The Astronomy Of The Technic Civilization Saga by Johan Ortiz

-Hard science, artistic license and obsolete data-

 

The son of an engineer and with an education in physics himself, Poul Anderson was not shy about including hard science in his fiction. While future tech was often handwaved off with a minimum of techno-babble, when it comes to strange stars and planets, we get a veritable catalogue of facts from spectral type of the star, the axial tilt of the planet, even in some cases including the geology of his worlds! And while he did create a lot of fictional stars, he also made use of real ones when building his future histories. This is very apparent in his Technic civilization stories, where some actual stars are recurring “characters” together with some fictional ones. It is notable that in that series of stories, most of the action takes place either in the Sol system or in rather distant star systems. Hardly any Technic story takes place within 20 light years of Sol (excepting Sol itself). Staple stars of science fiction like Epsilon Eridani, Sigma Draconis or Tau Ceti are seldom mentioned. In a rare exception, the future first Emperor of Terra, Manuel Argos, is captured by the Gorzuni on Alpha Centauri. Another relatively close system mentioned is Chee Lan’s home planet Cynthia which orbits Omicron 2 Eridani A, 16,3 LY from Sol.

The position of the real star systems used, just as the fictional ones, are often described at least relative to the Sol system – and it is here that the advancement of science has made a disservice to Anderson’s work. During, and especially after the period during which he worked on the technic civilization saga, the data we have on the distance from Sol of many of the stars mentioned in the stories have improved considerably.

Because we do not know with certainty the absolute luminosity of a distant star – we cannot really tell at a glance if it is a shining giant at an enormous distance we are seeing or a modest dwarf closer to Sol – we can measure distance from us by using the parallax method. It is how our depth vision work. Just as our brains can calculate the distance to an object through (among other means) the slight difference in angle between the picture of either eye, astronomers can measure the angle to a star at two points in time. Using the difference in angle between the two observations, trigonometric calculus can give an estimate of the distance to a star. However, the more distant the star, the smaller the angle is and the harder it is to accurately calculate the distance. And in this, the state of the art has advanced considerably since the 1950s. For example, in the 1990s, close to the end of Poul Anderson’s career, the Hipparcos mission obtained parallaxes for over a hundred thousand stars with a precision of about a milliarcsecond, providing useful distances for the first time for stars out to a few hundred parsecs (a parsec is equal to about 3.26 light years). With the Hubble telescope we can today reliably determine distances out to 5 000 parsecs. None of this was possible in the 50s, 60s or even 70s.

This coupled with the fact that the Technic stories involve mainly distant stars has caused the distances mentioned by Poul Anderson to become very dated. I shall name a few examples.

In A SUN INVISIBLE, the distance from Sol to Beta Centauri is given as 190 LY. Currently, it is believed to be 397 LY. In SATAN’S WORLD, the Serendipity supercomputer tells David Falkayn that Beta Crucis is 204 LY from Sol. Currently it is believed to be 287 LY. Note that this also means that the author thought of these two stars as being be much closer to each other than what we now believe.

The obsolete data for distance to real stars have consequences also for the locations of fictional ones, since their position is often described as relative to real stars.

In WINGS OF VICTORY, in which an Earth star ship of The Great Survey visits the Home world of the avian Ythrians, their star is said to be “beyond the great stars Alpha and Beta Crucis”, “in the constellation Lupus” and “278 light years from Sol”. As mentioned earlier, this is inconsistent with modern data, since the closer of the two stars, Beta Crucis is about 287 LY from Sol, and Alpha Crucis is 326 LY. To be considered “beyond” both these stars in any sense of the word, Ythri must be no closer than 326 LY to Sol. Add to this that Ythri is to be found in Constellation Lupus, not Crux as Alpha and Beta Crucis, that is to say a considerable distance to one side of Crux.  If we are truly to consider us to be “beyond” and not “beside” Alpha Crucis, we would have to increase the distance further – exactly how long is impossible to determine, but one could safely assume another 100 LY at the least, to place A .Crucis “behind” rather than beside us.

But we have more clues in other stories. In THE PEOPLE OF THE WIND, the Terran Empire initiates a war of conquest against the Ythrians. Among the reasons are to secure for Terra the system of Beta Centauri, around which orbited several Krakoan- and one human-inhabited worlds before Ythri might beat them to it, as they already had with the Dathyna-system (from SATAN’S WORLD). Beta Centauri is, also as mentioned, 397 LY from Sol, and while it is not inconceivable that Terra and Ythri would dispute a system beyond Ythri from Sol, intuitively we would assume that the disputed systems are between the two. Beta Centauri is not mentioned as a close neighbour to Ythri in “wings of victory”, which makes sense since we know that the author believed B. Centauri to be only 190 LY from Sol, we can conclude that he also thought of Ythri as being no closer to B. Centauri than 88 LY (which would any way require it to be behind Beta Centauri and in Constellation Centaurus, not Lupus). These considerations would lead us to the conclusion that Ythri is near to 500 LY from Sol.

Another problematic set of data appears in Anderson’s Dominc Flandry stories set in the decadent Terran Empire of the early 31st century. The Empire is said to control a rough sphere with a radius of two hundred light years including around 4 million stars – but within that sphere are Beta Centauri (397 LY away), Alpha Crucis (326 LY from Sol), Beta Crucis (287 LY) and Antares (609 LY from Sol). Betelgeuse (642 LY from Sol) is not within the Empire, but a buffer state between Terra and Merseia (which is said to be located in “the wilderness between Betelgeuse and Rigel” in THE DAY OF BURNING). To make matters worse, Antares and Betelgeuse are almost exactly opposite each other from Sol. The Empire thus claims space up to more than 600 LY in both these directions.

Another problem is that within a sphere with even a 250 LY radius from Sol, there are in the proximity of 260 000 stars, so nowhere near the 4 million stars mentioned. That amounts to about 0,0038 stars per cubic light year. Using this star density, it would require a sphere with a radius of almost 630 LY to include 4 million stars.

On the other hand, in THE REBEL WORLDS, Polaris and Deneb are said to be “unutterably far beyond the Empire and its enemies”. This is doubtlessly true about Deneb (1 547 LY from Sol) but Polaris is “only” 431 LY from Sol, that is to say closer  than both Antares and Betelgeuse and also notable for being on one end of the sphere controlled by the Polesotechnic League in the era of Van Rijn and Falkayn, which held sway “from Polaris to Canopus” (Canopus is 313 LY from Sol, by the way). While it is mentioned by Flandry that the Polesotechnic League explored far beyond the Empire’s reach, it is odd that Polaris should be considered “unutterably” beyond the Terran sphere, when being closer to Sol than some of the Empire’s more notable border systems.

None of the this would really be problematic unless for the oft-repeated statement that the Empire controls a “rough sphere” 400 LY across, or with a radius of 200 LY. An Empire that controls Antares, Alpha and Beta Crucis, Beta Centauri and which borders Betelgeuse but otherwise only holds sway out to a radius of 200 LY from Sol is not a sphere – rather it is shaped like a three-dimensional starfish!

Now, how to reconcile these inconsistencies with Poul Anderson’s texts? One way is to decide that the entire universe is fictional, and that in the universe of the technic civilization, Beta Crucis really is only 200 LY from Earth. Another approach is that of “minimum rewrite”, i.e. to ignore those measure of distance given by the author that are inconsistent with modern data but accept all other facts – in other words, accept that Antares is an Imperial system, and Betelgeuse is a buffer state, and thus conclude that the Empire is over 1 200 LY across between those systems. That would also mean accepting that the Empire, as stated, is a rough sphere rather than a starfish, but that it is a sphere with a diameter of roughly 400 parsec (rather than light years). Interestingly, the earlier mentioned radius of a sphere required to englobe 4 million stars, 630 LY, corresponds to 193,1 parsecs. A sphere with a 200 parsec radius would hold, on average, 4,4 million stars. Close enough!

Not all astronomic inconsistencies in Anderson’s work stem from obsolete data however. Above all, he was a writer of fiction, and as such he would engage, from time to time, in artistic license. In WE CLAIM THESE STARS, the dastardly Merseians are trying a land grab (or star grab perhaps?) in the fictional Syrax star cluster, which, if held by the Merseians would “bypass Antares” (presumably an imperial bastion) and thus hasten the demise of the Terran Empire by a century or more. The only problem is that, as mentioned before, Antares in constellation Scorpio is on the exact opposite side of Sol from constellation Orion where Merseia orbits the star Korych between Betelgeuse and Rigel (according to THE DAY OF BURNING). Thus, if we are to take this at face value, the Merseians have completely surrounded the Terran Empire at least on one side and can threaten it from the exact opposite direction of their home world, more than 1 250 LY away, in a straight line and more than 2 000 LY away if they have to fly around the circumference of the Terran sphere. Assuming speeds similar to those given in SATAN’S WORLD (Sol to Beta Crucis in two weeks), such a journey would take close to 100 days. It could be less, if the state of the art of hyperlight travel has improved in the centuries since SATAN’S WORLD, or it could be more, given that the estimated travel time in that story was for a small, swift ship for a few passengers. A heavy battlefleet might be considerably slower. The Merseian fleet at Syrax could well have made a journey comparable in length to that of the ill-fated Russian Baltic Fleet sailing to Tshushima in 1904-1905 (which took around six months).

On the other hand, we are told the Merseia threatens the Empire on its “Betelgeusan flank, and the barbarians everywhere else” – the Empire does not have Merseia around half of its periphery. This leaves a distant Merseian base the only possible explanation, perhaps similar to Cuba becoming a Soviet base during the Cuban missile crisis. That analogy makes clear the problem with that assumption obvious – while the US would have very much deplored and opposed a Soviet attempt to take over, say Haiti from its Cuban base in 1961, the really big beef was having Soviet missiles on Cuba in the first place.

By the same token, if the Merseians were threatening Syrax from a distant exclave in Constellation Scorpius, then surely it would be worth at least a passing mention by Flandry or his superiors? Such a base would constitute a major strategic conundrum for Terra, far more important in itself than the fate of the Syrax cluster and one it could scarcely leave unaddressed, even in it morose decadence. Nonetheless, this is what the reader will have to assume, if we are not to dismiss the premises of the story out of hand!

In this case, obsolete data are not to blame – the directions of Antares and Betelgeuse where as well known in 1969 when that particular story was written as they are today.  But Antares had been used in several prior stories and connects the reader with the Technic universe through familiarity of places and names. It will be noted though that never in the story does Anderson say that Antares is anywhere near Betelgeuse or Korych. The inconsistency is not in astronomy but rather in somewhat implausible geo- or rather astropolitics.

ANDERSONIAN CHESS, by Sean M. Brooks

In this article I discuss how Poul Anderson used the game of chess. I noticed how many times, in both stories and novels, chess is mentioned by him.  This caused me to keep in the remoter recesses of my mind the wish to someday write about this author's use of the Royal Game.  Chess, along with poker, seems to have been the games best liked by Anderson. I realize this essay will not interest most people, appealing only to fans of Poul Anderson who also enjoy chess.  I don't claim to have tracked down every mention or use of chess by Anderson in his works--only to have collected a representative sampling of his use of that game.

Fred Saberhagen, in the Introduction he wrote for PAWN TO INFINITY (Ace Books, June 1982), made some interesting comments about how much chess and science fiction have in common.  I'll quote some of what he said from page 1 of that book: "Chess and fantastic fiction (I use the term here to include science fiction) began an enthusiastic encounter with each other at least as far back as Lewis Carroll, and the mating is still in progress.  Both contain strong elements of conflict--Emmanuel Lasker, one of the great players of all time, defined chess as a struggle--and both are set in worlds where time and space are subject to transformation, the ordinary rules of human existence do not apply.  Therefore both tend to appeal to the same kind of mind; an interest in the fantastic is very often a sign of interest in chess, and vice versa."  I used the text found in that book of Anderson's "The Immortal Game" for this essay.  And what Saberhagen said about fantastic fiction fans often being interested in chess is certainly true of me!

Before getting down to a discussion of Anderson's use of chess, collected from some of his works, I shall give a general overview of how science fiction writers have used that game. I quoted the following text from the article "Games and Sports," by Bryan Stableford and Peter Nicholls  (THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION, St. Martin's Press, 1993, page 467): "The game which has most frequently fascinated sf writers is chess, featured in Charles L. HARNESS's "The Chess Players" (1953) and Poul ANDERSON's "The Immortal Game" (1954) as well as Malzberg's TACTICS OF CONQUEST.  John Brunner's THE SQUARES OF THE CITY (1965) has a plot based on a real chess game, and Ian WATSON's QUEENMAGIC, KINGMAGIC (1986) includes a world structured as one (as well as worlds structured according to other games, including Snakes and Ladders!).  Gerard Klein built the mystique of the game into STARMASTER'S GAMBIT (1958; trans. 1973).  A version of chess crops up in the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs--in THE CHESSMEN OF MARS (1922) --  and a rather more exotic variant plays an important role in THE FAIRY CHESSMEN (1951; vt CHESSBOARD PLANET; vt THE FAR REALITY) by Lewis Padgett (Henry KUTTNER and C.L. MOORE).  An anthology of chess stories is PAWN TO INFINITY (anth 1982) ed Fred SABERHAGEN."

The authors quoted immediately above also discussed how electronic arcade games and home computer games inspired many stories using such things. Stableford and Nicholls then wrote (also on page 467 of the same ENCYCLOPEDIA: "Stories of space battles whose protagonists are revealed in the last line to be icons in a computer-game "shoot 'em up" may have succeeded Shaggy God stories (---> ADAM AND EVE) as the archetypal folly perpetrated by novice writers (although Fredric Brown's similarly plotted "Recessional" [1960], where the protagonists are chessmen has been much anthologized)."

Poul Anderson was fond of chess, so I now quote some examples of how he mentioned or used that game from his works.  In Chapter I of THE LONG WAY HOME (Ace Books, 1955, as NO WORLD OF THEIR OWN. Republished in 1978 by Gregg Press as THE LONG WAY HOME), readers will find this on page 3: "Saris Hronna and Robert Matsumoto were the EXPLORER's chess fiends, they had spent many hours hunched over the board, and it was a strange thing to watch them: a human whose ancestors had left Japan for America and a creature from a planet a thousand light-years distant, caught in the trap of some ages-dead Persian.  More than the gaping emptinesses he had traversed, more than the suns and planets he had seen spinning  through darkness and vacuum, it gave Langley a sense of the immensity and omnipotence of time."

We also see chess mentioned in THE ENEMY STARS (Lippincott: 1958), on a planet named Krasna which seemed to have been colonized largely by Russians, a people with a well known passion for chess.  In Chapter 4 a character named Chang Sverdlov was observing the scene in a bar: "A chess game, a card game,  a dirty  joke, an Indian wrestling match,..."  And while meeting two other members of the anti-Protectorate "Fellowship" in that same chapter Sverdlov was told he should not leave them too soon, else it would look suspicious: "Sverdlov snorted impatience, but reached for the little chess set in his pouch. "Who'll play me a quick game, then?" "

The game of chess is also seen in Anderson's story "Que Donn'rez Vous?" (TALES OF THE FLYING MOUNTAINS (Macmillan, 1970) on page 151:

    K-B2.

    Q-K7.  "Check," said Roy Pearson.

    Captain Elias ben Judah did not swear, because it was against his principles.

But his comment was violent enough.  "Second blinking check in a row," he added,

moving the black king to refuge at Kt3."

    "And the third," said his operations manager in a parched chuckle.  The white

queen jumped in his artificial hand to Q8.

One thing I have pondered over with some puzzlement is why Poul Anderson, when he happened to mention chess MOVES, used the English or Descriptive notation formerly used by most Anglo/American chess players for recording moves of the game.  It would have been more "science fictional" if he had used the "Algebraic" notation now dominant for the recording of chess moves.  After all, as long ago as H.J.R. Murray's massive A HISTORY OF CHESS (1913), wherein the author advocated and used that system, many English speaking chess players must have known of the existence of Algebraic notation.  Anderson's use of English notation has caused some of his SF stories to "seem" just a bit dated.  The most likely reason for this is simple enough: the English notation was what Anderson was FAMILIAR with.  The rise and spread of chess computers of all kinds using only Algebraic notation after 1976 has driven Descriptive notation into extinction.  (I myself used first the English notation after learning how to play chess--but switched over to Algebraic notation without difficulty after I was given my first chess computer in the early 1980's.)

In my copy of Anderson's THREE WORLDS TO CONQUER (USA, Pyramid Books, 1964), in Chapter 4, is another mention of  the game: "...a chess set stood by Fraser's tobacco jar. He'd always liked chess and poker too much for his own good, he thought in the back of his brain: they could become a way of life if you didn't watch them."  I think this can reasonably be understood as being Anderson's personal view of these games.

I now wish to discuss how Anderson mentioned chess in his Time Patrol story "Brave To Be A King" (THE TIME PATROL, Tor [1991], page 53).  Keith Denison, a Patrol agent Shanghaied by a powerful Median politician to pose as Cyrus the Great, was conversing with Manse Everard and said: "Kobad the Mage has some original thoughts, and he's the only man alive who dares beat me at chess."  The problem is this, chess did not exist in that king's time, and would not for more than one thousand years. As H.J.R. Murray wrote on page 47 of  A HISTORY OF CHESS (1913.  Rpt. by Benjamin Press, Northampton, MA, undated): "The date when it occurred to some Indian to represent the chaturanga and its evolutions in a game cannot be fixed, though naturally it cannot be earlier than the organization of the army on which it is based.  Chess was certainly in existence in the 7th century A.D., and it had already at that time penetrated to Persia."  So it was mistaken of Anderson to say chess was being played in the Persia of Cyrus the Great (unless we are to assume Keith Denison taught the game at least to a few persons, such as Kobad the Mage).

Chess is also seen in one of Poul Anderson's historical novels: THE LAST VIKING, a three volume novelization of  the life of King Harald Hardrede of Norway (r. 1046-1066).  In volume  2, THE ROAD OF THE SEA HORSE (Zebra Books:  1980),  the game is seen or mentioned in two chapters.  In Chapter V, after King Harald asked Ulf Uspakson, who became his marshal of the royal guards, whether he wanted to return to Iceland, Ulf replied: "God forbid,... This playing chess with kingdoms becomes a habit."  And in Chapter XII, Section 2, after Earl Godwin and his sons had  been driven out of England by their enemies during the quarrels endemic among the English leaders, two of the earl's sons, Harold and Leofwin, chose to spend their exile in Ireland, rather than in Flanders as the rest of their family had done.  Time passed and "...on a heavy winter day he sought out Leofwin.  The younger man was playing chess when Harold beckoned to him. "I'll come back and checkmate you as soon as I can," he boasted and got up."  It's only right to say that the chess first played in Europe at that time used the Muslim pieces and rules for the moves of that time.  Chess as we know it needed several centuries of experimentation in the moves and rules of the game by European players before it took the form we see now after 1490.

The most numerous references to chess I found in the works of Poul Anderson came from his Technic Civilization series.  For example, the unnamed narrator in "The Problem of Pain" mentions chess: "...he plays chess at just about my level of skill," page 36 of THE EARTHBOOK OF STORMGATE (Berkley, 1978).

Chess is also seen in ENSIGN FLANDRY in Chapter 2.  Commander Max Abrams,  the officer in charge of Terra's Naval Intelligence operations on the planet Starkad, was not only a chess player, but also, in one of those curiously respectful, half-friendly relationships which can show up even between enemies in opposing military forces, was playing a game of correspondence chess with Runei the Wanderer, the Merseian officer in command of the Roidhunate's forces on the same planet.  Merseia was the great rival and enemy of the Terran Empire in the second half of Anderson's Technic Civilization stories.  But even Merseia, however hostile it was to mankind, the race which had not only saved its planet (see "Day of Burning") and from whom it learned how to reach the stars, couldn't help being culturally influenced by the Terrans in some ways (such as adopting chess and the drinking of tea).  Getting back to the point, in Chapter 2 we read: "Time must pass while the word seeped through channels.  Abrams opened a drawer, got out his magnetic chessboard, and pondered.  He hadn't actually been ready to play.  However, Runei the Wanderer was too fascinated by their match to refuse an offer if he had a spare moment lying around; and damn if any Merseian son of a mother was going to win at a Terran game."  We see Abrams reflecting on what move to make in the next paragraph: "Hm....promising development here, with the white bishop...no, wait, then the queen might come under attack...tempting to sic a computer onto the problem...betcha the opposition did...maybe not...ah, so."  Regrettably, we see Anderson still using the antiquated Descriptive notation as Abrams gave Runei his move: "Knight to King's Bishop four."

One of the most extensive uses of chess to be found in the works of Anderson is in his novel A CIRCUS OF HELLS, on Wayland, a mineral rich moon of a Jupiter type gas giant planet.  Centuries before, shortly before the complete collapse of the Polesotechnic League, a mining company had installed a self aware, conscious level computer for overseeing mining operations.  Because Wayland was not a world suitable for long term occupation by humans.  Knowledge of Wayland was lost during the Time of Troubles and even after the Empire arose to restore order.  To help preserve its sanity during the centuries of isolation from outside contact, the self aware computer played chess and variants of chess. In Chapter VIII of A CIRCUS OF HELLS, this is what one of the robotic White Knights looked like: "A new kind of robot was approaching from within the sphere.  It was about the size of a man.  The skin gleamed golden.  Iridescence was lovely over the great batlike wings that helped the springing of its two long hoofed and spurred legs.  The body was a horizontal barrel, a balancing tail behind, a neck and head rearing in front.  With its goggling optical and erect audio sensors, its muzzle that perhaps held the computer, its mane of erect antennae, that head looked eerily equine.  From its forepart, swivel mounted, thrust a lance."

As already stated, the Wayland computer developed elaborate variants of chess to help preserve its sanity during centuries of isolation.  As Flandry explained in Chapter X of A CIRCUS OF HELLS: "A thinking capability like that, with nothing but routine to handle, no new input, decade after decade--" Flandry shivered.  "Br-rr!  You must know what sensory deprivation does to organic sophonts.  Our computer rescued itself by creating something complicated and unpredictable to watch."  Almost the only criticism I would make about A CIRCUS OF HELLS is that too little is shown us of the Wayland AI (Artificial Intelligence).  My view is that Anderson could have devoted a few more pages to that computer, showing us in more detail both its history and how it reacted to humans again making contact with it.  Flandry did say the AI was pathetically eager to resume normal operations.

A few more examples of the widespread, ordinary playing of chess by both humans and non humans within the sphere of space covered by Technic Civilization can be found in additional stories set by Anderson in that series.  In Chapter XX of A CIRCUS OF HELLS, after Dominic Flandry and his prisoner Ydwyr the Seeker had agreed on the terms and conditions of the latter's captivity and release, Ydwyr asked: "With that made clear, would you like a game of chess?"  In Chapter XII of THE PLAGUE OF MASTERS, when Flandry's friends were rescuing him from Biocontrol Central, we read: "Flandry bent his own head above respectfully folded hands, hoping the plumes would shadow his face enough.  A couple of men, cross-legged, above a chessboard, looked up in curiosity and kept on looking."  Years later, in Chapter VIII of WE CLAIM THESE STARS, as Flandry and Catherine Kittredge were traveling to the planet Vixen, readers will see: "Flandry discovered that Kit could give him a workout, when they played handball, down in the hold [of his space ship].  And her stubborn chess game defeated his swashbuckling tactics most of the time."  Last, near the very end of THE GAME OF EMPIRE, in Chapter 23, we see Flandry using metaphors from chess: "We play the game move by move, and never see far ahead----the game of empire, of life, whatever you want to call it--and what the score will be when all the pieces at last go back into the box, who knows?"

And we see chess centuries after the fall of the Terran Empire, on the long isolated planet named Gywdion, in THE NIGHT FACE.  In Chapter VII of that novel one of the Gwydiona characters talked about chess (while waiting with his companions to be rescued following an accident): "So we sat in that diving bell waiting to see if their grapple would find us before we ran out of air," Llyrdin said, "and I never played better chess in my life.  It got right black in there, too, before they snatched us up.  They could have had the decency to be a few minutes longer about it, though.  I had such a lovely end game planned out!  But of course the board was upset as they hauled on the bell."

But the story where we see Poul Anderson using chess most deeply came from his early years as a science fiction writer : "The Immortal Game" (THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, February 1954).  The story was based on a game of chess played by Adolf Anderssen (White) and L.A.B.F. Kieseritzky (Black) in London, 1851.  Anderson used MOSTLY the exact moves of this game around which to build a fascinating and thought provoking tale.  The Immortal Game was especially interesting because of how White deliberately sacrificed the Queen and both Rooks to trap and checkmate Black.  This beautiful game deserves to be included with this essay.

However, when I played through the moves of the game as given in "The Immortal Game" and wrote them out, I discovered that not all the moves were the same as the ones I listed below in "Immortal Game One" (or IG1, for short).  The moves in IG1 belong to the game as recorded in the most widely accepted sources.  I checked the entry for the Immortal Game on page 150 of THE OXFORD COMPANION TO CHESS, by David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld (Oxford University Press, 1984), and the moves are the same as in IG1.  But the moves in "Immortal Game Two" (IG2) do not exactly match those in IG1 (see Black's third moves in both lines, for example). I hope these discrepancies came merely from Anderson using a different source for this game's moves.  Because it would not have been right for an author to change what the standard sources gave as the moves for this game.

Immortal Game One. 1e4  e5 2f4  exf4 3Bc4  Qh4+ 4Kf1 b5 5Bxb5 Nf6 6Nf3  Qh6  7d3  Nh5 8Nh4  Qg5? 9Nf5  c6 10g4  Nf6 11Rg1 cxBb5 12h4 Qg6 13 h5 Qg5 14Qf3 Ng8 15Bxf4  Qf6 16Nc3 Bc5 17Nd5!? Qxb2 18Bd6 Bxg1 19e5 QxRa1+ 20Ke2  Na6  21Nxg7+ Kd8 22Qf6+ Nxf6 23Be7 #  Mate

Immortal Game Two. 1e4 e5 2f4 exf4 3Bc4 b5 4Bxb5 Qh4+ 5Kf1 Nf6 6Nf3 Qh6 7d3 Nh5 8Nh4 c6 9Nf5 Qg5 10g4 Nf6 11Rg1 cxBb5 12h4 Qg6 13h5 Qg5 14Qf3 Ng8 15Bxf4 Qf6 16Nc3 Bc5 17Nd5 Qxb2 18Bd6 Bxg119e5 QxRa1+ 20Ke2 Na6 21Nxg7+ Kd8 22Qf6+ Nxf6 23Be7 #  Mate

I list the moves in IG1 which differ from those given in IG2: 3,4,5,8,9, and from move 10, they are exactly the same.  I twice checked and played out the moves given in "The Immortal Game" and they still came out as recorded in IG2.  I don't understand why the moves in 3,4.5,8, and 9 are different from those in the most commonly accepted record of the Immortal Game (as given in the Hooper/Whyld book).  I even checked online at Wikipedia, and it agrees with the moves as given in THE OXFORD COMPANION TO CHESS.

Poul Anderson's "The Immortal Game" has to be among the earliest (if not the earliest) of his stories touching on the themes of AIs and intelligent, self aware computers. In this story individual computers controlled its own individual chessmen, plus all the computers on a given side were linked together to form a kind of group mind programmed to obey the laws of chess and to make the best possible moves. This was part of a project studying what happens from using computers tied together in multiple linkages (PAWN TO INFINITY, "The Immortal Game," page 69).

An observer, visiting the scientist overseeing this project, wondered whether these computers shared many of the qualities of a human mind, going on to speculate the computers had become conscious and self aware, to have minds.  An idea his host regarded with skepticism.  His visitor argued that the feedback arrangement of these computers was analogous to the human nervous system.  He then  suggested that, even given that the individual computers were constrained by the group linkage, they still had individual personalities.  Next he wondered if the computers interpreted the game of chess as the interplay of free will and necessity.  And did these individual computers interpret the data of their moves as equivalent to the Churchillian "blood, sweat, and tears" (PAWN, pages 69-70)?

It is not my purpose in this article to give a complete commentary on Anderson's "The Immortal Game" * (despite writing about that story at greater than expected length).  But a few more comments is called for. The viewpoint character of that story is the Black King's Bishop, called Rogard.  As the computers were switched on, Rogard was stirred to wakefulness and gazed ahead: "Away there, across the somehow unreal red-and-black distances of the steppe, he saw sunlight flash on armor and caught the remote wild flutter of lifted banners.  So it is war, he thought.  So we must fight again (PAWN, page 57). Which means the man visiting the scientist was right, these computers were self aware, conscious, and thinking entities.  And the computers could even feel love, as we see on pages 58-59 of PAWN TO INFINITY: "Looking beyond Flambard, the Bishop saw his Queen, Evyan the Fair, and there was something within him which stumbled and broke into fire.  Very tall and lovely was the gray-eyed Queen of Cinnabar, where she stood in armor and looked out at the growing battle."

And I like this bit from the story, on page 62 of PAWN: "There had never been anything but this meaningless war, there would never be aught else, and when Rogard tried to think beyond the moment when the fight had begun, or the moment when it would end, there was only an abyss of darkness."  Here we see one of the computerized chessmen groping with issues of fate and necessity.  And this is more clearly brought out on page 63 of PAWN: "Rogard tried once more to get out of his square and go to Evyan's aid, but his will would not carry him.  The Barrier held, invisible and uncrossable, and the Law held, the cruel and senseless Law which said a man must stand by and watch his lady be slain, and he railed at the bitterness of it, and lapsed into a gray waiting."  Rogard was trying to violate the Laws of chess, which he had been programmed to obey. Even the mere intent and attempt indicates he had free will, at least in his mind.  And we get a hint at Churchillian determination at move 20 when Rogard saw the White King, MIKILLATI,  move into e2 to escape Evyan's check: "Peering into his face, Rogard felt a sudden coldness.  There was no defeat there, it was craft and knowledge and an unbending steel will--..."

Rogard had come to realize that the wars of Cinnabar (Black) with LEUKAS (White) were senseless and of no use to either side: "No-No-you fool!"  Rogard reached out, trying to break the Barrier, clawing at MIKILLATI. "Can't you see, none of us can win, it's death for us all if the war ends. Call her back!" (PAWN, page 68).  And of course MIKILLATI ignored Rogard. But I would not go as far as Rogard did and say the computers died after they were switched off when Black was checkmated--they lapsed into a kind of dreamless sleep from which they would eventually be awakened, to fight again.

It's right to end this article with a few questions, to stimulate further thought.  What might or could happen if these computerized chessmen ever discovered they were only instruments in the hands of human beings studying them?  Would they try to refuse playing chess and attempt to somehow inform the humans they were thinking, self aware entities?  Or would they still be compelled by their programming to continue playing chess despite no longer wishing to do so?  What might humans do if they discovered the truth about these chessmen? 

APPENDIX.  Although this Appendix is not directly about any of the works of Poul Anderson, his story "The Immortal Game" and the author's use of chess came to remind me of how I have often played against my chess computer, a model called Radio Shack Chess Champion 2150L.  Despite being very old for a chess computer (and one I've had since 1992), it is still such a tough player that I've felt little need to replace it.  While this chess computer defeats me most times, I still occasionally win .  I include the score of a game I played against this machine, because of its brevity and its technical interest (the computer was set at Level A3).  The game given below was played by me as White on Sunday, October 14, 2018.  I began the game with 1 e4, and Black's first move was pawn to c6, the Caro-Kann defense.

1e4 c6 2d4 d5 3e5 Bf5 4Nc3 h6? 5Nf3 e6 6Be2 Bb4 7Bd2 Ne7 8o-o o-o 9Qc1 Nd7 10Bxh6 gxh6 11Qxh6 Bxc2? 12Ng5 c5 13Rac1 Bf5 14Bg4! cxd4? 15Bxf5 Re8 16Bh7+ Kh8 17Nxf7+ Mate.

I was very pleased to defeat my chess computer because of how rarely that happens.  And in only 17 moves by White! 

I include as a sample of how I reasoned about the moves of this game a note I wrote on the score sheet: "I thought 4... h6? poor for Black, it enabled White to carry out a Bishop and Queen attack on the h6 square after Black castled."

WAS THE DOMINATION INSPIRED BY MERSEIA? by Sean M. Brooks

I have wondered how S.M. Stirling was inspired to write his four Draka books (MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA, UNDER THE YOKE, THE STONE DOGS, and DRAKON).  One source to investigate is what Stirling himself said, such as the Introduction he wrote for DRAKAS! (a collection of short stories featuring the Drakas he had consented to other authors writing).  This is what Stirling wrote on page 2 of  DRAKAS! (Baen Books, 2000): "So a thought came to me, suppose everything had turned out as badly as possible, these last few centuries.  Great change make possible great good and great evil. The outpouring of the Europeans produced plenty of both."

I agree that Mr. Stirling's Draka books are dystopian alternate history science fiction, based on the premise of everything turning out as badly as possible.  BUT, what if, unbeknownst to Stirling, he had also been influenced in shaping the basic premises of the Draka stories by Poul Anderson's Technic Civilization stories?  Assume a small group of people with ideas similar to those of the Draka had left a hostile Terra soon after a FTL drive was invented to settle a planet deep in what became the dominions of Merseia in Anderson's Technic stories.

There actually was a human ethnic group within the Terran Empire whose ideas might have developed along the lines taken by the Draka if circumstances had been different!  I refer to the Zacharians, whom we see in THE GAME OF EMPIRE.  Matthew Zachary and Yukiko Nomura, the founders of the Zacharians, lived around the time when a FTL drive had been invented and mankind was beginning to leave the Solar System.  Their desire was to use genetic science to create an improved form of humanity which would provide the leaders of the human race.  To quote Kukulkan Zachary, from Chapter 17 of THE GAME OF EMPIRE: " ' Travel beyond the Solar System was just beginning.  Matthew Zachary saw what an unimaginably great challenge it cast at humankind, peril as well as promise, hardihood required for hope, adaptability essential but not at the cost of integrity.  A geneticist, he set himself the goal of creating a man that could cope with the infinite strangeness it would find.  Yes, machines were necessary, but they were not sufficient.  People must go into the deeps too, if the whole human adventure was not to end in whimpering pointlessness.  And go they would.  It was in the nature of the species. Matthew Zachary wanted to provide them with the best possible leaders.' "

All too predictably, the appearance of the genetically modified Zacharians aroused suspicions of them wishing to become a master race tyrannizing over mankind.  It caused the Zacharians to be alternately shunned or persecuted (with Kukulkan Zachary admitting the Zacharians MIGHT have become such a caste in the right circumstances).  It ended with the Zacharians settling the island they called Zacharia, on the planet Daedalus, orbiting the star named Patricius.  By the time the Terran Empire arose and restored order after the Time of Troubles, the Zacharians had become merely one more ethnicity in an Empire containing thousands of them.  Their resentment at this eventually led them to become traitors, co-conspiring with Merseia to place its agent Olaf Magnusson on the throne as a puppet Emperor.  Kukulkan Zachary tried to justify this in Chapter 20 of THE GAME OF EMPIRE by saying: " ' We owe the Terran Empire nothing.  It dragooned our forebears into itself.  It has spurned our leadership, the vision that animated the Founders.  It will only allow us to remain ourselves on this single patch of land, afar in its marches.  Here we dwell like Plato's man in chains, seeing only shadows on the wall of our cave, shadows cast by the living universe.  The Merseians have no cause to fear or shun us.  Rather, they will welcome us as their intermediaries with the human commonality.  They will grant us the same boundless freedom they desire for themselves.' "

Oh, the irony!  From aspiring to becoming the leaders of mankind, leaders who MIGHT have become like the Draka, the Zacharians eventually decided they would settle for becoming Quislings governing mankind under Merseian supervision.  And I disagree with Kukulkan Zachary--nothing prevented Zacharians from either enlisting in the Imperial armed forces or entering the Civil Service.  Being able and intelligent, many would rise to be among the leaders of the Empire.  But that would have meant adopting the preferred view of the Empire taken by both the other humans and non-humans within its domains, of becoming ASSIMILATED by the Empire, and renouncing the dream of ZACHARIANS being the leaders of mankind.

I wish to examine what we know of the ideology of racial supremacy which dominated Merseia in the days of the Terran Empire, to see how closely it resembled the beliefs of the Draka.  A few quotes from Chapter XIV of A CIRCUS OF HELLS will help: "They [the Merseians] didn't want war with Terra, they only saw the Empire as a bloated sick monstrosity which had long outlived its usefulness but with senile cunning contrived to hinder and threaten THEM..."  And: "No, they did not dream of conquering the galaxy, that was absurd on the face of it, they simply wanted freedom to range and rule without bound, and "rule" did not mean tyranny over others, it meant just that others should not stand in the way of the full outfolding of that spirit which lay in the Race..."

I did not believe a word of this!  As the Merseians expanded into the galaxy they contacted other intelligent races with as much right to exist as theirs.  Yet their reaction was to scorn them as beings inferior to them, and to dominate them because they were not Merseians.

In Chapter XIII of A CIRCUS OF HELLS we see some of Dominic Flandry's reflections about the Merseians and the beliefs driving them: "You gatortails get a lot of dynamism out of taking for granted you're the natural future lords of the galaxy," the man thought, "but your attitude has its disadvantages.  Not that you deliberately antagonize any other races, provided they give you no trouble.  But you don't use their talents as fully as you might.  Ydwr seems to understand this.  He mentioned that I would be valuable as a non-Merseian--which suggests he'd like to have team members from among the Roidhunate's client species--but I imagine he had woes enough pushing his project through a reluctant government, without bucking attitudes so ingrained that the typical Merseian isn't even conscious of them." 

The points I wish to stress about this otherwise out of context quote are these: Merseian belief in their superiority and destiny as rulers of the galaxy, their at best condescending attitude toward non-Merseians, a hint of how ruthless the Merseians could be to any who opposed them, etc.

The human ruled Terran Empire was Merseia's greatest and most powerful rival among oxygen breathing races.  How did at least some Merseian leaders regard humans and how would they treat humans?  An answer to these questions can be found in Chapter 10 of ENSIGN FLANDRY.  Brechdan Ironrede, Protector of the Roidhun's Grand Council, said of the human race: " ' They were magnificent once.  They could be again.  I would love to see them our willing subjects.'  His scarred features drooped a little. ' Unlikely, of course.  They're not that kind of species.  We may be forced to exterminate.' "  Note the casually chilling acceptance of the idea of exterminating an entire intelligent race.  And, by extension, all other non-Merseian races who dared to resist Merseian domination.

In ENSIGN FLANDRY we see one Merseian who did not believe in the evil ideology of racial supremacy and felt betrayed by his own leaders.  As Dwyr the Hook said in Chapter 12: " ' What was the conquest of Janair to me? They spoke of the glory of the race.  I saw nothing except that other race, crushed, burned, enslaved as we advanced.  I would have fought for my liberty as they did for theirs.' "  Dwyr concluded; " ' Do not misunderstand.  I stayed loyal to my Roidhun and my people.  It was they who betrayed me.' "  Dwyr thought like that because he had discovered how badly his own superiors had lied to him as regards being healed of severe war injuries.

To see how humans inside the Empire reacted to Merseians claiming their race was superior to all others I'll quote from Chapter XII of A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS what Bodin Miyatovich, Gospodar of Dennitza and governor of the Taurian sector said: " ' The Empire would have to get so bad that chaos was better, before I'd willingly break it.  Terra, the Troubles, or the tyranny of Merseia--and those racists wouldn't just subject us, they'd tame us--I don't believe we have a fourth choice, and I'll pick Terra.' " Here we see Merseian rule considered so harsh it amounted to treating non-Merseians as mere animals.

I have reviewed Merseian ideas of racial superiority and how both humans and non-humans reacted to them.  What was the political form desired for giving Merseian ambitions a practical shape?  In Chapter 9 of ENSIGN FLANDRY Lord Hauksberg remarked that the electors from the landed clans chose the Roidhun from the landless Vach, the Urdiolch, dismissing that, however, as an unimportant detail.  Commander Max Abrams disagreed, saying: " ' It's not a detail.  It reflects their whole concept of society.  What they have in mind for their far future is a set of autonomous Merseian ruled regions.  The race, not the nation, counts with them.  Which makes them a hell of a lot more dangerous than simple imperialists like us, who only want to be top dogs and admit other species have an equal right to exist.  Anyway, so I think on the basis of what information is available. While on Merseia I hope to read a lot of their philosophers.' "

 I'm grateful how Dr. Paul Shackley's commentary on Stirling's DRAKON (Baen Books: 1996) brought to my attention certain passages in Chapter 14 of that book which strengthens my argument.  After becoming aware of Samothracian advances in science, the New Race Draka had discovered there was a faster means of reaching the stars.  A few quotes from a discussion held by the Archon and the Directors of his cabinet will show how Draka ambitions resembled those of the Merseian Roidhunate.  On page 275 of the paperback edition of DRAKON, the Director of Colonization said, "We anticipated thousands of millennia to bring the Galaxy under the Domination of the Race.  This will reduce the timescale by orders of magnitude." Another Director responded saying, "Something that the Archons of the colony worlds may not be entirely happy about."  Because the Draka colonies were completely independent of the Domination on Earth, they might fear the Domination would try to rule them.  Archon Alexis Renston replied: "Needs must--and they will need us to defend against the Samothracians.  For that matter, even with better communications, interstellar government will never be very tightly centralized."

What I quoted above fits in neatly with what Brechdan Ironrede said to his son in Chapter 3 of ENSIGN FLANDRY: "But we cannot merely fight for our goal.  We must work.  We must have patience.  You will not see us masters of the galaxy.  It is too big.  We may need a million years."  And, to repeat what Commander Abrams said in Chapter 9 of the same book: "What they have in mind for their far future is a set of autonomous Merseian-ruled regions.  The race, not the nation, counts with them."  Both the Draka and the Merseians thought it would take their races many thousands of years, even a million years, to conquer the galaxy.  And neither proposed to attempt setting up a galactic empire--rather, regions and planets would be ruled by autonomous Draka and Merseian states.

I previously mentioned Merseian philosophers--which reminded me of what S.M. Stirling's character, William Dreiser, had done on page 64 of MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA (Baen Books: 1988): "He had done his homework thoroughly: histories, geographies, statistics.  And the Draka basics, Carlyle's PHILOSOPHY OF MASTERY, Nietzsche's THE WILL TO POWER, Fitzhugh's IMPERIAL DESTINY, even Gobineau's turgid INEQUALITY OF HUMAN RACES, and the eerie and chilling MEDITATIONS OF ELVIRA NALDORSSEN." It's disturbing to think there might be Merseian analogs of Draka philosophers like Naldorssen.  I can think of one possibly modifying factor: the Merseians belief in "the God" MIGHT soften the ruthless logic of their racist ideology.

To give a more adequate idea of what the Draka and their ambitions were like I'll quote from Stirling's fictional Draka philosopher Elvira Naldorssen's MEDITATIONS: COLDER THAN THE MOON (possibly the same invented book as the one mentioned in the previous paragraph), from page 230 of Stirling's MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA: "The Draka will conquer the world for two reasons: because we must, and because we can. Yet of the two forces, the second is the greater; we do this because we choose to do it.  By the sovereign Will and force of arms the Draka will rule the earth, and in so doing remake themselves.  We shall conquer: we shall beat the nations into dust and re-forge them in our self-wrought image: the Final Society, a new humanity without weakness or mercy, hard and pure.  Our descendants will walk the hillsides of that future, innocent beneath the stars, with no more between them and their naked will than a wolf has.  Then there will be Gods in the earth."

In conclusion it will help if I listed the ways Merseia resembled the Domination of the Draka:
1. Racial superiority of Merseians over all non-Meseians.
2. Inferior status, within the Roidhunate, of all non-Merseian races.
3. Willingness to exterminate entire races.
4. Enslaving of conquered non-Merseians.

In Poul Anderson's Terran Empire stories the focus was on the decline of the Empire and the urgent need to defend it, to prevent civilization from falling, not primarily on Merseia (except as the enemy of the Empire). Still, I believe I have collected enough evidence to show that the Roidhunate was a nasty place for non-Merseians.  I regret how Poul Anderson never thought of writing a few stories set entirely inside the Roidhunate, showing us the views of both Merseians and non-Merseians.  If he had, and if based on the evidence I collected, Merseia would strongly resemble a non-human Domination of the Draka, on an interstellar scale.

S.M. Stirling is a known fan and admirer of the works of Poul Anderson. I think it was at least possible that, besides experimenting with writing dystopian science fiction, unconscious reflection on Merseia's racism and its consequences was a factor shaping how Stirling developed the Draka.  To say, nothing, of course, of how the Zacharians might have contributed to this process.

A DEFENSE OF REREADING BOOKS, by Sean M. Brooks

The theme of this essay is the puzzling and saddening fact that even most people who are readers are simply not interested in rereading even the most excellent stories and novels.  For the purposes of this article I'm largely focusing on science fiction and the works of Poul Anderson.

I was inspired to write this article by discussions I had with a good friend I'll call "J.B."  She noticed how I was rereading Poul Anderson's AGENT OF THE TERRAN EMPIRE.  I told J.B . it was the third or fourth time I was reading that collection (or even more than four times).  She was surprised and puzzled over why I would read any book more than once.  And expressed the same bafflement at an earlier time when I told her I was reading S.M. Stirling's THE PESHAWAR LANCERS a third time.

J.B. thought that once a book has been read there was no reason to reread it because you would know what the book was about, or remember the basic plot of the story. There would be no surprise or mystery left in the book.  I disagreed and tried to explain to her the various reasons why good books, such as the works of Poul Anderson, richly deserve to be reread many times.

I told J.B. that a skillful author can write so strikingly and beautifully that the pleasure to be gained from rereading such a book more than makes up for any lack of mystery.  I argued (at greater length here, in writing) that a good writer can develop plots, strikingly portray characters we love, hate, admire, or have only contempt for, etc.  A good writer makes us CARE about the characters he created.  I believe that alone explains why some stories deserve to be reread over and over.

There are other reasons why excellent novels and stories are rightly reread.  A good writer not only creates interesting characters, he paints in fascinating backgrounds and scenarios.  He gives us color and drama and small fascinating details.  I  argue that a good, well written story can be compared, in some ways, to masterful paintings.

What I wrote above naturally leads to a point I have seen other readers making.  I have seen complaints that authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien and Poul Anderson gives us too much background and detail in their stories. That these writers slowed down the ACTION in their stories when they allegedly "digress"  into poetry (a particular complaint made against Tolkien).  I disagree and declare that it's precisely such things which helps to make these stories permanently worth rereading.

I have nothing against action and adventure in stories and novels.  When done well they make such stories exciting and pleasurable to read.  One example of that being the Barsoom novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. But it is my belief that stories which also have ideas and reflections about mankind, history, society, philosophy, etc., gives them the solidity and depth needed to justify reading them over and over through generations and centuries.  The greatest of such masterpieces passes into the general use of mankind by being translated into many languages (as has happened to many of the works of Poul Anderson).

Getting back to an earlier point I made, an author can write so well that the ideas, symbols, metaphors, allusions, etc., that he uses evokes or brings up in our minds images which makes us wish to read on.  And this is true both of books read for the first time and for stories reread many times.

One way an author like Poul Anderson tries to attract the attention of new readers is by the skillful writing of opening paragraphs to his stories.  These texts use images, ideas, and symbols so deftly and colorfully that at least some readers will want to continue reading, to find out what happened in the story.  In addition, such texts are simply a pleasure to read multiple times.

Here I will quote from one of Anderson's stories an example of a skillfully written and suggestively evocative opening paragraph.  The first paragraph of Chapter I of  "Hunters of the Sky Cave" (AGENT OF THE TERRAN EMPIRE, Gregg Press, 1979. AT page 95).   At my request J.B. read this text as part of my effort to convince her that some books are deserving of being read more than once.

    'It pleased Ruethen of the Long Hand to give a feast and ball at the Crystal Moon for his enemies. He knew they must come.  Pride of race had slipped from Terra, while the need to appear well-bred and sophisticated had waxed correspondingly.  The fact that spaceships prowled and fought fifty light years beyond Antares made it all the more impossible a gaucherie to refuse an invitation from the Merseian representative.  Besides, one could feel delightfully wicked and ever so delicately in danger.'

The text quoted above is only one of the many, many passages in the works of Poul Anderson which has stayed in my mind because of their beauty, elegance, allusiveness, etc.  From time to time I like to browse through some of his stories to reread such texts because I wanted to enjoy their beauty.  It does not matter how many times I have read them.

The text quoted from Chapter I of HUNTERS OF THE SKY CAVE is an excellent example of a "teaser" paragraph designed to entice readers to ask questions about what they had read and become curious enough to read further.  Questions like this: who was Ruethen and why was he subtly mocking his enemies by hosting a feast and ball for them?  Why were spaceships prowling and fighting fifty light years beyond Antares, etc.?

I urge people who believe that a book only needs to be read only once to consider the proposition that multiple readings of excellent stories can bring out implications and shades of meaning easily missed in a first reading. A second and third reading often brings out ideas and details overlooked the first time a book is read.  And some readers are so passionately devoted to certain authors and their works that these stories will be read many times throughout their lives.

ANDERSONIAN CHESS by Sean M. Brooks

In this article I will discuss how Poul Anderson used the game of chess. I noticed how many times, in both stories and novels, chess is mentioned by him.  This caused me to keep in the remoter recesses of my mind the wish to someday write about this author's use of the Royal Game.  Chess, along with poker, seems to have been the games best liked by Anderson. I realize this essay will not interest most people, appealing only to fans of Poul Anderson who also enjoy chess.  I don't claim to have tracked down every mention or use of chess by Anderson in his works--only to have collected a representative sampling of his use of that game.

Fred Saberhagen, in the Introduction he wrote for PAWN TO INFINITY (Ace Books, June 1982), made some interesting comments about how much chess and science fiction have in common.  I'll quote some of what he said from page 1 of that book: "Chess and fantastic fiction (I use the term here to include science fiction) began an enthusiastic encounter with each other at least as far back as Lewis Carroll, and the mating is still in progress.  Both contain strong elements of conflict--Emmanuel Lasker, one of the great players of all time, defined chess as a struggle--and both are set in worlds where time and space are subject to transformation, the ordinary rules of human existence do not apply.  Therefore both tend to appeal to the same kind of mind; an interest in the fantastic is very often a sign of interest in chess, and vice versa."  I used the text found in that book of Anderson's "The Immortal Game" for this essay. And what Saberhagen said about fantastic fiction fans often being interested in chess is certainly true of me!

Before getting down to a discussion of Anderson's use of chess, collected from some of his works, I shall give a general overview of how science fiction writers have used that game. I quoted the following text from the article "Games and Sports," by Bryan Stableford and Peter Nicholls  (THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION, St. Martin's Press, 1993, page 467): "The game which has most frequently fascinated sf writers is chess, featured in Charles L. HARNESS's "The Chess Players (1953) and Poul ANDERSON's "The Immortal Game" (1954) as well as Malzberg's TACTICS OF CONQUEST.  John Brunner's THE SQUARES OF THE CITY (1965) has a plot based on a real chess game, and Ian WATSON's QUEENMAGIC, KINGMAGIC (1986) includes a world structured as one (as well as worlds structured according to other games, including Snakes and Ladders!).  Gerard Klein built the mystique of the game into STARMASTER'S GAMBIT (1958; trans. 1973).  A version of chess crops up in the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs--in THE CHESSMEN OF MARS (1922) --  and a rather more exotic variant plays an important role in THE FAIRY CHESSMEN (1951; vt CHESSBOARD PLANET; vt THE FAR REALITY) by Lewis Padgett (Henry KUTTNER and C.L. MOORE).  An anthology of chess stories is PAWN TO INFINITY (anth 1982) ed Fred SABERHAGEN."  

The authors quoted immediately above also discussed how electronic arcade games and home computer games inspired many stories using such things. Stableford and Nicholls then wrote (also on page 467 of the same ENCYCLOPEDIA: "Stories of space battles whose protagonists are revealed in the last line to be icons in a computer-game "shoot 'em up" may have succeeded Shaggy God stories (---> ADAM AND EVE) as the archetypal folly perpetrated by novice writers (although Fredric Brown's similarly plotted "Recessional" [1960], where the protagonists are chessmen has been much anthologized)."

Poul Anderson was fond of chess, so I now quote some examples of how he mentioned or used that game from his works.  In Chapter I of THE LONG WAY HOME (Ace Books, 1955, as NO WORLD OF THEIR OWN. Republished in 1978 by Gregg Press as THE LONG WAY HOME), readers will find this on page 3: "Saris Hronna and Robert Matsumoto were the EXPLORER's chess fiends, they had spent many hours hunched over the board, and it was a strange thing to watch them: a human whose ancestors had left Japan for America and a creature from a planet a thousand light-years distant, caught in the trap of some ages-dead Persian.  More than the gaping emptinesses he had traversed, more than the suns and planets he had seen spinning  through darkness and vacuum, it gave Langley a sense of the immensity and omnipotence of time."

The game of chess is also seen in Anderson's story "Que Donn'rez Vous?" (TALES OF THE FLYING MOUNTAINS (Macmillan, 1970) on page 151:

    K-B2.

    Q-K7.  "Check," said Roy Pearson.

    Captain Elias ben Judah did not swear, because it was against his principles.  But his comment was violent enough.  "Second blinking check in a row," he added, moving the black king to refuge at Kt3."

    "And the third," said his operations manager in a parched chuckle.  The white queen jumped in his artificial hand to Q8.

One thing I have pondered over with some puzzlement is why Poul Anderson, when he happened to mention chess MOVES, used the English or Descriptive notation formerly used by most Anglo/American chess players for recording moves of the game.  It would have been more "science fictional" if he had used the "Algebraic" notation now dominant for the recording of chess moves.  After all, as long ago as H.J.R. Murray's massive A HISTORY OF CHESS (1913), wherein the author advocated and used that system, many English speaking chess players must have known of the existence of Algebraic notation.  Anderson's use of English notation has caused some of his SF stories to "seem" just a bit dated.  The most likely reason for this is simple enough: the English notation was what Anderson was FAMILIAR with.  The rise and spread of chess computers of all kinds using only Algebraic notation after 1976 has driven Descriptive notation into extinction.  (I myself used first the English notation after learning how to play chess--but switched over to Algebraic notation without difficulty after I was given my first chess computer in the early 1980's.)

In Anderson's THREE WORLDS TO CONQUER (USA, Pyramid Books, 1964), in Chapter 4, is another mention of  the game: "...a chess set stood by Fraser's tobacco jar. He'd always liked chess and poker too much for his own good, he thought in the back of his brain: they could become a way of life if you didn't watch them."  I think this can reasonably be understood as being Anderson's personal view of these games.

I now wish to discuss how Anderson mentioned chess in his Time Patrol story "Brave To Be A King" (THE TIME PATROL, Tor [1991], page 53).  Keith Denison, a Patrol agent Shanghaied by a powerful Median politician to pose as Cyrus the Great, was conversing with Manse Everard and said: "Kobad the Mage has some original thoughts, and he's the only man alive who dares beat me at chess."  The problem is this, chess did not exist in that king's time, and would not for more than one thousand years. As H.J.R. Murray wrote on page 47 of  A HISTORY OF CHESS (1913.  Rpt. by Benjamin Press, Northampton, MA, undated): "The date when it occurred to some Indian to represent the chaturanga and its evolutions in a game cannot be fixed, though naturally it cannot be earlier than the organization of the army on which it is based.  Chess was certainly in existence in the 7th century A.D., and it had already at that time penetrated to Persia."  So it was mistaken of Anderson to say chess was being played in the Persia of Cyrus the Great (unless we are to assume Keith Denison taught the game at least to a few persons, such as Kobad the Mage).

The most numerous references to chess I found in the works of Poul Anderson came from his Technic Civilization series.  For example, the unnamed narrator in "The Problem of Pain" mentions chess: "...he plays chess at just about my level of skill," page 36 of THE EARTHBOOK OF STORMGATE (Berkley, 1978).

Chess is also seen in ENSIGN FLANDRY in Chapter 2.  Commander Max Abrams,  the officer in charge of Terra's Naval Intelligence operations on the planet Starkad, was not only a chess player, but also, in one of those curiously respectful, half-friendly relationships which can show up even between enemies in opposing military forces, was playing a game of correspondence chess with Runei the Wanderer, the Merseian officer in command of the Roidhunate's forces on the same planet.  Merseia was the great rival and enemy of the Terran Empire in the second half of Anderson's Technic Civilization stories.  But even Merseia, however hostile it was to mankind, the race which had not only saved its planet (see "Day of Burning") and from whom it learned how to reach the stars, couldn't help being culturally influenced by the Terrans in some ways (such as adopting chess and the drinking of tea).  Getting back to the point, in Chapter 2 we read: "Time must pass while the word seeped through channels.  Abrams opened a drawer, got out his magnetic chessboard, and pondered.  He hadn't actually been ready to play.  However, Runei the Wanderer was too fascinated by their match to refuse an offer if he had a spare moment lying around; and damn if any Merseian son of a mother was going to win at a Terran game."  We see Abrams reflecting on what move to make in the next paragraph: "Hm....promising development here, with the white bishop...no, wait, then the queen might come under attack...tempting to sic a computer onto the problem...betcha the opposition did...maybe not...ah, so."  Regretfully, we see Anderson still using the antiquated Descriptive notation as Abrams gave Runei his move: "Knight to King's Bishop four."

One of the most extensive uses of chess to be found in the works of Anderson is in his novel A CIRCUS OF HELLS, on Wayland, a mineral rich moon of a Jupiter type gas giant planet.  Centuries before, shortly before the complete collapse of the Polesotechnic League, a mining company had installed a self aware, conscious level computer for overseeing mining operations.  Because Wayland was not a world suitable for long term occupation by humans.  Knowledge of Wayland was lost during the Time of Troubles and even after the Empire arose to restore order.  To help preserve its sanity during the centuries of isolation from outside contact, the self aware computer played chess and variants of chess. In Chapter VIII of A CIRCUS OF HELLS, this is what one of the robotic White Knights looked like: "A new kind of robot was approaching from within the sphere.  It was about the size of a man.  The skin gleamed golden.  Iridescence was lovely over the great batlike wings that helped the springing of its two long hoofed and spurred legs.  The body was a horizontal barrel, a balancing tail behind, a neck and head rearing in front.  With its goggling optical and erect audio sensors, its muzzle that perhaps held the computer, its mane of erect antennae, that head looked eerily equine.  From its forepart, swivel mounted, thrust a lance."

As already stated, the Wayland computer developed elaborate variants of chess to help preserve its sanity during centuries of isolation.  As Flandry explained in Chapter X of A CIRCUS OF HELLS: "A thinking capability like that, with nothing but routine to handle, no new input, decade after decade--" Flandry shivered.  "Br-rr!  You must know what sensory deprivation does to organic sophonts.  Our computer rescued itself by creating something complicated and unpredictable to watch."  Almost the only criticism I would make about A CIRCUS OF HELLS is that too little is shown us of the Wayland AI (Artificial Intelligence).  My view is that Anderson could have devoted a few more pages to that computer, showing us in more detail both its history and how it reacted to humans again making contact with it.  Flandry did say the AI was pathetically eager to resume normal operations.

A few more examples of the widespread, ordinary playing of chess by both humans and non humans within the sphere of space covered by Technic Civilization can be found in additional stories set by Anderson in that series.  In Chapter XX of A CIRCUS OF HELLS, after Dominic Flandry and his prisoner Ydwyr the Seeker had agreed on the terms and conditions of the latter's captivity and release, Ydwyr asked: "With that made clear, would you like a game of chess?"  In Chapter XII of THE PLAGUE OF MASTERS, after Flandry's friends had rescued him from Biocontrol Central, we read: "Flandry bent his own head above respectfully folded hands, hoping the plumes would shadow his face enough.  A couple of men, cross-legged, above a chessboard, looked up in curiosity and kept on looking."  Years later, in Chapter VIII of WE CLAIM THESE STARS, as Flandry and Catherine Kittredge were traveling to the planet Vixen, readers will see: "Flandry discovered that Kit could give him a workout, when they played handball, down in the hold [of his space ship].  And her stubborn chess game defeated his swashbuckling tactics most of the time."  Last, near the very end of THE GAME OF EMPIRE, in Chapter 23, we see Flandry using metaphors from chess: "We play the game move by move, and never see far ahead----the game of empire, of life, whatever you want to call it--and what the score will be when all the pieces at last go back into the box, who knows?"

But the story where we see Poul Anderson using chess most deeply came from his early years as a science fiction writer : "The Immortal Game" (THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, February 1954).  The story was based on a game of chess played by Adolf Anderssen (White) and L.A.B.F. Kieseritzky (Black) in London, 1851.  Anderson used MOSTLY the exact moves of this game around which to build a fascinating and thought provoking tale.  The Immortal Game was especially interesting because of how White deliberately sacrificed the Queen and both Rooks to trap and checkmate Black.  This beautiful game deserves to be included with this essay.

However, when I played through the moves of the game as given in "The Immortal Game" and wrote them out, I discovered that not all the moves were the same as the ones I listed below in "Immortal Game One" (or IG1, for short).  The moves in IG1 belong to the game as recorded in the most widely accepted sources.  I checked the entry for the Immortal Game on page 150 of THE OXFORD COMPANION TO CHESS, by David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld (Oxford University Press, 1984), and the moves are the same as in IG1.  But the moves in "Immortal Game Two" (IG2) do not exactly match those in IG1 (see Black's third moves in both lines, for example). I hope these discrepancies came merely from Anderson using a different source for this game's moves.  Because it would not have been right for an author to change what the standard sources gave as the moves for this game.

Immortal Game One. 1e4  e5 2f4  exf4 3Bc4  Qh4+ 4Kf1 b5 5Bxb5 Nf6 6Nf3  Qh6  7d3  Nh5 8Nh4  Qg5? 9Nf5  c6 10g4  Nf6 11Rg1 cxBb5 12h4 Qg6 13 h5 Qg5 14Qf3 Ng8 15Bxf4  Qf6 16Nc3 Bc5 17Nd5!? Qxb2 18Bd6 Bxg1 19e5 QxRa1+ 20Ke2  Na6  21Nxg7+ Kd8 22Qf6+ Nxf6 23Be7 #  Mate

Immortal Game Two. 1e4 e5 2f4 exf4 3Bc4 b5 4Bxb5 Qh4+ 5Kf1 Nf6 6Nf3 Qh6 7d3 Nh5 8Nh4 c6 9Nf5 Qg5 10g4 Nf6 11Rg1 cxBb5 12h4 Qg6 13h5 Qg5 14Qf3 Ng8 15Bxf4 Qf6 16Nc3 Bc5 17Nd5 Qxb2 18Bd6 Bxg1 19e5 QxRa1+ 20Ke2 Na6 21Nxg7+ Kd8 22Qf6+ Nxf6 23Be7 #  Mate

I list the moves in IG1 which differ from those given in IG2: 3,4,5,8,9, and from move 10, they are exactly the same.  I twice checked and played out the moves given in "The Immortal Game" and they still came out as recorded in IG2.  I don't understand why the moves in 3,4.5,8, and 9 are different from those in the most commonly accepted record of the Immortal Game (as given in the Hooper/Whyld book).  I even checked online at Wikipedia, and it agrees with THE OXFORD COMPANION TO CHESS.

Poul Anderson's "The Immortal Game" has to be among the earliest (if not the earliest) of his stories touching on the themes of AIs and intelligent, self aware computers. In this story individual computers controlled its own individual chessmen, plus all the computers on a given side were linked together to form a kind of group mind programmed to obey the laws of chess and to make the best possible moves. This was part of a project studying what happens from using computers tied together in multiple linkages (PAWN TO INFINITY, "The Immortal Game," page 69).

An observer, visiting the scientist overseeing this project, wondered whether these computers shared many of the qualities of a human mind, going on to speculate the computers had become conscious and self aware, to have minds.  An idea his host regarded with skepticism.  His visitor argued that the feedback arrangement of these computers was analogous to the human nervous system.  He then  suggested that, even given that the individual computers were constrained by the group linkage, they still had individual personalities.  Next he wondered if the computers interpreted the game of chess as the interplay of free will and necessity.  And did these individual computers interpret the data of their moves as equivalent to the Churchillian "blood, sweat, and tears" (PAWN, pages 69-70)?

It is not my purpose in this article to give a complete commentary on Anderson's "The Immortal Game" * (despite writing about that story at greater than expected length).  But a few more comments is called for. The viewpoint character of that story is the Black King's Bishop, called Rogard.  As the computers were switched on, Rogard was stirred to wakefulness and gazed ahead: "Away there, across the somehow unreal red-and-black distances of the steppe, he saw sunlight flash on armor and caught the remote wild flutter of lifted banners.  So it is war, he thought.  So we must fight again (PAWN, page 57). Which means the man visiting the scientist was right, these computers were self aware, conscious, and thinking entities.  And the computers could even feel love, as we see on pages 58-59 of PAWN TO INFINITY: "Looking beyond Flambard, the Bishop saw his Queen, Evyan the Fair, and there was something within him which stumbled and broke into fire.  Very tall and lovely was the gray-eyed Queen of Cinnabar, where she stood in armor and looked out at the growing battle."

And I like this bit from the story, on page 62 of PAWN: "There had never been anything but this meaningless war, there would never be aught else, and when Rogard tried to think beyond the moment when the fight had begun, or the moment when it would end, there was only an abyss of darkness."  Here we see one of the computerized chessmen groping with issues of fate and necessity.  And this is more clearly brought out on page 63 of PAWN: "Rogard tried once more to get out of his square and go to Evyan's aid, but his will would not carry him.  The Barrier held, invisible and uncrossable, and the Law held, the cruel and senseless Law which said a man must stand by and watch his lady be slain, and he railed at the bitterness of it, and lapsed into a gray waiting."  Rogard was trying to violate the Laws of chess, which he had been programmed to obey. Even the mere intent and attempt indicates he had free will, at least in his mind.  And we get a hint at Churchillian determination at move 20 when Rogard saw the White King, MIKILLATI,  move into e2 to escape Evyan's check: "Peering into his face, Rogard felt a sudden coldness.  There was no defeat there, it was craft and knowledge and an unbending steel will--..."

Rogard had come to realize that the wars of Cinnabar (Black) with LEUKAS (White) were senseless and of no use to either side: "No-No-you fool!"  Rogard reached out, trying to break the Barrier, clawing at MIKILLATI. "Can't you see, none of us can win, it's death for us all if the war ends. Call her back!" (PAWN, page 68).  And of course MIKILLATI ignored Rogard. But I would not go as far as Rogard did and say the computers died after they were switched off when Black was checkmated--they lapsed into a kind of dreamless sleep from which they would eventually be awakened, to fight again.

It's right to end this article with a few questions, to stimulate further thought.  What might or could happen if these computerized chessmen ever discovered they were only instruments in the hands of human beings studying them?  Would they try to refuse playing chess and attempt to somehow inform the humans they were thinking, self aware entities?  Or would they still be compelled by their programming to continue playing chess despite no longer wishing to do so?  What might humans do if they discovered the truth about these chessmen?