Poul Anderson was one of the first science fiction writers I began reading in my teen years, both my parents being avid science readers, although they read lots of other stuff, too.  My best was big on the genre, too.  I stopped reading much science fiction in my early twenties until perhaps ten years ago when I go addicted to Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, which actually is pure fantasy, but got me into other novels that could be called science fantasy, and genuine science fiction, although I don’t think there’s much of that around.

Anderson’s The Boat of a Million Years is fairly locked into reality except for its main characters’ having genes that for some unknown reason confer near-immortality on them: they have highly superior recuperative powers and immune defenses, and regrow their teeth and, the women, their ova, but can be killed by violence.  Enjoyable (long–over 500 pages) book.  Some semi-provocative ideas, but nothing inspiring me to write any kind of serious review of it.

The main reason I’m writing these few words about it aside from liking it and always ready to plug genre writers I think deserve it, as Anderson does, is that it surprised me with a decent haiku:

Stars across farness,
Drift of dandelion seeds–
What, springtime again?

I assume Anderson wrote it. It’s a genuine haiku: short, two images from nature in tension with each other that yield a haiku moment (i.e., evoke a sensually rich scene that puts one in touch with something archetypally meaningful).  I think its being in a science fiction novel whose characters eventually explore the galaxy, adds to it.

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Poul Anderson was one of the first science fiction writers I began reading in my teen years, both my parents being avid science readers, although they read lots of other stuff, too.  My best was big on the genre, too.  I stopped reading much science fiction in my early twenties until perhaps ten years ago when I go addicted to Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, which actually is pure fantasy, but got me into other novels that could be called science fantasy, and genuine science fiction, although I don’t think there’s much of that around.

Anderson’s The Boat of a Million Years is fairly locked into reality except for its main characters’ having genes that for some unknown reason confer near-immortality on them: they have highly superior recuperative powers and immune defenses, and regrow their teeth and, the women, their ova, but can be killed by violence.  Enjoyable (long–over 500 pages) book.  Some semi-provocative ideas, but nothing inspiring me to write any kind of serious review of it.

The main reason I’m writing these few words about it aside from liking it and always ready to plug genre writers I think deserve it, as Anderson does, is that it surprised me with a decent haiku:

Stars across farness,
Drift of dandelion seeds–
What, springtime again?

I assume Anderson wrote it. It’s a genuine haiku: short, two images from nature in tension with each other that yield a haiku moment (i.e., evoke a sensually rich scene that puts one in touch with something archetypally meaningful).  I think its being in a science fiction novel whose characters eventually explore the galaxy, adds to it.

.

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