Title The Collected Short Works of Poul Anderson - Volume 2 Author Poul Anderson Cover Art Tom Canty Publisher NESFA Press - 2009 First Printing --- Category Anthology Warnings None Main Characters See below Main Elements See below

Volume 2

• "The Queen of Air and Darkness"
• "Jennifer's Lament"
• "Industrial Revolution"
• "Cradle Song"
• "Operation Afreet"
• "On Imaginary Science"
• "Upon the Occassion of Being Asked at a Court of Love to Declare That About His Lady Which Pleases Him the Most"
• "The Longest Voyage"
• "Brave to be a King"
• "Midsummer Song"
• "Christa McAuliffe"
• "Brake"
• "Jennifer's Song"
• "The Hardness of Hard Science Fiction"
• "The Burning Bridge"
• "Veleda Speaks"
• "Science Fiction and History"
• "A World Called Maanerek"
• "The Pirate"
• "To Build a World"
• "Say it with Flowers"
• "My Object All Sublime"
• "Innocent at Large"
• "Route Song of the Winged Folk"
• "The Corkscrew of Space"
• "A Little Knowledge"
• "Marque and Reprisal"
• "Uncleftish Beholding"
• "The Critique of Impure Reason"
• "Science and Creation"
• "Of the Sea"
• "Epilogue"
• "Tanka"

"The Queen of Air and Darkness" - This story was the reason I borrowed this collection from the library in the first place. Orson Scott Card had written a sequel story, so I wanted to read the original. Creatures on an alien planet take on aspects of our legends of the Fae, including stealing our children...

"Industrial Revolution" - asteroid miners have decided they want to be independent of Earth, they do so legally, but Earth isn't too happy about the colony being able to sell to whomever they want, so attempt a little sabotage.

"Operation Afreet" - I kinda loved this one. You start reading it, thinking nothing much of it, but random words dropped here and there, the name of a unit, the rank of someone else, and you start to realize this is no normal army. I won't say much more because figuring out the worldbuilding is a big chunk of the fun.

"The Longest Voyage" - a group of sailors are exploring part of their world they've been afraid to do before, discovering at lot about their world and their history, and making a very hard decision about their future.

"Brave to be a King" - this was clearly related to some other series, I didn't struggle to figure out what was going on, but I could tell there was more to this than just this story, indeed there are 4 Time Patrol books, some of which are collections of short stories. Not sure if Everard is in all of them, but based on the blurb he's in the first one at least. I liked this one, a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.

"On Imaginary Science" - this is an essay but it was interesting (I ended up writing down all the references in it because while I'd read a handful, I have soooo many gaps in my classic SF). I particularly liked how Anderson explains that is is impossible to go back in time and become your own father/mother, not because of time paradoxes, but because of genetics (think of it, if you mix your genes with someone else, you cannot produce yourself like some freakish cloned kid).

"Brake" - ok...why does everyone speake in Shakespearean expressions? What I liked about this one though is that it doesn't handwave what it takes to travel is space. It takes a long time to speed up, it also takes a long time to slow down, you can't just turn the engine off an stop, you have to burn fuel to decelerate. One author that does this well is Mike Shepherd of the Kris Longknife series. After all, if you can't stop before your fuel runs out you'll, well, just keep going, and going, and going...

"The Burning Bridge" - this story is another one that deals with the inability to stop on a dime in space, or even turn around and go back the way you came. There's a certain point of no return where it would actually take longer to go back, then it would to continue to your destination and only then reverse. Sounds strange but the math is there. And don't forget, going back means not just years, but decades, does the information you picked up just now going to still be valid by the time you return? Difficult choices.

"A World Called Maanerek" - super uptight society drops a spy into a more primitive society, wiping his memories so he can more easily fit in with the natives. But then you bring him back, and restore his memories, wiping out his time as a spy. But can you really wipe everything?

"The Pirate" - in a world where humans are looking to colonize the galaxy, what could be better than a world where a nearby nova wiped out an existing alien species but left their cities mainly intact. After all, don't need to build all the infrastructure, you can just move right in, perfect for a pirate trying to make a profit of setting up a colony.

"To Build a World" - A lunar colony is in the process of being built, but there is a lot of controversy and someone is sabotaging the effort. One man is tasked with finding out who is behind the scheme.

"Say it with Flowers" - yet another asteroid colony rebellion, a courier is captured by the Earth forces but manages to escape. However he's lost his message, but at least he can fight another day.

"My Object All Sublime" - ah, this one had a nice twist, definitely a twisted punishment.

"Innocent at Large" - I read this somewhere before, and enjoyed it again this time, a con man conning the con men.

"The Corkscrew of Space" - and this I read a week ago and all I really remember was that it was hard to transport wine to Mars...

"A Little Knowledge" - cute little alien outwitting big brutish humans

"Marque and Reprisal" - this story was quite long, about standing up to an alien race to show you aren't about to let the lie to you, and walk all over to you, even in the name of peace.

"Uncleftish Beholding" - this took some effort to read, as well as some decent knowledge of chemisty and quantum physics. I would have loved an intro to this, to explain what Anderson was trying to achieve by rewording all our scientific terms into those a Norse(?) might recognize.

"The Critique of Impure Reason" - this was a great critique on literary critiques. Like those people who stood in front of a painting done by an elephant complimenting the deep meanings in the shapes, patterns and colours (fyi, elephants are colour blind), so too literary critics can be full of themselves and can be led about by some well phrased nonsense. Like lemmings, you have to follow the pack, even if it involves jumping off a cliff, at least pulp SF gets revitalized!

"Epilogue" - what if you go to Earth's future, the FAR FAR future, what might you find? And what would it think about you? I found their reproductive system particularly intriguing (and no, its not kinky!)

Overall, the stories were well written and well thought out. My biggest gripe was the lack of females in the stories, and the few times there was one, they were subordinate to the men. Like in one "women only made it into the military due to lack for men" but she basically got a desk job. Don't think there was a single fighting woman in the lot. I know that's because of when Anderson wrote this stories, but what a missed opportunity to think beyond that, its SF after all, why not speculate some radical societal changes? In fact Anderson wrote an essay on just that, the inability of authors to invent a future society that isn't just a historical one repeating, but failed to get beyond that male mental block himself. If only he knew how women would advance in the near future, even with his far future leaves them behind.

Note I didn't review the poems, they aren't really my thing, and while I didn't say much about the essays, they were all interesting.