Poul Anderson
Poul Anderson
Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during the Golden Age 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...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth25 November 1926
CityBristol, PA
CountryUnited States of America
He had seen too much of the cosmos to have any great faith in man's ability to understand it.
The single definition of government I've ever seen that makes sense is that it's the organization which claims the right to kill people who won't do what it wants.
So much American science fiction is parochial -- not as true now as it was years ago, but the assumption is one culture in the future, more or less like ours, and with the same ideals, the same notions of how to do things, just bigger and flashier technology. Well, you know darn well it doesn't work that way...
In my considered opinion, the profit to be made by permanent settlement in space is nothing less than the survival of industrial civilization, and therefore the survival of nearly the entire human race, along with such amenities as peace, freedom, enough to eat, and the chance to reach a high age in good health.
A man isn't really alive till he has something bigger than himself and his own little happiness, for which he'd gladly die.
Timidity can be as dangerous as rashness.
We live with our archetypes, but can we live in them?
I think the first duty of all art, including fiction of any kind, is to entertain. That is to say, to hold interest. No matter how worthy the message of something, if it's dull, you're just not communicating.