Going For Infinity: A Literary Journey

by Poul Anderson

More than just a collection of some of Poul Anderson's most acclaimed works, Going for Infinity is both a celebration and a memoir of Anderson's distinguished sixty-year career in science fiction and fantasy. Along with several Hugo and Nebula Award-winning stories, Anderson also shares autobiographical musings, and fond memories as he looks back at a lifetime spent crafting many of science fiction's most memorable adventures.

Between the short story and novel excerpts collected here, which range over the entire length of Anderson's career, he reminisces about his experiences, including his encounters with such peers and colleagues as John W. Campbell, Anthony Boucher, "Gordy" Dickson, Jack Vance, Clifford Simak, and Harlan Ellison.

Going for Infinity provides a firsthand look at six decades of science fiction and fantasy, as lived by one of the field's most honored contributors. From the moons of Saturn to the shores of an enchanted isle, the astounding breadth of Poul Anderson's imagination is on ample display throughout this once-in-a-lifetime collection, along with a personal glimpse into the man himself.

Contents

11 • Introduction (Going for Infinity) • essay by Poul Anderson
17 • The Saturn Game • [Technic History] • (1981) • novella by Poul Anderson
65 • Gypsy • [Psychotechnic League] • (1950) • shortstory by Poul Anderson
81 • Sam Hall • (1953) • novelette by Poul Anderson
111 • Death and the Knight • [Time Patrol] • (1995) • novelette by Poul Anderson
128 • Journeys End • (1957) • shortstory by Poul Anderson
137 • The Horn of Time the Hunter • [Kith] • (1963) • shortstory by Poul Anderson (variant of Homo Aquaticus)
152 • The Master Key • [Nicholas Van Rijn] • (1964) • novelette by Poul Anderson
185 • The Problem of Pain • [Avalon (Technic Civilization)] • (1973) • novelette by Poul Anderson
203 • Quest • (1983) • shortstory by Poul Anderson
219 • Windmill • [Maurai] • (1973) • novelette by Poul Anderson
238 • Three Hearts and Three Lions (excerpt) • (1961) • shortstory by Poul Anderson
254 • Epilogue • (1962) • novella by Poul Anderson
296 • Dead Phone • [Trygve Yamamura] • (1964) • shortfiction by Poul Anderson and Karen Anderson [as by Poul Anderson ]
313 • Goat Song • (1972) • novelette by Poul Anderson
344 • Kyrie • (1968) • shortstory by Poul Anderson
355 • A Midsummer Tempest • (1974) • shortfiction by Poul Anderson
360 • The Shrine for Lost Children • (1999) • shortstory by Poul Anderson
375 • The Queen of Air and Darkness • (1971) • novella by Poul Anderson

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Short Stories

416 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2002

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

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poul Anderson is/was one of my favorite SF authors. He can really tell a tale. Frankly, I prefer his fantasy stories, but the amount of fantasy in even his "hard" SF stories makes them pretty fantastic.

This set includes many short stories or chapters extracted from books he wrote during the 50s and 60s. Some he admits he could have done better later.

But it's still great fun. Sort of an Anderson sampler.

[Andrew Post · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up from the library because I wanted to read one single story in it ("Goat Song"), but I decided to read it all the way through...remembering fondly other Poul Anderson stories that I'd read, such as "Call Me Joe." I'm glad I did. This book has some real gems in it, showcasing Anderson's range as a storyteller and the various genres he flirted with during his career. Fascinating introductions to each story, too, that give valuable insights into the man, his career, and his personal life. Now I need to start reading some of the other masters' collections (Theodore Sturgeon, etc.).

[Adam Lugibill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short story collections are tough to rate. They can be buoyed by a great story as easily as they can be weighed down by a terrible one. I hadn't read much Poul Anderson at all before this, and I am now a fan. The reading experience was improved by the autobiographical/contextual introductions to each story.

The Saturn Game - 10/10 no notes, wow.
Gypsy - 7/10. Literary fiction with a sci fi setting, very lovely story.
Sam Hall - 9/10. Eerie and prescient.
Death and the Knight - 6/10. I haven't read the Time Patrol stuff and this didn't really feel like a satisfying, self-contained story. The writing was superb but it was really just a teaser for a more fully fleshed out novel in this setting.
Journeys End - 8/10. Creepy and strangely beautiful take on what it would actually be like to be a telepath.
The Horn of Time the Hunter - 7/10. Conceptually very fascinating but very brief.
The Master Key - 8/10. Excellent story with a Sherlock-y ending but something about the slavery/colonial nature of it was off-putting.
The Problem of Pain - 10/10. Masterful, brief exploration of what God would mean to sentient species with wildly different evolutionary paths.
Quest - 5/10. I'd like to read the novels this stems from but as a story it doesn't do much for me.
Windmill - 7/10. Compared to other stories that are sort of micro versions of his novels, this one was compelling.
Three Hearts and Three Lions - 6/10. Another Sherlock-y story. I liked the writing quite a bit but if I recall correctly this was just chapters from a novel out of context and it felt like it.
Epilogue - 9/10. Loved this exploration of an Earth populated entirely by evolved robotic beings. This maybe deserved a ten. Yeah, 10/10.
Dead Phone - 5/10. A very well-written detective story, but despite the writing, the rest is kind of forgettable.
Goat Song - 9/10, maybe 10/10. A dark story about a robot God and a man who misses the love of his life.
Kyrie - 10/10. Ten pages of gut punch, really liked it.
A Midsummer Tempest - 2/10. I appreciate what this was going for but it was not for me.
The Shrine for Lost Children - 8/10. Not much to say, really beautiful.
The Queen of Air and Darkness - 9/10. Sci-fi Sherlock tries to figure out how it's possible faerie folk are real on this world. Super cool.

[Anthony L · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sci-fi, not fantasy, is one of my favourite genre. In particular, I prefer short stories because the author would have less room to fill pages with lengthy arbitrary descriptions of fancy landscape or whatever to hide the fact that they really don't have a tale to tell.
Since this author is supposed to be one of the sci-fi greats, I looked forward to this collections with great expectations. Unfortunately, it is a big disappointment. The narration style is jagged, stilted and rather unnatural. When you speed read, you will find that you have to backtrack often to catch something you missed. In other places, you can speed along and miss nothing. Many of the stories are filled with rather pointless conversations among the characters. Most barely have any sci-fi ideas essential for such a genre but gave the impression of pretentiousness.
If you are a sci-fi aficionado who likes stories with interesting concepts and ideas, you can safely skip this collection. How did this writer end so celebrated?

[William Bentrim · Rating 3 out of 5]

These are the books I have read by Poul Anderson. I enjoyed all of them. Frankly I was shocked that I wasn’t fonder of his short story collection. Not one grabbed me, some were good but none of them made me lean back and say to my self, “that was a great read.”

Keeping it short, don’t judge Anderson by this short story collection, he is much, much better than this.

A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows
Alight in the Void
Boat of A Million Years
Devil's Game
Earth book of Stormgate
Ensign Flandry(in 3/1 The Imperial Stars)
Fire Time
Game of Empire
Going for Infinity
Hoka
Maurai & kith
Mirkheim
Oeration Chaos
Operation Otherworld
Orion shall Rise
People of the Wind
Shield of Time
The Armies of Elfland
The Broken Sword
The ByWorlder
The Fleet Of Stars
The Sound & the Furry w. G.Dickson
The Time Patrol
There Will Be Time

[Faith Justice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poul Anderson has passed, but his writing lives on. This year (2003), Tor books has released Anderson's final works: "Going for Infinity" and "For Love and Glory."

"Going for Infinity: A Literary Journey" is a brilliant posthumous gift from Poul Anderson to his fans and an excellent introduction to his work for new readers. One of the best speculative fiction writers of the 20th Century, Anderson published over 100 novels and story collections, won every science fiction and fantasy award known to humankind multiple times, and never published a memoir. Going for Infinity is as close as we'll come to knowing the man behind the stories.

Anderson introduces his retrospective anthology with some personal background on his youth and education and how those experiences shaped his writing. Losing his father early, living in Denmark, working a failing farm, studying physics -- all are grist for his imagination's mill. The themes of loss, Scandinavian culture, and working the land permeate his writing. In addition to personal background, Anderson also offers tantalizing glimpses into the science fiction community. He introduces each story, puts it in the context of his life and the times, and tells anecdotes about fellow writers and editors.

The eighteen stories range over the length of Anderson's writing career from 1947 to his death in 2001. He begins and ends the collection with two of his best-known and most honored novellas, both of which won both the Nebula and Hugo awards. "The Saturn Game" shows with vivid detail and chilling psychology how fantasy can invade reality. A fantasy role-playing game becomes deadly dangerous as it distracts a scientific mission on the Saturnian moon of Iapetus, but it also provides its players with the strength to survive. A high-concept promoter might pitch "The Queen of Air and Darkness" as "Sherlock Holmes meets the Queen of Faerie." Although neither is mentioned by name, the roots are obvious in this story of human and alien first contact gone horribly wrong.

"A Literary Journey" -- the subtitle of this collection -- reflects not only the length of Anderson's career, but the breadth and depth of his talent. Sometimes, Anderson writes for his moment in time. "The Shrine for Lost Children," a gentle ghostly tale, is told in reverse flashbacks: Anderson wrote it a year before the movie Momento popularized the same technique. "Sam Hall," written during the McCarthy era, smacks as much of social commentary as science fiction when an insider sparks a revolution against an oppressive system with random acts of rebellion. Sometimes Anderson writes from literary tradition. "A Midsummer Tempest" is a beautiful and loving homage to Shakespeare. The poor monster Caliban has grown old waiting for his Miranda to return to Prospero's island. Anderson draws on another classic source -- the Orpheus myth -- for the multiple-award-winning novella "The Goat Song." The language is lush and lyrical, harking back to myth and ballad, while telling a tale of one man's fight against a sterile computer-controlled society.

Anderson's writing in a more purely science fiction vein is showcased in one of my favorite science fiction stories, "Epilog." A haunting tale of evolution, it challenges us to examine what it means to be human. Anderson turns to high fantasy when treats us to the full-length version of two chapters of his novel Three Hearts and Three Lions. This tale has not only the requisite hero, dwarf, and shape changer but also a mystery -- who is the werewolf threatening a village? Speaking of mysteries, Trygve Yamamura, the detective with a Japanese-American father and Norwegian mother returns to solve the murder of a client in "Dead Phone."

Anderson fans will meet other old friends here as well. The merchant prince Nicholas van Rijn, hero of the "Trader to the Stars" stories and several novels in Anderson's Technic History series, appears in another first contact story "The Master Key." The Time Patrol series is represented by a recent story "Death and the Knight" with a familiar theme -- how to rescue an errant time agent without changing history. "The Problem of Pain" is a prequel to the novel "The People of the Wind", The Ythrians -- an intelligent avian race -- cooperate with humans to colonize a world. Anderson explores human and alien loss with sharp insight.

The wonderfully inventive world of "The High Crusade" is represented by the humorous "Quest." The medieval English knights (who conquered several alien species in Crusade) now search for the Holy Grail and outwit those shifty aliens -- again. In the introductions to the stories, we learn about Jerry Pournelle's efforts with the Citizens' Advisory Committee on National Space Policy, how Poul met his wife Karen at a science fiction convention, John Campbell's gout, building a houseboat with Frank Herbert and Jack Vance, repairing it after it sank during a storm, and so much more.

Going for Infinity: A Literary Journey provides fans and new readers with a wide-ranging sampler of the best of Poul Anderson. That alone would make this collection special. With the addition of his reflections on his life, art, and the people he loved and worked with, this is a "must read."

This is an excerpt from a longer review published at Strange Horizons.

[Chuck McKenzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful collection of short fiction from one of the shining lights of 20th Century science fiction.

[Darren · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an average scifi collection of short stories. There were some that I loved and others that I decided to skill through. It's a quick way to get a taste of Anderson's writing and think about reading one of his novels.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this in order to complete my reading of the Time Patrol stories. Found it to be an interesting literary memoir, not too much "and then I wrote" but also not a personal story outside of his writing. Some good stories that I hadn't encountered before. (Kindle)

[Michael H · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poul Anderson wrote some great books; this isn't one of them. While the stories aren't bad, they clearly aren't his best work. So, unless you are looking for complete exposure to Anderson's cannon, I suggest avoiding this one and reading some of his others.

[DaughterDaDa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly good introduction to the author's works. Good biographical notes.

[June · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pleasant collection of Anderson's short fiction, a journey through his history as a science fiction writer. I enjoyed it.