{"id":1975,"date":"2020-09-05T17:50:14","date_gmt":"2020-09-05T22:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lfs.org\/blog\/?p=1975"},"modified":"2024-05-10T22:34:25","modified_gmt":"2024-05-11T03:34:25","slug":"free-trade-entrepreneurship-and-a-swashbuckling-merchant-hero-poul-andersons-trader-to-the-stars-a-1985-prometheus-hall-of-fame-winner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/free-trade-entrepreneurship-and-a-swashbuckling-merchant-hero-poul-andersons-trader-to-the-stars-a-1985-prometheus-hall-of-fame-winner\/","title":{"rendered":"Entrepreneurship and a swashbuckling merchant-hero: Poul Anderson\u2019s Trader to the Stars, a 1985 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Libertarian Futurist Society is publishing an Appreciation series of Prometheus award-winners that makes clear why each winner deserves recognition as notable pro-freedom and\/or anti-authoritarian in theme. Here is our Appreciation of\u00a0Poul Anderson\u2019s Trader to the Stars, <\/em>a\u00a01985 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner for Best Classic Fiction.<\/p>\n

By Michael Grossberg<\/a><\/strong>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 Trader to the Stars,\u00a0<\/em>part of Anderson\u2019s interstellar and libertarian-themed Future History series written over four decades, offers three loosely interconnected and longer stories about the free-trade-oriented Polesotechnic League operating during a Terran Empire.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Blending adventure, mystery and sf with some swashbuckling heroism and vivid descriptions often evoking Norse sagas, this 1964 book centers on Nicholas van Rijn, a resourceful and clever Danish merchant-hero (Anderson was Danish-American).<\/p>\n

Anderson, always a realist about humanity with a sensibility of a melancholy romantic, portrays both humans and aliens as self-interested, striving to make a buck and satisfy their various needs amid an imperfect world of struggling and flawed peoples \u2013 in short, a future just like today.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This admirable libertarian-capitalist hero faces challenges as he encounters a variety of intriguing and truly alien aliens on several different worlds in a future galaxy full of intelligent life and interstellar travel.<\/p>\n

Head of Solar Spice & Liquors and part of a generations-old family of merchants, van Rijn must use his wits to survive and make a living while often managing to find ways to simultaneously profit and help others.<\/p>\n

An often-reluctant spaceman with an eye for the ladies and a fat body reflecting his other Falstaffian appetites, Van Rijn speaks a stylized dialogue reflecting the future evolution of English (but also giving Anderson another change to express his own creativity, imagination and lyrical-to-brooding Scandinavian spirit of romanticism.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Two stories focus on Van Rijn\u2019s trade missions to planets where he faces difficult problems dealing with the native population. In the other story, set on an icebound planet, involves people struggling to save the civilization from extinction foreseeable a millennium later. Van Rijn strives to figure out and solve the source of the problem.<\/p>\n

While the first story is more of an sf adventure, the other two stories weave in mysteries that require Van Rijn to act as a sort of amateur detective, and apply his rationality in the spirit of Sherlock Holmes.<\/p>\n

What makes Van Rijn especially enjoyable and admirable, to LFS members, is Anderson\u2019s welcome positive portrait \u2013 relatively rare during his lifetime – of capitalist entrepreneurs who seek to prosper and profit by satisfying people\u2019s needs in a free market and without seeking special government privileges, subsidies or corrupt regulations entrenching themselves at the expense of rival businesses.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This novel, which can be enjoyed and read on its own, is part of seven books Anderson wrote about the Polesotechnic League, all of which libertarian futurists enjoy because of Anderson\u2019s sf imagination, \u00a0sense of humor, and melancholy romanticism imbued with realism about flawed humanity and the perennial struggle of Liberty vs. Power.<\/p>\n

Note: Anderson (1926-2001) also wrote The Stars Are Also Fire <\/em>(the 1995 Prometheus winner for Best Novel), \u201cNo Truce with Kings\u201d (a story inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame in 2010) and “Sam Hall” (a story inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2020).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Paul Anderson, right, with his wife Karen at an sf con (Creative Commons license)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Anderson received the first Special Prometheus Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2001, an award accepted for the ailing author by his wife, Karen, at the 2001 LFScon (the first LFS mini-con) at Marcon, Ohio’s oldest and largest sf\/fantasy convention.<\/p>\n

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE<\/strong><\/p>\n

* Read the introductory essay<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0 about the LFS\u2019 40th\u00a0<\/sup>anniversary retrospective series of Appreciations of past Prometheus Awards winners, with an overview of the awards\u2019 four-decade history.<\/p>\n

* Other Prometheus winners:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0For a full list of winners \u2013 for the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards \u2013 visit the recently updated and enhanced Prometheus Awards page<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0on the LFS website. (This page contains convenient direct clickable links to each Appreciation for Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction, as they are published on the Prometheus blog.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

* Join us<\/strong>! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards, join <\/strong><\/a>the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf\/fantasy fans, and help nominate, judge and vote for the annual Prometheus Award winners.<\/p>\n

Libertarian futurists believe upholding and advancing culture is as vital as politics (and often more positive and productive in the longer run) in spreading positive visions of the future, achieving a flourishing society with life, liberty and justice for all, based on cooperation instead of coercion.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Libertarian Futurist Society is publishing an Appreciation series of Prometheus award-winners that makes clear why each winner deserves recognition as notable pro-freedom and\/or anti-authoritarian in theme. Here is our Appreciation of\u00a0Poul Anderson\u2019s Trader to the Stars, a\u00a01985 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner for Best Classic Fiction. By Michael Grossberg \u00a0 \u00a0 Trader to the … Continue reading Entrepreneurship and a swashbuckling merchant-hero: Poul Anderson\u2019s Trader to the Stars, a 1985 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[43,2353,160,1861,8],"tags":[279,505,669,668,666,6,268,247,670,248,667],"class_list":["post-1975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appreciations","category-book-reviews","category-hall-of-fame","category-poul-anderson","category-review","tag-capitalism","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-no-truce-with-kings","tag-planetary-trade-missions","tag-polesotechnic-league","tag-poul-anderson","tag-prometheus-hall-of-fame","tag-romanticism","tag-sam-hall","tag-trader-to-the-stars","tag-van-rijn"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-vR","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1975"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7530,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975\/revisions\/7530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}