Thursday, February 5, 2009

Suggesting Reading List A-Poul Anderson

Poul Anderson


The High Crusade
Tau Zero
The People of the Wind
The Boat of a Million Years
The Van Rijn Method
A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows

This was hard to narrow down the list of Poul Anderson books. I could agree with arguments for dozens of other books.



A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows was one of the first magazine serials I read(in the much missed Worlds of IF). It was interesting reading about 2 opponents facing off against each other in the later days of an empire. Dominic Flandry became one of my favorites with this story.

I selected The Van Rijn Method as a good look at the flamboyant character. It contains The Man Who Counts, a classic Anderson novel set in the Technic Civilization.



The People of the Wind features the battle between the Terran Empire and the Ythrian Domain. One of my favorites.

Personal favorites that did not make the list are...

The Peregrine and World Without Stars-loved the Michael Whelan covers when these were reprinted in 1978. They cemented my love of Poul Anderson books.

I am currently reading The Enemy Stars. The beginning is classic Anderson. Something that I really like about his novels is the way he builds the characters. In very few pages, he makes you think you are reading


about real people. Without being boring, he works the characters background into the story without slowing it down.

Poul Anderson left a large body of work for us to read. Take the time to enjoy some of his creations.













2 comments:

adamosf said...

Poul Anderson is one of my favorite sf writers, so I've read all of the books you listed (although I read the original Van Rijn collection THE EARTH BOOK OF STORMGATE rather than the recent one). However, I have very few Dominick Flandry books for some reason, so I am looking forward to Baen's Flandry collection RISE OF THE TERRAN EMPIRE due out in July.

Jim Black said...

Since you like the Van Rijn stories, I am sure you will like Flandry. They are different but are still excellent. I look forward to seeing your review of RISE OF THE TERRAN EMPIRE.