Dynamic expansionism & cannibal capitalism: a review of Poul Anderson's Satan's World.
From Wednesday, 5 December through Thursday, 13 December, I read Poul Anderson's Satan's World (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc.; 1969 [previously published, "in a somewhat different form," in Analog Science Fact - Science Fiction from May -- August 1968, and copyright 1968 by The Condé Nast Publications, Inc.]; hard cover; book club edition; 204 pps.). The childish front cover illustration is by Peter Bromely.
Satan's World is either the third or fourth book in Poul Anderson's Polesotechnic League series (Anderson's Wikipedia entry lists it as the fourth book, but I've seen it listed elsewhere as the third; the omnibus The Earth Book of Stormgate, which is itself the fifth or sixth book in the series for all that it includes chronologically earlier stories, includes Anderson's complete, preferred text of the first novel in the series, which was originally published in 1958 in a heavily edited form as War of the Wing-Men; the complete manuscript was published for the first time in The Earth Book of Stormgate as The Man Who Counts), which features a loose inter-spatial alliance of merchant princes modeled roughly on the adventurer capitalists from the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century; the chief characters in the series are the "globular," flamboyantly hedonistic, bombastic and self-pitying (and wily, crafty, subtle, shrewd, frighteningly capable, physically formidable and, at bottom, compassionate) Earthman Nicholas van Rijn and his protégé, the pleasant though bland brick David Falkayn, the lesser scion of a colonial, human, baronial family on the planet Hermes.
Satan's World begins on Earth, where van Rijn has sent Falkayn to query the supercomputers of the business consultancy firm (it's indicative of this novel's publication date that the word "consultant" is not used to describe them) Serendipity, Inc., in the hopes of discovering a hitherto unknown market opportunity that van Rijn can exploit to the betterment of his conglomerate, Solar Spice & Liquors Company; Falkayn hits paydirt to such an extent that he is captured by the odd and aloof human operators of Serendipity so that their unknown extraterrestrial masters may benefit, causing both Falkayn's shipmates -- the hot-tempered, sassy feline Chee Lan from a planet that humans have named Cynthia (for the discoverer's mistress) and the intellectual and naïve Buddhist dracocentauroid Adzel from the planet dubbed Woden by humans -- and van Rijn to stage a raid on the personal Lunar domain of Serendipity's human agents to recapture the "brainscrubbed" Falkayn and race to the find of Serendipity's computers: a rogue planet with the perfect environment for transmuting the heavier, rarer (and, consequently, enormously lucrative) elements that is hurtling towards a blue star designated Beta Crucis that Falkayn in the event christens "Satan," owing to the catastrophic atmospheric and geological conditions thereon. The two teams -- Falkayn and Chee Lan; van Rijn and Adzel -- have to deal with Luna's police force (headed by a man named Edward Garver, who seems to be modeled on the long-time, and then-current, at the time that Satan's World was written and published, head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover; see, for example, p. 59; Chapter VIII and p. 72; Chapter X), the Commonwealth government, the Polesotechnic League's perpetually squabbling members, and a hitherto unknown race of sophonts (Anderson's preferred term for intelligent, technology-using races), the Shenna, who are in their own way as threatening as Star Trek: Next Generation's the Borg.
Satan's World is, along with The Earth Book of Stormgate, the most enjoyable book so far in the series (I've yet to read Mirkheim or The People of the Wind; the latter book takes place towards the end of the League's existence, and, as such, doesn't feature either van Rijn or Falkayn). Satan's World showcases Anderson's strengths as a writer: the ability to present, in a relatively painless fashion, lengthy hard science exposition (indeed, I felt at some points as though I were reading a Scientific American or Nature article); a facility for wryly amusing dialogue (especially when Chee Lan is involved) and punnish, usually apropos, malapropisms (the irreplaceable, irrepressible van Rijn); and a talent for writing action sequences that are both clearly intelligible and exciting. But what really sets Satan's World apart from the preceding volumes is the psychology of the Shenna: Anderson spent some little effort in the development and presentation of them, such that they are more convincingly non-human than many extraterrestrial species from the classic days of science fiction, even from many of Anderson's previous tales of the League.
Anderson rides his libertarian -- pro-capitalist entrepreneur; anti-government -- hobbyhorse here, but not at any great length; and while his sexism is, as in other books, in full flower, it's not of the strain that holds that females are intellectually or physically inferior to males, merely that females are invariably more emotional than males, and that there's nothing inherently wrong with a man being a skirt-chaser, or even an out-and-out lecher (as in the case of van Rijn), given that males' sex drives are necessarily stronger than females', and that females tend to use their sexuality to gain advantage over males. (If this type of sexism was that objectionable to me, I'd have to forswear noir pretty much in toto.) Like many of the classic writers of science fiction, Anderson tends to show off his erudition ever so slightly more than is strictly necessary: as, for example, in his naming a character Hugh Latimer for no obvious -- or, as far as I can tell, obscure -- reason.
Satan's World is also buoyed by Anderson's strongest female character that I've yet encountered: the sleek, belligerent and acerbic Chee Lan, who is most clearly shown here to be more akin to an Earth feline than to a lemur, for all that she possesses two opposable thumbs (previously, to me at least, she seemed to be a cross between the two) -- see, for example, the descriptions of her behavior in Chapter XXIII, p. 186 and p. 188 -- and who, judging by the author photo on the back of the book's jacket (see below), seems to have been based at least in her markings on those of the kitty that Anderson is petting or holding in place (see Chapter IV, p. 26). The novel is about perfectly balanced between the four protagonists -- no one hangs around long enough to wear out their welcome -- but I'm enough of an ailurophile that Chee Lan made the book for me (although I've got enough sense to blanch at the thought of a typical Felis domesticus with thumbs and assortment of projectile weapons and getaway vehicles), even moreso than the blustery van Rijn.
*Cross-posted to my LibraryThing account.
Satan's World is either the third or fourth book in Poul Anderson's Polesotechnic League series (Anderson's Wikipedia entry lists it as the fourth book, but I've seen it listed elsewhere as the third; the omnibus The Earth Book of Stormgate, which is itself the fifth or sixth book in the series for all that it includes chronologically earlier stories, includes Anderson's complete, preferred text of the first novel in the series, which was originally published in 1958 in a heavily edited form as War of the Wing-Men; the complete manuscript was published for the first time in The Earth Book of Stormgate as The Man Who Counts), which features a loose inter-spatial alliance of merchant princes modeled roughly on the adventurer capitalists from the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century; the chief characters in the series are the "globular," flamboyantly hedonistic, bombastic and self-pitying (and wily, crafty, subtle, shrewd, frighteningly capable, physically formidable and, at bottom, compassionate) Earthman Nicholas van Rijn and his protégé, the pleasant though bland brick David Falkayn, the lesser scion of a colonial, human, baronial family on the planet Hermes.
Satan's World begins on Earth, where van Rijn has sent Falkayn to query the supercomputers of the business consultancy firm (it's indicative of this novel's publication date that the word "consultant" is not used to describe them) Serendipity, Inc., in the hopes of discovering a hitherto unknown market opportunity that van Rijn can exploit to the betterment of his conglomerate, Solar Spice & Liquors Company; Falkayn hits paydirt to such an extent that he is captured by the odd and aloof human operators of Serendipity so that their unknown extraterrestrial masters may benefit, causing both Falkayn's shipmates -- the hot-tempered, sassy feline Chee Lan from a planet that humans have named Cynthia (for the discoverer's mistress) and the intellectual and naïve Buddhist dracocentauroid Adzel from the planet dubbed Woden by humans -- and van Rijn to stage a raid on the personal Lunar domain of Serendipity's human agents to recapture the "brainscrubbed" Falkayn and race to the find of Serendipity's computers: a rogue planet with the perfect environment for transmuting the heavier, rarer (and, consequently, enormously lucrative) elements that is hurtling towards a blue star designated Beta Crucis that Falkayn in the event christens "Satan," owing to the catastrophic atmospheric and geological conditions thereon. The two teams -- Falkayn and Chee Lan; van Rijn and Adzel -- have to deal with Luna's police force (headed by a man named Edward Garver, who seems to be modeled on the long-time, and then-current, at the time that Satan's World was written and published, head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover; see, for example, p. 59; Chapter VIII and p. 72; Chapter X), the Commonwealth government, the Polesotechnic League's perpetually squabbling members, and a hitherto unknown race of sophonts (Anderson's preferred term for intelligent, technology-using races), the Shenna, who are in their own way as threatening as Star Trek: Next Generation's the Borg.
Satan's World is, along with The Earth Book of Stormgate, the most enjoyable book so far in the series (I've yet to read Mirkheim or The People of the Wind; the latter book takes place towards the end of the League's existence, and, as such, doesn't feature either van Rijn or Falkayn). Satan's World showcases Anderson's strengths as a writer: the ability to present, in a relatively painless fashion, lengthy hard science exposition (indeed, I felt at some points as though I were reading a Scientific American or Nature article); a facility for wryly amusing dialogue (especially when Chee Lan is involved) and punnish, usually apropos, malapropisms (the irreplaceable, irrepressible van Rijn); and a talent for writing action sequences that are both clearly intelligible and exciting. But what really sets Satan's World apart from the preceding volumes is the psychology of the Shenna: Anderson spent some little effort in the development and presentation of them, such that they are more convincingly non-human than many extraterrestrial species from the classic days of science fiction, even from many of Anderson's previous tales of the League.
Anderson rides his libertarian -- pro-capitalist entrepreneur; anti-government -- hobbyhorse here, but not at any great length; and while his sexism is, as in other books, in full flower, it's not of the strain that holds that females are intellectually or physically inferior to males, merely that females are invariably more emotional than males, and that there's nothing inherently wrong with a man being a skirt-chaser, or even an out-and-out lecher (as in the case of van Rijn), given that males' sex drives are necessarily stronger than females', and that females tend to use their sexuality to gain advantage over males. (If this type of sexism was that objectionable to me, I'd have to forswear noir pretty much in toto.) Like many of the classic writers of science fiction, Anderson tends to show off his erudition ever so slightly more than is strictly necessary: as, for example, in his naming a character Hugh Latimer for no obvious -- or, as far as I can tell, obscure -- reason.
Satan's World is also buoyed by Anderson's strongest female character that I've yet encountered: the sleek, belligerent and acerbic Chee Lan, who is most clearly shown here to be more akin to an Earth feline than to a lemur, for all that she possesses two opposable thumbs (previously, to me at least, she seemed to be a cross between the two) -- see, for example, the descriptions of her behavior in Chapter XXIII, p. 186 and p. 188 -- and who, judging by the author photo on the back of the book's jacket (see below), seems to have been based at least in her markings on those of the kitty that Anderson is petting or holding in place (see Chapter IV, p. 26). The novel is about perfectly balanced between the four protagonists -- no one hangs around long enough to wear out their welcome -- but I'm enough of an ailurophile that Chee Lan made the book for me (although I've got enough sense to blanch at the thought of a typical Felis domesticus with thumbs and assortment of projectile weapons and getaway vehicles), even moreso than the blustery van Rijn.
*Cross-posted to my LibraryThing account.