Frenchmen and Fairies in Space

There are the books I planned to read and the books I didn't plan to read. I didn't quite plan to read the books by, for and about Frenchmen in space.

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Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655) L'Autre monde ou les états et empires de la Lune (1657), trans. Thomas St Serf (1624-c. 1669) as Selēnarhia, or, The government of the world in the moon a comical history (1659)

Bertrand de Fontenelle (1657-1757), Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes (1686), trans. Aphra Behn (1640-1689) as A Discovery of New Worlds (1688)

Voltaire (1694-1778), Micromegas (1752), trans. Douglas Parmee, 2014.

Well, maybe that's not quite true. I had half an eye open for Micromegas, having seen it referenced in Terra Ignota. Further, Marat of Red Berries for the Red Planet had referenced 'Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds' in my TRoAPW Appendix N post. I didn't make the connection on first seeing my second-hand Hesperus Press copy, but soon did. 

Some notes on translators:

Aphra Behn was a remarkable author in her own right. I've read a number of her plays and novels. Many deal with affairs of the heart (I won't list her with Rochester as a libertine, though she's undeniably a coquette), and a number are set in the Catholic parts of the Low Countries - where she was a spy for Charles II. Her work Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave (1688) has stayed in print these many years, and provokes much interest as a narrative of an African slave's early life and rebellion in Dutch Suriname. Accomplished as she was, Virginia Woolf's praise for her catapults her onto Feminist reading lists (though I note that in her translator's note, she takes a moment to complain about the foolishness of the Marquise); her Toryism is not necessarily stressed.* 

Thomas St Serf is far less well-known, but in digging up dates for this I found him to be the son of a Scottish Bishop (their surname is rendered as Sydserff, Sincerth, Sydceff and more, confusing the issue). In addition to his translation, he was also the producer of a short-lived Scottish newsletter, the Mercurius Caledonius - which has all been transcribed online.

Both are appropriate sources for TRoAPW - though Behn has perhaps the wider application. The Mercurius Caledonius would make a great deal of sense for characterising Malmery.
I note that other translations are available on Project Gutenberg.

 

Statue of Aphra Behn, outside the Beaney Library in Canterbury.
Again, unlike Rochester, I can't tell you which Warhammer Army she collected.

         

Let's look at some summaries. In Selēnarhia Bergerac's narrator projects himself to the Moon (following a crash in Canada - New France) using vials of dew. When he arrives at the Moon, he is taken as an animal, and presented to the queen as her beast. He is slowly drawn into lunar society - where meals are taken entirely as scents, poetry is used as money, the language is music (with proper names all rendered in musical notation) and other wonders abound. There are long disputations on natural philosophy (and whether the Moon is a Moon). 

Among other things, the men of the Moon enjoy audio books.

At the opening of the Box, I found in one of them ſomething of Metal, almoſt like our Watches, full of little ſprings, and almoſt imperceptible Machines : tis true, it is a Book, but a Miraculous one, which hath neither leaves nor letters. In fine,it is a Book, wherein to learn any thing, the eyes are altogether unneceſſary, and the ears are only to be uſed. When any one then hath a mind to read in it, he winds up with a great many little Springs this Machine, then he turns the needle upon on the Chapter he intends to peruſes and ſtraight, as from the mouth of a man, or ſome Muſical inſtrument, there iſſueth forth diſtinct and different ſounds, which the men of quality make uſe of in the Moon for the expreſſion of their thoughts.

 They also make use of mobile towns:

 Amongſt our Towns, dear Stranger, there be Motional and Fundamental; the Motional ones of that we are now in, are made as I ſhall  now tell you: the Architecture as you ſee of each Palace upholds it upon light wood; we make it upon four wheels: in the thickneſs of one of the walls, he puts ten great pair of bellows, whoſe ſnowts paſs by an Horizontal line thorow the laſt ſtory from one pinacle to the other; ſo that when they would remove the Town to another place (for they change the Air each ſeaſon)each one unfolds on one fide of his houſe large ſayls, juſt before the pipes of the bellows; then having bent a ſpring to make them play, their houſes, in leſs then eight dayes, by the continual guſts which thoſe windy Monſters vomit, are driven a hundred leagues: as for thoſe we call ſtable, they are almoſt like your Towers, except that they are of wood, and that they are pierced in the Centre, by a great and ſtrong Vice, which goes from the top to the bottom, to mount or diſmount them at pleaſure. 

The whole thing resembles more than a little Gulliver's Travels, though is (on the whole) less bitter and misanthropic. A sequel takes place in the Sun. 

A Discovery of New Worlds, by contrast, is an account of stargazing, in which a young astronomer instructs a young Marquise in the wonders of the cosmos. Accordingly, a lot of it is to do with orbital dynamics and Copernicus vs Ptolemy, but there are occasions for discussions of who dwells on the Moon and other worlds, and what sort of men they are. Do they fear eclipses, as men do on earth? Comparisons are drawn with the inhabitants of the New World prior to the arrival of Columbus; and, accordingly, the possibility of frequent travel between the Moon and Earth in time to come. There is also an extended passage discussing Ariosto - teachers now and then refer to cultural touchstones.

Then we have Micromegas. In which an inhabitant of the planet Sirius, the titular Micromegas has to leave the Sirian court after having written a heretical book - he was taught by that planet's Jesuits. They get everywhere! In journeying through the cosmos, he eventually lights on our solar system, and pays a visit to Earth in the company of a Saturnian. A problem presents itself: the Sirian is 24,000 feet tall and the Saturnian 6,800 feet tall. They eventually make microscopes to observe life on Earth, and begin conversations with a boatful of philosophers. Micromegas approves of Locke, but laughs mightily at the suggestions of a theologian from the Sorbonne quoting Thomas Aquinas, and promptly quits the scene.

What are we to make of all these? Well, one could see it as an evolution of astronomy: first the moon as fairyland, then the systematic examination of the solar system, then the vast beings and vaster distances of the galaxy. This is a narrow slice of Early Modern tales of star-faring, of course, so that's a little too glib. Indeed, the ideas don't only evolve: the use of microscopes and vast differences in scale in Micromegas are matched by discussion of a louse on a human body in Selēnarhia. There is the use of alien beings: Fontenelle's sober-ish speculation against Voltaire's whimsical culture-war puppets.

In any case, the attitudes and discussions are just those one might expect of TRoAPW. The curiosity for other worlds, the self-confidence, the whim and threat of lunar monarchs or star-archons - all might find a home in Calliste!

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I did plan to read about Fairies in Space. Which is to say that I backed the Kickstarter for Queen Mab's Palace. It arrived a few weeks ago, and I have been slowly working my way through it.  

How to describe it? Well, we may turn to the author's own words:

This book is a Science-Fantasy Adventure story which follows the  a medieval scribe in his quest to to save six children, stolen from his village by Fairies and taken to Queen Mab's Palace.

The reader will quickly realise what the protagonist does not; this is no 'magic palace', but a gigantic, dying space ship, taken over by insane transhuman radicals and populated by mutants and loons. 

The author being, of course, Patrick Stuart. Queen Mab's Palace was illustrated by August Lake Cartland.

There's a few things to say about the conception of QMP. Much of it is detailed here, but I would note two things. First, that QMP was for a time meant to be read two ways: as a science fiction piece, and as a fantasy adventure - as in, one could flip the book around and read it right to left for a different experience. Second, that it was (like Stuart's other work) initially a game book: the structure of events, in which a quest has multiple destinations and interconnected possibilities presumably owes much to this, though this doesn't feel like an artefact of earlier versions (for reasons to be discussed below). The Appendices do, but this is a touch more charming and is integrated (or not-quite-integrated) into the story in a fitting fashion. The acquisition of a weapon, a map and a lamp in a bustling and mysterious market is a section that strikes one as very RPG; the division of weapons into man-killer, crowd-killer and Lady-killer is both a good moment to describe the world and enjoy the literary use of lists, and quite close to scrolling through the available weapons at an armourer in an RPG (the characterful purposes of such a categorisation are not lost on me).

A moment on art. The cover manages to be A) evocative, B) accurate but not slavish and C) good-looking. This is a hard set of qualities to fit together.

The interior illustrations tread a line between fantasy and science fiction, as they should, and largely do it well. Too far towards fantasy, and you get Arthur Rackham or Aubrey Beardsley. Too far towards science fiction and you get Chris Foss (whose mix of colour and detail and vastness would work quite well in places!) or H.R. Giger. Illustrations have to show some of the mechanical and high-science detail, along with the 'crunchy' chainmail and bracers and belts fantasy, and escaping into the impressionistic would be cheating. And it does this without summoning up comparison with John Blanche - who is good, but probably not good for fairies. Some elements dial up the whimsy too far, but an assertion of the artist's personal touch on the work is oft-times welcome, even where it doesn't quite align with text or tone (I've seen this said of Josh Kirby's illustrations for the Discworld, for instance, as contrasted with Paul Kidby). Bravo Cartland.

QMP's cover, shorn of the title. Found here. 

Having raised John Blanche, there is one way I think I would characterise QMP. The feudalistic or some-how devolved society in a generation ship is a well-established trope or feature of speculative fiction. Consider Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky, or Aldiss's Non-Stop, or Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. Likewise, consider the mingling of the feudal and futuristic in Dune or A Canticle for Leibowitz. QMP does something not immediately so different to all of these, but differs in two ways. First, in that the voice is somehow more medieval: as if the whole of QMP could be a string of allegorical scenes - or, rather, as if it is something strange and bewildering that is being communicated by one whose nearest reference point is colourful, complex allegory (almost as if the author is very familiar with Edmund Spenser). This isn't perhaps constant, but is frequent enough to matter. (I'd comment on Shelley's poem Queen Mab here if I had anything more than a superficial acquaintance with it).

Second, in that it lingers in the Blanche-esque. That needs explaining: John Blanche's illustrations for Warhammer 40,000 are well known (or, at least, presumably well-known if you've found your way here!) but aren't always 'in focus'. That is to say, they are set next to army lists and functional prose and stat-blocks, which pull one away from the madness and ruin of Blanche. What is more, it does this without becoming Ian Watson - or a toy commercial (see here and here; contrast discussions here). The new reader shouldn't expect too much in the way of Warhammer, but I think that this is a way to express an element of what's going on in QMP.

I take it that the Frenchmen and Fairies reading this will consider this a recommendation. Goodness knows what the Star-Archons make of it.