Call Me Joe from NESFA Press. Bob Eggleton cover. Poul did love his centauroids. — *Call Me Joe* from NESFA Press. Bob Eggleton cover. Poul *did* love his centauroids.

“Poul was a modern skald, heir to the traditions of those who entertained weary Vikings in centuries past. He could sing songs sad and happy with equal grace—crack a joke, spin out a yarn, create a wholly convincing world, with no apparent effort.”
— award-winning author, Greg Bear, from the introduction to Call Me Joe (NESFA Press)

Poul Anderson would've turned ninety-four today. Ever since I was a preteen, Poul has always been in the very top rank of my favorite SF and fantasy authors. Over the last two decades, he has steadily ascended to the point that I simply have to give him the crown in my personal SF authorial pantheon.

That said, I've written few posts for the DMR Blog devoted to Anderson's work. When I found myself once again not quite posting a blog entry on the anniversary of Poul's death earlier this year, I decided to at least honor his memory by buying another one of his books to augment my fairly respectable Anderson library. That’s the thing with Poul Anderson: the man was prolific and it’s not that hard to find new stories one hasn’t read. I chose Call Me Joe, volume one of a multi-volume hardcover collection of Anderson's SF, published by NESFA Press.

First off, I have to say that Call Me Joe is a fine book, production-wise. I'd heard a few rumors that maybe NESFA books weren't of particularly high quality. My copy of Call Me Joe certainly is. The covers, paper, binding, dustjacket--all are quite satisfactory. This book should last my entire lifetime and then some.

Secondly, this hefty tome runs to over five hundred pages and contains almost thirty stories--plus poems--by Anderson. I do not have an overabundance of time this evening, so I will only be hitting the highlights as I see them.

Greg Bear's introduction--excerpted above--is quite cool. Bear is a lifelong fan of Anderson and ended up marrying Poul's daughter, Astrid. Greg's intro contains many fascinating insights and recollections.

Fittingly enough, "Call Me Joe" leads off the collection. This tale has long been considered a sci-fi classic--though I had never read it until this year. It is famously one of the main inspirations for the film, Avatar. Think what you will of Cameron's movie, but this is a damned good tale of a man given a second life--and a second chance--who seizes that opportunity with both hands. There are a couple of excellent scenes of barbaric, brutal combat—with a giant battle-axe—plus several other scenes which evoke the wonder and awe that one just doesn't see much in current SF. In my opinion, this is the kind of reasonably hard sci-fi that Robert E. Howard might've written--if he'd ever felt the inclination to do so--had he lived to see the 1950s.

The original appearance of “The Helping Hand”.

"The Helping Hand", another one new to me, is easily one of the best early Anderson stories that I've read. It concerns an interplanetary human confederation seeking to incorporate a solar system peopled by leonine, vaguely Nordic aliens. All that is required is that the aliens conform to the oh-so-helpful dictates of their technological betters. "The Helping Hand" is a powerful statement regarding holding fast to one's culture and forging your own path, despite the short-term profits resulting from taking the easier, less painful road provided by the "helpful". This should be reprinted in a more accesible format, in my opinion.

"Wildcat" is yet another Poul story I had never read. It involves what looks like a harebrained government scheme to drill for oil one hundred million years in the past and then ship it back to the future. But all is not as it seems. Cool characters and plenty of guns-versus-dinos combat in this one.

"Time Patrol", published in 1955, is the very first in Anderson's justly-famed "Time Patrol" series. This is a good one. Poul delivers some bloody, ruthless action set in Anglo-Saxon England.

1950’s “Flight to Forever” is another compact, early classic from Poul. It’s the tale of a time-castaway from the 20th century hurtling ever forward in time, trying to get back to his own era. The part of the story set in 50,000 AD is fifteen pages long and takes up two chapters. It delivers more passionate, dramatic space opera action-adventure than most present-day authors provide in the course of five hundred page novels. Like another obscure minor classic from Anderson, “Sargasso of Lost Starships”, this tale strikes me as being somewhat influenced by early Brackett.

For the last one I'll highlight, I have to go with "Starfog", published in 1967. It's part of Anderson's "Technic History" series of tales. Humans in a strangely-made starship arrive at an outpost planet, utterly lost and claiming to come from somewhere that shouldn't exist. The protagonist takes ship with them in order to get them back to their home system and to solve the riddle they represent. While full of action and cosmic wonder, "Starfog" is also packed with great characterization and world-building.

Don't let my truncated highlights mislead you. There are plenty of other great stories in this collection. Poul started out in the pulps--and a sizeable chunk of these tales were published therein. He never forgot the lessons he learned writing for the pulps--and from reading the Icelandic sagas.Right up until his death, Anderson knew how to write entertaining, action-packed stories. As far as I'm concerned, it is very, very hard to go wrong reading Poul Anderson. If you're a sci-fi fan, get out there and buy Call Me Joe.