe resulting from it, so much that I question
the wisdom of dedicating the book to his mother. As in Tolkien's
tale of Turin from the Silmarillion, "The Broken Sword" also
involved the marriage of brother and sister who were separated
early in life and who met later, not knowing themselves related.
The theme of unwitting incest and the tragedy it causes is in
many other stories, not just Norse. For example, I'm sure you've
heard of "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles. Anderson did a lot of work
in retelling ancient Norse tales in modern English. He was Danish
himself, but born in America. He earned a "knighthood" in the SCA
for prowess in medieval combat, jousting, and he thus has combat
experience somewhat like Heinlein, who was an expert at dirty
fighting.

For a while there, Poul Anderson was one of only three Fantasy
writers in America. I think it was just him, Andre Norton, and
Anne McCaffery. From the way her books were written, somehow, I
was never fooled, and I always knew that Andre Norton was a
woman. Poul Anderson received the Grand Master of Fantasy Award
from the World SF Convention in 1978, as well as a bunch of Hugo
and Nebula awards in other years. You can find a collection of
his, "Winners", containing nothing but Hugo and Nebula award
winners. He was a master at demonstrating the truth of Clark's
law "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable
from magic", in (SF) stories such as "The Queen of Air and
Darkness", "Goat Song", "Genesis" (written late in life), and
many others.

Like Heinlein, he started out as kind of a liberal and became
very libertarian, but whereas Heinlein was initially moderate,
Anderson admits he started out as quite a flaming liberal. His
early series was "The Psychotechnic League", often extolling the
UN as a much-needed thing, and those stories fill about three or
four collections. These were the more preachy ones and his later
more libertarian stuff became less preachy, so it shouldn't turn
liberals off too much. (Heinlein may have been preachy, but his "Notebooks of
Lazarus Long" excerpted from "Time Enough for Love" and
containing nothing but preaching, sold quite well.) Anderson
abandoned the Psychotechnic future history and developed one in
which he wrote a lot, if not most of his output, "The
Polesotechnic League". Chronologically (see chronology
compiled by number-one fan Sandra Miesel from "The Earth Book of
Stormgate"), there was first "The Polesotechnic League" of
traders that expanded humanity's presence into the galaxy, doing
good by doing well. The chief characters were Nicholas van Rijn,
blustering owner of the Solar Spice and Liquors company, and his
foremost team, David Falkayn, Chee and Adzel. "The Earth Book of
Stormgate" includes one short story about Adzel on Earth and
about how he made ends meet as a student by playing a dragon in
Chinese parades and singing the part of Fafnir the dragon in
Wagner plays. Chee was a hilariously irascible four-foot tall
cat-like humanoid from an arboreal environment.

Much later in the chronology, Terran civilization entered an
imperial phase, and Dominic Flandry figures prominently in its
later times. A James Bond type, he dedicated himself to staving
off the long night; each year he gained meant trillions of
being-years of peace and plenty. He believed that civilization
was at its best when it is like a spotty banana, nice and ripe.
But then rot is not far away. I can recommend these tales to
all for their rollicking nature. A liberal friend who reads
voraciously said he liked these.

In "Eve Times Four", an amorous spaceman tries to get "marooned"
with four lovely young women. However, he finds one of the young
ladies replaced in the lifeboat at the last minute by an
overweight, aging and somewhat desperate spinster. One that
remained was an Asian-indian missionary who talked his ears off
about the principles of pantheistic Buddism, another was a French
ship stewardness (who knew judo) and the third remaining was a
mathematician who figured out what was going on on the supposedly
unihabited-by-man but beautiful habitable planet that they
supposedly found by great luck, when she observed that it didn't
have a satellite in the sky and yet the day was many Earth days
long. Of course the rogue ended up not getting any.

In a novel "Virgin Planet", another spaceman became marooned on a
planet of women. The poor guy couldn't get laid the whole time
because as soon as he would start to make out with one, another
would come along and break it up. He was in danger for his life,
too, because his presence broke the monopoly of the
"Doctor-Priests" who controlled the parthenogenesis-inducing
technology that allowed the women to have babies that were clones
of themselves. The "Doctor-Priests" had quite a cushy set-up
going there.

Last updated May 22, Feb 6, Jan 31, 2004,
Dec 21, 17, 7, Nov 17, Oct 26, 13, Sept 12, Aug 23, June 29, 21, 4, 2, May 30, 26, 20, 17, 11, April 27, 20, 19, 6, 2, 2003