Introduction to The Queen of Air and Darkness

So let me tell you about one of science fiction’s true Renaissance Men, because Poul Anderson never tooted his own horn, and as a result, while everyone knows he was a popular and prolific writer, most people don’t know the truly profound effect he had on the fields of fantasy and science fiction.

Poul had a degree in physics. (“Don’t all science fiction writers?” I hear you ask. Actually, you’d be surprised how many of us don’t have degrees in anything.)

He was a founding member of SCA, the Society for Creative Anachronists. (He and Randall Garrett boldly chose to defend John Campbell’s honor in a joust on the lawn of the Claremont Hotel at the 1968 Worldcon. I must have been somewhere else at the moment, but Robert Silverberg still recalls how quickly the pair of them—Randy a little drunk, Poul a little short-sighted—were pounded into the ground by two of SCA’s finest and most experienced swordsmen. Somehow John’s honor survived anyway—and so, since they were firing with blank swords or the equivalent, did Poul and Randy. )

He was an early President of SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America).

He was the Worldcon Guest of Honor in 1959.

He became a Gandalf Grand Master in 1978.

He became a SFWA Grand Master in 1997.

He won 7 Hugo Awards, and is tied for second on the all-time list among writers.

He won 3 Nebula Awards.

He won 4 Prometheus Awards, including a Lifetime Achievement one. (The Prometheus is for libertarian writing, a strain that is common in Poul’s work.)

He won a John Campbell Memorial Award in 2000.

He even won a filksinging award, the Pegasus, in 1998, in collaboration with Anne Passavoy.

In my opinion, he wrote the ultimate hard science novel with Tau Zero. I know, I know, a lot of people would select Hal Clement’s very fine Mission of Gravity for that honor, but Mission of Gravity is about Mesklinites (fascinating little wormlike critters) and Tau Zero is about people. And when all is said and done, people are what count.

This collection contains two of Poul’s most famous stories: the Hugo-and-Nebula winning “Queen of Air and Darkness” and the Hugo-winning “The Longest Voyage.” (So why didn’t “The Longest Voyage” win the Nebula too? Easy. It came out in 1960, which is a few years before SFWA was formed, and the Nebula is SFWA’s award.)

I recently attended the 2009 Nebula weekend, and got to spend some time with Poul’s widow, Karen Anderson. Karen is an author in her own right (her own write?), was Poul’s credited collaborator from time to time, and was his uncredited collaborator far more often. I told her that I’d been asked to introduce this collection, and that I hated the thought of just saying what the stories are about, because if you’re reading this then it’s clear that you’re about to read them too. So what I wanted was Karen’s reminiscences on exactly how Poul got the ideas for some of them.

(Isn’t that what every science fiction writer is always being asked: “Where do you get your crazy ideas?”)

So, from the source (Karen) through the middleman (me) to the reader (you):

Ed Emshwiller (who signed his paintings and drawings “Emsh”) was the dominant science fiction artist in the 1950s and early 1960s, and one day Poul turned to Karen and said, “Tell me a painting.” Karen asked what he meant, and he told her to describe an Emsh cover so he could write a story around it. Which cover did he have in mind, she wanted to know. Oh, not one that existed, answered Poul; just a typical Emsh cover, replete with his well-known wit. So Karen described a non-existent Emsh painting that featured a robot sitting in an office, slaving away at a desk and smelling a flower—and Poul sat down and wrote “Critique of Impure Reasoning.”

When Poul wrote “Uncleftish Beholding,” Karen says he decided to use Germanic-rooted words only. This kind of learned writing was actually named after him, and became known (don’t wince) as Ander-Saxon.

Poul and Karen decided to plot a “biter-bit” story together and see just how many twists they could put into one story. It became “Innocent at Large.”

Karen suggested that Poul base a story on Marlowe’s Tamerlaine, perhaps one in which a time traveler gets stuck in ancient Persia and finds himself becoming unwillingly involved in local affairs. Poul took the idea and ran with it; you’ll find it up ahead as “Brave to Be a King.”

Karen didn’t recall the genesis of “The Pirate,” but tells me that upon finishing it, Poul claimed that no one under the age of 40 could ever truly understand it.

Poul came up with what he thought was a unique way to transmit a secret code. Karen suggested he borrow the structure of the story from one of their favorites, which almost no one remembered, a story titled “Mr. Glencannon Ignores the War.” He did, and it became the very popular “Say It With Flowers.”

And of course there’s the biggie, “Queen of Air and Darkness.” Poul loved the title, which is the title of the second of the four parts of T. H. White’s The Once and Future King—and then decided to write exactly the kind of story that you would not expect from such a title. He got some critical flak for treating it as science fiction rather than fantasy (given its awards, clearly not enough flak to matter), and his lyrics became a very popular filksong at conventions for the next decade.

He was quite a remarkable writer, equally skilled at science fiction, fantasy, folk tale, and myth. Of all his contemporaries, probably only Fritz Leiber displayed such range, and with no disrespect to Fritz, he couldn’t write rigorous hard science the way Poul could. Poul could turn out carefully-reasoned science fiction, myth-inspired fantasy, could create characters like Nicholas van Rijn who was good for an entire series of books, and he was a pretty sharp parodist; when I was assembling an anthology of science fiction parodies more than two decades ago I bought a Conan parody from him that remains the funniest sword-and-sorcery parody I’ve read. And when he wasn’t writing, he was starring; he showed up as the hero of a Philip K. Dick novelette, “Waterspider,” that I bought for another anthology.

Poul, as I said at the start, was a modest man. I remember a day he spent driving me around Northern California, showing me the scenic highlights, and never once mentioned anything he’d written or anything he was going to write, any awards he’d won or hoped to win. He asked me about my own writing, and did everything he could to put me at ease—because while he was a modest man, he realized at some level that most of us were awed by his talent. Harry Turtledove is prompt to declare his debt to Poul; so are Jerry Pournelle, Greg Bear, Joe Haldeman, and a score of others. That debt may well have been greatest in his Hoka collaborator and close friend, Gordon R. Dickson.

We lost Poul to cancer in 2001, but thanks to NESFA Press we won’t soon lose what made him so special to our field. So enough of my writing this introduction and your reading it; there are some wonderful futures and universes up ahead, just waiting for you to discover (or rediscover) them.