My new review series, Homeward By Starlight, covers the work of the late Poul Anderson, noted Danish-American science fiction and fantasy author. Why cover Anderson in 2026, aside from him having once been my favourite author?
November 25, 2026 would have been Poul Anderson’s 100th birthday. As there is no guarantee any of us will see November 25, 2026, I’ll borrow an idea from Tom Lehrer’s That Was the Year That Was and start writing something appropriately celebratory now.
Anderson was one of fewer than a dozen authors who managed to make a living selling prose SF way back when. He was able to do this because:
- Anderson was insanely prolific. I’ve never seen a total for his novels that I trusted, but a hundred might be a good guess.
- Anderson was reliable. With few exceptions1, readers were ensured they would not bitterly resent the time spent on an Anderson work.
You can build a career on “punctual” and “knows his lines”. People have2. However, Anderson had a third trick, the one that’s getting him this series of reviews:
- Anderson cared about world-building and verisimilitude, and he cared a lot more than many other SFF authors.
Well, I care about that stuff.
I cannot review all the Anderson novels. There are too many! It would have been a good idea to review his masterpieces, the very best of the best. But there’s a problem3. Anderson never wrote any masterpieces. He had great strengths, also terrible weaknesses. When he was writing at novel length, you were almost guaranteed to get lavish helpings of both. Tau Zero, for example, combines awesome vision with awful gender politics.
Anderson published an immense amount of work that was competent and often much better than just competent… but I would rate his output as consistently at the top of the second tier. None of his books are mentioned in the same breath as Dune, The Left Hand of Darkness, or The Lord of the Rings.
His shorter pieces also veer between competent and great, but not in the same work. When he had to focus, he could write very very well. Picking out the twelve best novels by Poul Anderson would be a challenge, but picking out the twelve best short pieces? The only problem would be getting it down to twelve, one for each month4.
But I’m going to try5
1: Anderson’s utter fiascos? If I put my hand behind my ear, I can just hear some incoherent screaming, out of which only the words “Saturn” and “game” can be made out.
2: I sometimes muse to fellow theatre staff that casting directors value Charles Paris’ punctuality and basic competence more than they mind his alcoholism or the fact that if they hire him, one or more cast members will be murdered (not by Charles). Nobody who works in theatre finds it hard to believe.
Um, Charles Paris is the protagonist of a series of mystery novels.
3: Not least of which is “Do I really want to showcase another fucking American author at this time? Especially a conservative?” But Anderson is the best kind of American conservative, the long dead (in 2001) variety. More American conservatives should heed his example.
USA delenda est.
4: I said “short pieces” and not “short stories.” Don’t expect a run of short stories.
5: Note that this will that, as I have only a limited number of spaces per week for reviews, my series What’s The Worst That Could Happen will be on hiatus in 2026. Do not fear! If we’re still alive in 2027, I will resume poking science fiction and fantasy’s buboes.
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