Poul Anderson is an American writer. He is probably best known for adventure stories in which larger-than-life characters succeed gleefully or fail heroically. His characters were nonetheless thoughtful, often introspective, and well developed. His plot lines frequently involved the application of social and political issues in a speculative manner appropriate to the science fiction genre.
Background
Poul Anderson was born on November 25, 1926, in Bristol, Pennsylvania, United States, of Scandinavian parents, Anton William and Astrid (Hertz) Anderson.
Shortly after his birth, his father, Anton Anderson, an engineer, moved the family to Texas, where they lived for over ten years. Following Anton Anderson's death, his widow took her children to Denmark. The family returned to the United States after the outbreak of World War II, settling eventually on a Minnesota farm.
Education
Poul attended the University of Minnesota and received a Bachelor of Science in 1948.
While Poul Anderson was an undergraduate student at the University of Minnesota, Anderson's first stories were published by John W. Campbell in Astounding Science Fiction: "Tomorrow's Children" by Anderson and F. N. Waldrop in March 1947 and a sequel, "Chain of Logic" by Anderson alone, in July.
Much of his science fiction is thoroughly grounded in science (with the addition of unscientific but standard speculations such as faster-than-light travel). A specialty was imagining scientifically plausible non-Earthlike planets.
His novel Tau Zero is one of the best works of hard science fiction. Anderson’s scientific accuracy is reflected in the carefully constructed backgrounds he creates for his stories. He has set about fifty of his science fiction novels and short stories in a consistent “future history” of his own devising. His novel The Merman’s Children is based on a medieval Danish ballad about the decline of the world of Faerie. Set in Denmark in the Middle Ages, the novel tells of the struggle between the mermen and the Christian church. “One might guess the book,” writes Gerald Jonas in the New York Times Book Review, “to be either a fantasy or a ‘historical’ novel. Yet Poul Anderson ... has produced a genuine hybrid.”
The three adventures in The Shield of Time also show Anderson’s interest in ancient and medieval history. For this book, Anderson resurrects the “Time Patrol” (a squad he first created in the 1950s), whose job it is to travel through time to make sure history is not tampered with. “Anderson plays nicely with the idea that history may pivot on one lone individual, though the identity of that individual may not be at all obvious,” notes Tom Easton in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact.
Anderson often returned to right-libertarianism and to the business leader as hero, most notably his character Nicholas van Rijn. Beginning in the 1970s, Anderson's 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, into which the Terran Empire of the Dominic Flandry spy stories fit neatly.
The story told in The Shield of Time is also an example of a tragic conflict, a common theme in Anderson's writing. The knight tries to do his best in terms of his own society and time, but his actions might bring about a horrible Twentieth Century (even more horrible than the one we know). A similar theme but with much higher stakes appears in "The Pirate", "Delenda Est".
He died of cancer on July 31, 2001, after a month in the hospital. A few of his novels were first published posthumously.
Although Poul Anderson is often referred to as a writer of “hard” science fiction - science fiction with a scrupulously accurate scientific basis - he is also known for his creation of plausible fantasy worlds, often based on Nordic mythology. Anderson authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and short stories, his most famous works: ''Tau Zero'', ''The Queen of Air and Darkness''.
His awards include seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards and others.
When asked to comment on the role of science fiction in relation to other types of literature, Anderson told CA: “I have written quite a lot of it, and ajn proud to have done so, because science fiction is and always has been part of literature. Its long isolation, strictly a twentieth-century phenomenon, is ending; its special concepts and techniques are becoming common property, employed not only by the mass media but by some of our most respected writers; in turn, it is shedding artistic parochialism and thus starting to communicate beyond a small circle of enthusiasts. This is good, because the particular concerns of science fiction never have been parochial; they have included, or tried to include, all of space, time, and fate. Not that I wish to make exaggerated claims. I merely set forth that science fiction is one human accomplishment, among countless others, which has something to offer the world. Lest even this sound too pompous let me say that at the very least it is often a lot of fun.”
In many stories, Anderson commented on society and politics. Whatever other vicissitudes his views went through, he firmly retained his belief in the direct and inextricable connection between human liberty and expansion into space, for which reason he strongly cried out against any idea of space exploration being "a waste of money" or "unnecessary luxury".
Anderson firmly held that going into space was not an unnecessary luxury but an existential need, and that abandoning space would doom humanity to "a society of brigands ruling over peasants".
When asked about liberty, Anderson told Platt to “just look at what I’m reacting against ... If I had to call myself something, it would be either a conservative libertarian or a libertarian conservative ... Basically, I feel that the concepts of liberty that were expressed ... by people like the Founding Fathers were actually the radically bold concepts from which people have been retreating ever since. And I don’t believe that it’s necessarily reactionary to say so.”
Membership
Poul Anderson was a member of Institute for Twenty-First Century Studies, Science Fiction Writers of America (president, 1972-73), American Association for the Advancement of Science, Mystery Writers of America (northern California regional vice chair, 1959) Scowrers (secretary, 1957-62), Baker Street Irregulars, Elves, Gnomes, and Little Men’s Science Fiction Chowder and Marching Society, Society for Creative Anachronism.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
His “recognition of the inevitability of sorrow and death and of the limitations of human powers (but not human spirit) in the face of the immense inhumanity of the universe,” Russell Letson of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Review believes, “lifts Anderson’s fiction above its flaws.” “It is increasingly clear,” writes Michael W. McClintock in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, “that (Anderson) is one of the five or six most important writers to appeal' during the science-fiction publishing boom of the decade following the end of World War II.”
Connections
Poul married Karen J. M. Kruse on December 12, 1953. Their child: Astrid May.
