Musicians - Poul Anderson

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Poul William Anderson (November 25, 1926 – July 31, 2001) was a prolific science fiction author of the genre's Golden Age; some of his short stories were first published using the pseudonyms "A. A. Craig", "Michael Karageorge", and "Winston P. Sanders". Poul Anderson also wrote fantasy such as the King of Ys series.

He was born in Bristol, Pennsylvania.

He received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1948. He married the former Karen Kruse in 1953. They had one daughter, Astrid, who is married to the science fiction author Greg Bear.

He was the sixth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, taking office in 1972.

He was also a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America (SAGA), a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies.

Survey of his fiction

Anderson is probably best known for adventure stories in which larger-than-life characters succeed gleefully or fail heroically. He also wrote some quieter works, generally of shorter length, which appeared more during the latter part of his career. However, Anderson was seldom interested in psychological analysis.

Much of his science fiction is thoroughly grounded in science (with the addition of dubious but standard speculations such as faster-than-light travel). A specialty was imagining scientifically plausible non-Earthlike planets. Perhaps the best-known was the planet of The Man Who Counts — Anderson adjusted its size and composition so that humans could live in the open air but flying intelligent aliens could evolve, and he explored consequences of these adjustments. His stories often depicted a shipwrecked or stranded hero's struggle to survive in the hostile physical environment of an alien world through ingenuity and sheer drive.

In many stories, Anderson commented on society and politics. He often returned to libertarianism (which accounts for his Prometheus Awards) and to the business leader as hero, most notably his character Nicholas van Rijn. Beginning in the 1970s, his historically grounded works were influenced by the theories of the historian John K. Hord, who argued that all empires follow the same broad cyclical pattern—in which the Terran Empire of the Dominic Flandry spy stories fit neatly.

The writer Sandra Miesel (1978) has argued that Anderson's overarching theme is the struggle against entropy and the heat death of the universe, a condition of perfect uniformity where nothing can happen.

In the numerous books and stories depicting conflict in science-fictional or fantasy settings, Anderson takes trouble to make both sides' points of view comprehensible. Even where there can be no doubt on whose side the author is, the protagonists on the opposing side are usually not depicted as black villains but as honourable characters on their own terms. The reader is given access to their thoughts, feelings and motivations, and they have often a tragic dignity in defeat. Typical examples are the books The Winter of the World, and The People of the Wind.

He set much of his work in the past, often with the addition of magic, or in alternate or future worlds that resemble past eras. A specialty was his ancestral Scandinavia. Frequently he presented such worlds as superior to the dull, over-civilized present. Notable depictions of this superiority are the prehistoric world of "The Long Remembering", the medieval society of The High Crusade, the quasi-medieval one of "No Truce with Kings", and the untamed Jupiter of "Call me Joe". He handled the lure and power of atavism satirically in "Pact", critically in "The Queen of Air and Darkness" and The Night Face, and tragically in "Goat Song". He also did a modern retelling of the legend of Hrólf Kraki

Fitting Anderson's love for olden years, Ander-Saxon, a kind of learnèd writing with Germanic-rooted words only, is named after him.

Awards

Gandalf Grand Master (1978)
Hugo Award (seven times)
John W. Campbell Memorial Award (2000)
Nebula Award (three times)
Prometheus Award (four times, including Special Prometheus Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2001)
SFWA Grand Master Award (1997)

Partial Bibliography (book-length works only)

Series

King of Ys

Roma Mater (1986) with Karen Anderson
Gallicenae (1987) with Karen Anderson
Dahut (1987) with Karen Anderson
The Dog and the Wolf (1988) with Karen Anderson

Tomorrow's Children

Tomorrow's Children (1947) with F. N. Waldrop
Chain of Logic (1947)

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