Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, H Beam Piper
Jun 25, 2022 15:27:50 GMT -5
Post by mingerganthecat on Jun 25, 2022 15:27:50 GMT -5
Has anyone else ever heard of this?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Kalvan_of_Otherwhen
H Beam Piper's last novel before his suicide, with the storyline continued by several pastiche writers. It's my Exhibit A in terms of evidence that you can absolutely do Howard-style heroic fantasy in the post-gunpowder age.
At some point in the 1960's, Korean War Veteran, military history buff and Pennsylvania State Trooper Calvin Morrison is accidentally transplanted to an alternate world, one where stone age Indo-Europeans traveled east instead of west, crossed the Bering Land Bridge, and their descendants eventually settled on the Atlantic seaboard of North America. He finds himself in roughly late medieval-level civilization (pre-printing press, post-gunpowder) where several kingdoms and their composite duchies all bow before the unassailable power of the Priests of Styphon who alone know the secrets to the production of fireseed.
My biggest criticism of the series is that it's a bit Sue-ish. The hero goesback sideways in time and immediately goes to work revolutionizing society, becoming a glorious war leader, raising a family with the smart and beautiful princess and so on, and not until fairly deep in the pastiches does it even occur that he might suffer from flaws or setbacks (though later authors do rectify this to an extent). This really isn't as much of a criticism as it could be, since Piper isn't as bad about it as some and Sueism seems to be part and parcel with the world of isekai/popadantsy/Connecticut Yankees. Frankly there seems to be at least a little self-awareness about it, as demonstrated by one of the Paratime Police:
Anyway, I personally grew rather bored of the Paratimers and their sideplots. I think it would have been better if they had just set things in motion and then mostly stayed off-page, but that's just my own opinion.
And, this isn't really Piper's fault, but it seems like a lot of later writers forget that Calvin Morrison went to Otherwhen in the mid-1960's, not in the 80's or turn of the millennium or in whatever period they themselves are writing the story. One point I remember in particular was when Princess Rylla wanted to raise her own Caracal Battalion, and Lord Kalvan noted how a kingdom in his homeland, Israel, was doing something similar. The problem? Except for early in the Independence War, Israel didn't assign women to combat roles before 2000. It would have made a lot more sense for him to mention the Bochkareva Battalions or those of the Soviet Union.
Incidentally, although female combatants in the Middle Ages and Reformation were very rare, I'm willing to excuse it in the case of Rylla. It did happen after all, Joan of Arc and the Hussites come immediately to mind. Elizabeth I owned a suit of armor, and had sworn to her soldiers that if the Spanish Armada made landfall that she would face them with mace in hand.
My biggest praise of the series? Well...
But seriously... it's a very good concept written by an excellent author who had a very firm understanding of his setting. It always irritates me at how people who should know better end up repeating a lot of the same misconceptions on Medieval society that existed when Mark Twain did it. Here the knights aren't all a bunch of hunger-stunted dullards wandering around with rusty clubs they call swords and wearing armor that they can barely move in. People aren't constantly dirty and dreary and ready to burn you if you show any interest in innovation. Early firearms aren't unwieldy noisemakers that are more dangerous to the user than to his enemy (though most handheld firearms of Otherwhen are early flintlocks, possibly snaphance, rather than matchlocks or touch-fired handguns). Piper largely avoids those pitfalls and, much like Robert E Howard, on the whole his work has aged quite well.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Kalvan_of_Otherwhen
H Beam Piper's last novel before his suicide, with the storyline continued by several pastiche writers. It's my Exhibit A in terms of evidence that you can absolutely do Howard-style heroic fantasy in the post-gunpowder age.
At some point in the 1960's, Korean War Veteran, military history buff and Pennsylvania State Trooper Calvin Morrison is accidentally transplanted to an alternate world, one where stone age Indo-Europeans traveled east instead of west, crossed the Bering Land Bridge, and their descendants eventually settled on the Atlantic seaboard of North America. He finds himself in roughly late medieval-level civilization (pre-printing press, post-gunpowder) where several kingdoms and their composite duchies all bow before the unassailable power of the Priests of Styphon who alone know the secrets to the production of fireseed.
My biggest criticism of the series is that it's a bit Sue-ish. The hero goes
"Look what he has, on his new time-line, that his old one could never have given him. He's a great nobleman; they've gone out of fashion on Europo-America, where the Common Man is the ideal. He's going to marry a beautiful princess, and they've even gone out of fashion for children's fairy-tales. He's a sword-swinging soldier of fortune, and they've vanished from a nuclear-weapons world. He's commanding a good little army, and making a better one of it, the work he loves. And he has a cause worth fighting for, and an enemy worth beating. He's not going to jeopardize his position with those people."
And, this isn't really Piper's fault, but it seems like a lot of later writers forget that Calvin Morrison went to Otherwhen in the mid-1960's, not in the 80's or turn of the millennium or in whatever period they themselves are writing the story. One point I remember in particular was when Princess Rylla wanted to raise her own Caracal Battalion, and Lord Kalvan noted how a kingdom in his homeland, Israel, was doing something similar. The problem? Except for early in the Independence War, Israel didn't assign women to combat roles before 2000. It would have made a lot more sense for him to mention the Bochkareva Battalions or those of the Soviet Union.
Incidentally, although female combatants in the Middle Ages and Reformation were very rare, I'm willing to excuse it in the case of Rylla. It did happen after all, Joan of Arc and the Hussites come immediately to mind. Elizabeth I owned a suit of armor, and had sworn to her soldiers that if the Spanish Armada made landfall that she would face them with mace in hand.
My biggest praise of the series? Well...
"Oh, my people had many gods. There was Conformity, and Authority, and Expense Account, and Opinion. And there was Status, whose symbols were many, and who rode in the great chariot Cadillac, which was almost a god itself. And there was Atom-bomb, the dread destroyer, who would some day come to end the world. None were very good gods, and I worshiped none of them. Tell me about your gods, Xentos."
But seriously... it's a very good concept written by an excellent author who had a very firm understanding of his setting. It always irritates me at how people who should know better end up repeating a lot of the same misconceptions on Medieval society that existed when Mark Twain did it. Here the knights aren't all a bunch of hunger-stunted dullards wandering around with rusty clubs they call swords and wearing armor that they can barely move in. People aren't constantly dirty and dreary and ready to burn you if you show any interest in innovation. Early firearms aren't unwieldy noisemakers that are more dangerous to the user than to his enemy (though most handheld firearms of Otherwhen are early flintlocks, possibly snaphance, rather than matchlocks or touch-fired handguns). Piper largely avoids those pitfalls and, much like Robert E Howard, on the whole his work has aged quite well.