Harvest the Fire

Harvest of Stars #3

by Poul Anderson

In an action-packed tale about the expansion of humanity to the outer limits of the solar system and beyond, the conflicts between human and machine intelligence threaten to destroy humankind's newfound utopia. Reprint.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Space Opera, Collections, Science Fiction Fantasy

192 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 1, 1995

About the author

Pseudonym A. A. Craig, Michael Karageorge, Winston P. Sanders, P. A. Kingsley.

Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards.

Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1948. He married Karen Kruse in 1953. They had one daughter, Astrid, who is married to science fiction author Greg Bear. Anderson was the sixth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, taking office in 1972. He was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls to Anderson and eight of the other members of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy.[2][3]

Poul Anderson died of cancer on July 31, 2001, after a month in the hospital. Several of his novels were published posthumously.


Series:
* Time Patrol
* Psychotechnic League
* Trygve Yamamura
* Harvest of Stars
* King of Ys
* Last Viking
* Hoka
* Future history of the Polesotechnic League
* Flandry

Reviews

[Reading With Creepy Crawlies (KATE) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic tale of Lunarians, the Great Void, an overmind for all who are part of the one belief, and the great struggle for individualism in the great universe where Earthlings are have lost superiority and control in their quest to have more room in which to thrive.

The characters are well drawn. Even though I have not listened to book 1 or 2, I was able to jump into book 3. The main character, Jesse, is a man who feels he does not belong anywhere because of his origins. He wants to be like the bards and writers of older human civilizations. His inability to capture he essence of his experiences and innermost feelings are what drives his character. Reading about his struggles is something that is timeless; a man who feels he has no purpose is something all humans have felt at a moment in time in their lives until they find their way again.

The narration, for me, was a bit sing-song like. It was difficult to rab onto characters and circumstances until it got down to the main event of the book, which was the most illegal act in Space History. At that point, I was able to piece it all together and understand what I had missed in the first two novels, and made connections for in this novel. I now want to obtain th first two novels and listen to them to see if my conclusions were correct. The narrator had excellently distinct voices for the characters, even if they were not humanoid. I find narrators can make or break a book for me, and this narrator scored a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4 star performance from me. I felt I could listen to the sing-song parts, although not my favorite, and when the characters had dialog, I was not disappointed I had hung on listening to get to the action.

This is more of a classic form of science fiction, and the exploration has not gone outside of our own galaxy. If you are looking for intergalactic sci-fi, this is not it. This novel is also an older title that has just recently become an audiobook.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always greatly enjoy Poul Anderson's prose, whether he's writing fantasy or SF. This is an SF novel, about a man born out of time essentially, a man who craves heroic deeds and wants to turn such deeds into poetry but who is born in a time when all is too peaceful and too conformist. He gets his chance when he is recruited by renegades who want their own freedom at the edge of the solar system. Good book.

[Renee · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable tale of space travel and civilizations, struggle for resources, and machine intelligence. Not a great sci fi novel, but a good read.

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

In 1993, science-fiction author Poul Anderson published Harvest of Stars, the first in a four-volume future history that depicted the human race grappling with machine intelligences. That first volume was mainly a libertarian fantasy about independent spacers evading a tyrannical world government, but it ended with a colony to Alpha Centauri launched just as true AI was appearing on Earth.

For Anderson, superhuman intelligences were scary because they might lead to a managed economy, the great bugbear of libertarians like himself. But also, Anderson started off writing science-fiction in the 1950s when everyone envisaged intrepid space cowboys flying their ships all over the galaxy. By his old age, it was becoming evident that automation meant humans would have little direct role in piloting craft or working any other machines. Furthermore, other forward-thinking authors like Vernor Vinge were suggesting that humanity might even choose to simply stay put and move into a virtual reality instead of expanding outward into the galaxy. This reversal of all he had held dear left Anderson appalled.

Harvest the Fire, published in 1997, is the third book in this series, its title being a portmanteau of that of the first book and the immediately preceding volume The Stars are Also Fire. Set in the solar system centuries after the departure of colonists to Alpha Centauri, its plot concerns earthman Jesse Nichols, a poet and dreamer by inclination, invited to join a Lunarian conspiracy to seize an antimatter shipment from Earth’s dreaded machine overlords. They aim to bring it to the distant planetoid Proserpina where humans have escaped the control of the AIs. Venator, the villain of the preceding volume, appears again, this time as a downloaded personality.

This third book of the series is quite different from the others in that it is essentially a novella, readable in one sitting. When Tor published it in hardback, they tried to compensate for the meagre length by including a series of illustrations by Vincent Di Fate, who did the cover art for this series and has been an acclaimed science-fiction artist since the 1960s. Di Fate’s drawings are mainly generic scenes of spacecraft, with only a handful actually reflecting the action in Anderson’s book. Not only is Harvest the Fire just a novella, but it also doesn’t affect the overall plot of this series. A reader could easily skip from books 2 to 4, and Tor seemed to think the same because this book was less promoted than the other volumes.

While I enjoyed the series as a teenager, when I was too ill-informed about the world to pick up on Anderson’s political advocacy, on later re-readings I found the first two volumes in the series fatally flawed by the overt libertarian agitprop. Harvest the Fire is superior to the earlier volumes in that it lacks those highly unrealistic dialogues that serve more to castigate “big government” than depict realistic characters. Sure, Anderson works in a dig at income tax and the book continues the series’ theme that the rise of AI might quench human ambitions, but the political concerns are no longer so heavy handed.

That said, the characters continue to be fairly one-dimensional, and the writing is so simple that I wonder if Anderson was intentionally reaching for a young adult audience. Furthermore, the plot feels repetitive in that our protagonist is again an earthman caught in a big conspiracy out of love for a mysterious, elf-like Lunarian beauty.

[Lars Dradrach · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF after 10%

It like every story in this series is written by a broken Poul Anderson program on a cheap computer

[Kevin Phyland · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s been decades since the Lunarian uprising was quashed and the ringleaders, along with their supporters, have fled to the distant planetoid Proserpina, currently in the outer Kuiper Belt, on its two million year orbit of the Sun. Whether by coincidence or design, the Teramind, the computer running things in the inner system, has decided they have enough antimatter, and has closed the mine on Mercury, limiting its availability to the Proserpinas. Without enough energy to expand it is thought that the fledgling rebel colony will stagnate or die. Unwilling to let this happen a desperate plot is hatched to hijack the last shipment while on its way to the supposedly secret storage facility near Saturn. AI awarenesses however, have located it for the Lunarians and the disenchanted pilot Jesse Nicol has been lured into the plot by a Lunarian woman, Falaire, pretending to be enamoured of him, and who is willing to blackmail him. While on their way to Saturn, Jesse finds a hidden Peace Authority agent on board, who advises him on how to extricate himself from this dangerous plot. Third (and much smaller) volume of Poul Anderson’s series is a swift but entertaining read and would have been a novella if not for the wonderful artwork of Vincent di Fate. Seems like a placeholder tale.

[Adam Meek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much shorter than previous volumes in the series, Harvest The Fire is set several centuries after Alpha Centauri and Proserpina was colonized. The Teramind has taken near total control of the Solar System with only a few malcontents resisting its plan to wind down space industries. With only a 1/4 of the space, there's not much room for the philosophical exposition that characterized the earlier books. Harvest the Fire is tightly focused on a heist of antimatter fuel by the malcontents who want to maintain a human presence in space. Venator, the antagonist from The Stars Are Also Fire, is back in a more ambiguous role.

[John R. Goyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice to go back and read some classic sci fi. I'm curious about the other volumes as I started in the middle but this volume appears pretty well self contained. Hard to initially get into due to the language and speech patterns/made up words, but after getting used to that the story was quite good. Honorable enemies, and interesting twist to the conclusion, and overall a pleasant adventure in reading. I'll be looking into the other volumes soon.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

There's gotta be a story in there somewhere? Just difficult to ferret out from all the self introspective chaff. Rebellion against the robots? Now where have I heard that one before? A smoother writing style than many more contemporary tomes, but not enough to save this doorstop. Yeah, but this is Poul Anderson one of the icons of actual Science Fiction. Well okay I didn't give it a zero (0).

[Kinosfronimos · Rating 2 out of 5]

As another reviewer said: meh.

[Carlo]

While traveling back from Ireland

[Veronica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun, the society of this world was really interesting and made me want to check out the other books in this series to see it expanded upon.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd give this a grand-spanking "meh." This has the signal flaw of being the third book in a series but not noting that fact anywhere on the cover - I only realized this when I went to write a review. This does explain why some of the interactions between the characters have an unvoiced tension - this could perchance be the history and backstory which was built up over the past two novels... But I don't believe I'll be finding out: it isn't quite interesting enough as a story to really get me to read more, and the woodenness of the Lunarians is particularly off-putting. For a better example of how to treat a similar plot arc, take a look at Niven, Pournelle & Flynn's Fallen Angels.

[Michael Alan Grapin · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's sometime in the future and humanity has spread far and wide through the universe mutating into different species dependent on machines and artificial intelligence to maintain order. Some feel that they've gotten short shrift and set out to right what they see as a wrong enlisting help through subterfuge. Perhaps this would have been easier to follow had I read the preceding volumes, I found much of the terminology confusing. I was bored and almost bailed out but I did enjoy the illustrations.

[Elar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Third book in the series was quite simple and linear, but little bit to bitter for my taste. Nothing special unfortunately.

[Anthony Faber · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you liked "Harvest of Stars" and/or "The Stars Are Also Fire", you'll probably like this. Standard space libertarian ubermensch novel.