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Feb 23

A Midsummer Knight's Fever DreamClick for larger image

Ryan Comments: Hey, Poul, I bet you can’t write a SciFi novel that references Shakespeare and contains D’Artagnan, the Ring Cycle, steam-powered locomotives, Classical Greek architecture, and bearded monks!

Published 1975

Actually, that cover IS a classical work of art!I would touch it without protective gloves.I've seen worse. Far, far, worse.Interesting, but I would still read it in public.Middlng: Neither awful nor awfully goodWould not like to be seen reading that!Awful... just awful...That belongs in a gold-lame picture frame!Gah... my eyes are burning! Feels so good!Good Show Sir! (Average: 4.56 out of 10)
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18 Responses to “A Midsummer Tempest”

  1. fred Says:

    I’m getting more of a ‘Loves Labours of Macbeth and the Shrew’ vibe from the cover.

  2. THX 1139 Says:

    I call it… “Indecision”.

  3. Francis Boyle Says:

    Just an average day for your average time-cop on the beat in the Naked Universe. Mind you,getting the anti-grav device off those Neo-Wagnerians was a bit of a pain given all the pointy things they were carrying. (You try explaining that you were stabbed with a shield.)

  4. Adzel Says:

    Ryan Comments: “Hey, Poul, I bet you can’t write a SciFi novel that references Shakespeare and contains D’Artagnan, the Ring Cycle, steam-powered locomotives, Classical Greek architecture, and bearded monks!”

    Poul Anderson: “Hold my beer.”

  5. JuanPaul Says:

    A Midsummer Tempest About Nothing

  6. Max Bathroom Says:

    Did Poul Anderson do something to upset an art editor at a publishing house in the ’50s and they’ve all born a grudge against him ever since? His books seem unusually well represented on this site, to put it mildly.

  7. Tor Mented Says:

    D’Artagnan: (Bangs on ceiling) Oi, keep it down up there. Yer loud enough for Ragnarok.

  8. B. Chiclitz Says:

    @fred—I was thinking more “King Richard the Hamlet.”

  9. THX 1139 Says:

    I’ve heard of gentlemen of a certain age getting hairy ears, but this is ridiculous.

  10. Tat Wood Says:

    The Cavaliers lost when Cromwell made Cthulhu manifest itself in their standard-lamps. That’s why Milton went blind, you know.

  11. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @Ryan: And yet he did, and it is a swell book. It’s good even if you don’t get all the references, and even more fun if you do.

    @Adzel: Poul would have held his own beer while writing this. Having had a beer with him a time or three, I can attest to this (I miss him).

    @Max: His stuff was reprinted so often that the luck of the draw meant he often got crap covers. The price of success.

    @Tat: GSS! I narrowly avoided a spit-take.

  12. Bruce A Munro Says:

    A typical Bohemian seacoast scene.

    @GSS ex-noob: you got to hang with Poul Anderson? Lucky!

  13. Max Bathroom Says:

    @GSS: Thanks. I’d honestly not thought of that, but it makes sense. Anderson has done a lot better at staying in print over the years than most writers who started off in the ’40s and kept publishing for half a century, so it follows he’s going to have amassed a lot more unfortunate covers than some.

  14. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @Bruce: We live(d) in the same general area, so I saw him at cons. He was a true gentleman, always polite and jovial and had no attitude about being a big deal author, even though of course he was. And not fussed when people said his first name wrong.

    He was a big guy, worthy of his Viking ancestors, so at room parties he enjoyed a drink — though I personally never saw him impaired in the least. I recall chatting with him (with beers in hand) after the dire movie version of “Battlefield Earth” came out and flopped. “It’s true about Ron saying you’d start a religion to make real money… I was there.”

  15. Adzel Says:

    @GSS ex-noob: Thank you for these recollections. It made my day!

  16. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @Adzel: you are most welcome. He was a great guy. His memorial service (not actual funeral) was open to the public, because we all needed to grieve and support.

    “We shall not see his like again” is a cliche, but it applies to him.

  17. A. R. Yngve Says:

    Thanks for the anecdotes!
    🙂

  18. GSS ex-noob Says:

    No prob!

    Decades of con-going has left me with a million of ’em.

    Well, at least a hundred.

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