Poul Anderson- Hypothetical Collections and Reprints: Part II
Sunday , 21, June 2020 Uncategorized 3 Comments
Last week, I discussed collecting Poul Anderson’s sword and science stories into a hypothetical mass market paperback collection. There are two other categories: historical and fantasy to be covered.
Historicals:
Unnatural Enemies The Ultimate Dinosaur 1992
The Long Remembering F&SF Nov. 1957
The Forest Moonsinger’s Friends 1985
Son of the Sword Adventure Jan. 1952
Who Were the Aesir Amra Vol 2, #3 1959 (non-fiction)
The Bog Sword The First Heroes 2004
The Peat Bog Homeward & Beyond 1975
The Trader and the Vikings Jack London’s Adventure Mag Oct. 1958
Fantasy:
The Valor of Cappen Varra Fantastic Universe Jan. 1957
Gate of Flying Knives Thieves’ World 1979
The Lady of the Winds F&SF Oct-Nov. 2001
Strength The Magic May Return 1981
Faery Gold The Unicorn Trade 1984
The Tale of Hauk Swords Against Darkness 1977
On Thud and Blunder Swords Against Darkness III 1978 non-fiction
The Art of Robert Ervin Howard Amra V2, #1 1959 non-fiction
A guesstimate of the historical collection is around 220 pages. The fantasy collection would around 211 pages. That is dependent on font size, margins, etc. I was not sure if there would be enough in both categories to fill out a slender paperback. Luckily, many of these are novelettes and novellas. The inclusion of some non-fiction pieces also fills out the contents.
“Unnatural Enemies” is a tale of an Elasmosaurus vs. a prehistoric shark in the late Cretaceous. I was thinking how little really good dinosaur fiction there is. “The Long Remembering” is racial memory. “Son of the Sword” is late New Kingdom Egypt.
A shame that Poul Anderson did not write more stories featuring Cappen Varra. There are three stories as it stands. “Strength” is set in Larry Niven’s Magic Goes Away universe and cowritten by Mildred Downey Broxon.
Back in the 1990s, Tor Books reprinted some of Richard Matheson’s classic novels such as I am Legend and The Incredible Shrinking Man. Those are short novels so the editor at Tor (David Hartwell?) filled out the book with some short stories. An option would be to reprint the fantasy stories with classic Poul Anderson novels. Three Hearts and Three Lions is only 167 pages in the Berkley and Ace paperback editions. You could add the Cappen Varra stories which would fit rather well as add-ons. “The Tale of Hauk” would fit well as a pendent with The Broken Sword or Hrolf Kraki’s Saga. “The Peat Bog” and “The Bog Sword” could be added to The Golden Slave. “Son of the Sword” could be added to The Dancer From Atlantis.
I think I have more science fiction novels by Poul Anderson than any other author. Writing about him makes me want to revisit some old favorites.
I recently picked up a copy of Jack London’s Adventure Magazine. “The Trader and the Vikings” is a damn good story.
I have read most but not all of these stories. I definitely would buy these collections if they were published.
Another author whose uncollected stories I wish some intelligent and enterprising publisher would get into book form is Avram Davidson. There is a lot of his stuff, both stories and non-fiction, that has only appeared in obscure magazines, long out of print paperback collections or has never been published at all.
“I think I have more science fiction novels by Poul Anderson than any other author.”
Same here. Other SF writers could occasionally match him at plotting, characterization, style, or science, but no one could do them all as well as he could.