For Love and Glory

by Poul Anderson

Lissa, a human Earth woman, and her partner, “Karl,” a giant alien academic who resembles a Tyrannosaur, are interstellar archaeologists investigating the remote and uncharted planet Jonna. There, they seem to have hit the jackpot. For on that distant world they’ve discovered an immense artifact that may have been left by the mysterious beings called the Forerunners. This race predated all the known cultures in the starfaring galaxy and vanished long before any other intelligent species had taken to the stars.

But Lissa and Karl aren’t the first to have made the discovery on Jonna. On the far-off world the archaeologists cross paths with the two freebooters whose plans for motives towards the arcane object are not purely scientific. Their discovery may be the best-preserved relic of the ancient beings yet found. Other artifacts from the Forerunners—once reverse engineered—have revolutionized entire fields of technology, reaping huge financial rewards. If the same holds true for this newest discovery, Lissa realizes, only she and Karl stand between the seemingly friendly freebooters and what could be the treasure of a lifetime.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Space Opera

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Pseudonym A. A. Craig, Michael Karageorge, Winston P. Sanders, P. A. Kingsley.

Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages 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.

Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1948. He married Karen Kruse in 1953. They had one daughter, Astrid, who is married to science fiction author Greg Bear. Anderson was the sixth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, taking office in 1972. He was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls to Anderson and eight of the other members of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy.[2][3]

Poul Anderson died of cancer on July 31, 2001, after a month in the hospital. Several of his novels were published posthumously.


Series:
* Time Patrol
* Psychotechnic League
* Trygve Yamamura
* Harvest of Stars
* King of Ys
* Last Viking
* Hoka
* Future history of the Polesotechnic League
* Flandry

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF @ page 60

Nope. Not even a little bit sorry to see you go, book. Poul Anderson standard writing, and that's neither praise nor blame. Plot better than average; but there's no there there. Frankly it's just dull and I am way too old to slog through average to dull prose unless I'm being paid.

No one's paying me. Bye now!

[Tani · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another old book off the shelves! I believe got this one from the Science Fiction Book Club, not intentionally, but just because I'd forgotten to cancel? Since it came out in 2003, I would guess it was right around then. Which is a hell of a long time to carry around a book as bad as this one. But at least it's gone now. Yay!

Ok, so this started out fine. Some action, some characters that I didn't hate, some aliens that I would have liked to see more of. However, as I read more, I found myself getting more and more disgruntled. For one thing, there's the sexism. It's subtle and ingrained, and I think that Anderson might have actually been trying not to be sexist at all, which almost makes it worse. A lot of the book takes place from Lissa's perspective, actually, and while I can applaud the effort, I will also advise you that I consider it to be a failure.

I also had a huge problem with the characters in general, to be honest. One of the premises here is the old science fictional stand-by of rejuvenation. So, the characters here are all several hundred years old. And yet they have the emotional maturity of 20-somethings. Lissa is particularly guilty of this. She falls in and out of love like she's a teenager, and she shows about as much compassion for her so-called partners. It's terribly frustrating to see someone with such a long lifespan act in such a way. Hebo, the male main character, is not as guilty of this, but I'm still not sure that I would credit him with the wisdom that 800 years of life should give you.

To add to this, I could not deal with the social norms. To see two grown characters acting so immature about simple nudity...It was terrible. I am a shy and reserved person, but I can assure you, if I was in life-threatening circumstances, I would not really be concerned with the state of the other person's clothing. Cue an eyeroll here. In general, I didn't like seeing social norms that are reminiscent of the fifties in a novel written in 2003. Anderson does add some touches to try and spice things up, like a bit of sexual freedom for Lissa, but he doesn't follow those touches through to the actual societal and personal impact that they might have, and so they all feel false.

I did like some of the bigger ideas behind the story, so at least it was not a complete loss. In fact, I would have been much happier if the story had focused on what the people of Earth have been up to, because I really liked what we were given, and they at least seemed to have evolved past sixty years ago. Clearly Anderson is capable of a good amount of imagination, I just wish he could have applied it his characters as well as his concepts.

[Lis Carey · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a fix-up, built around two stories originally written for the Isaac's Universe project, substantially modified and with new materal written to expand it out to novel length. Unfortunately, while each piece of it is a pleasant enough read, the overall effect is choppily episodic, the parts not complete enough to stand as separate stories, and not blended together sufficiently to make a satisfactory novel.

The background is a loose, multi-species civilization occupying mostly the near galactic neighborhood. The various species trade with each other, and have treaties governing how they decide who owns what, and sometimes mount joint scientific expeditions, but mostly don't interact too closely. Like other species, the humans aren't all under one government and one culture, and most of the principal human characters are citizens of Asborg, which has the kind of corporate feudalism Anderson has featured in other novels. Earth also has the computer intelligence-based Gaia culture/blended identity that has appeared in other works, but the widespread, ftl-based interstellar culture in this book is incompatible with the stl limitations on travel and colonization featured in some of them. Another of the important human characters is from Earth, but, as one of the first generation for whom serious life extension was available, he's over nine hundred years old and hasn't been back to Earth in several centuries, in part because he chose not to become a member of the shared Gaia mind.

Lissa Windholm is a daughter of one of the noble houses of Asborg, still fairly young (only one rejuvenation), and not yet quite ready to settle down and give up adventuring. While on one of those adventures, as part of a multi-species scientific expedition to a newly-discovered habitable planet, she encounters a pair of freelance explorers. One of them's the Earth-native human mentioned above, Torben Hebo, and the other is Dzesi of the Ulas Trek, one of the vaguely catlike natives of Rikha. Hebo and Dzesi have discovered a Forerunner artifact, and the problem in this episode is making sure the artifact is turned over to proper scientific investigation while not depriving the freelancers of fair compensation for their discovery. Other episodes involve other scientific discoveries related to the Forerunners, and conflict with the lizard-like species known as the Susaians and with another Asborgian house, Seafell, concerning exactly who is going to get to acquire and exploit that knowledge. Hebo and Dzesi wind up playing a major role in Lissa's efforts to ensure that the knowledge is widely shared, rather than becoming the private property of one government.

This is all much more involving to read than it may sound when described like that, but still, this is very minor Anderson.

[Mary JL · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poul Anderson, winner of seven Hugo Awards and SF's Grandmaster Award, does not disappoint in the well crafted novel.

Set in the far future, where Earth is one of many worlds, it follows the career of Lissa Davysdaughter Windholm. She is human, but a native of the colony world Asborg.

After leaving the planet Jonna (see synopsis above) she is contacted by an alien Susaian. He has information about a scientific rarity that he is willing to sell to House Windholm--for a price. so Lissa's second expedition in the book follows this discovery and I won't tell more as I do not want to spoil it.

Poul anderson makes a point I really like. In this future society, the true currency is information. Scientic processes and discoveries are more valuable than money. Similar to our corpoations today, the various Houses of Asborg compete for knowledge. If your House is the first to discover a planet or process or new medical treatments or whatever, you basically have the control of them for a specified time.

It is a fascinating glimpse of an interesting future society. Alas this was one of Poul Anderson's last books. I would have enjoyed more books about Lissa and her culture. The characters---human and alien ---are well developed. While not a slam bang thriller, the story kept building well and kept me turning pages.

The end segment of Lissa's career--so far--has her and her crew looking for the possible remains of a Forerunner base. The Forerunners have been gone for centuries. If one of their bases could be found, the knowledge would be priceless. But there are others who want this infomration--and who don't want Lissa to succeed....

A well crafted book by an established SF master. A good balance of well -developed character and interesting story. Recommend for all SF fans.

[Alexander Theofanidis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ο αγαπημένος και πολυγραφότατος Poul Anderson δεν έζησε για να δει την έκδοση του For Love and Glory καθώς εκδόθηκε δύο χρόνια μετά το θάνατό του και μάλλον δεν το είχε φτιάξει όπως και όσο θα ήθελε, οπότε είμαστε τρυφεροί και δεν κοπανάμε.

Έχουμε λοιπόν μια χλιαρή μεν space opera που κάθεται σε ένα όμορφο worldbuilding με ένα γαλαξία που σφύζει από ζωή και ενδιαφέρον (για τον αναγνώστη), με τεχνολογικά προηγμένες φυλές, πολιτικές ισορροπίες και (φυσικά, επειδή ο Poul ήταν γέρος) αρχαία μυστικά.

Δύο συνεργαζόμενα μέλη διαφορετικών φυλών προσπαθούν να ανακαλύψουν τα μυστικά ενός αρχαίου πολιτισμού, σκορπώντας λίγη φιλοσοφία στο δρόμο τους καθώς και υποψίες ότι πίσω από όλα κρύβεται κάτι μεγαλύτερο και πιο σκοτεινό, ενώ πολύ τίμια η εξερευνητική περιέργεια έρχεται σε σύγκρουση με ηθικούς περιορισμούς. Φυσικά θα φάτε και λίγο ρομάνς, αλλά θα το αντέξετε. Αυτό που ίσως χαλάσει τη σούπα (αποφεύγω να κάνω πεταμένο αστείο με τους γέρους σαν τον Anderson -όταν το έγραφε- και τις σούπες ως βασική πηγή τροφής ένεκα περιορισμένου αριθμού λειτουργικών οδόντων, α το έκανα) είναι ο κουρασμένος ρυθμός του γερο-Poul που έχει χάσει το σφρίγος και την ταχύτητα της νιότης και το ότι τα πάντα είναι σχετικά χλιαρά. Ούτε για τους χαρακτήρες θα καείτε, ούτε για την υπόθεση. Προσοχή: δεν εννοώ ότι θα σας είναι αδιάφορα, απλώς είχαμε συνηθίσει έναν Poul «διαμάντι κοπής».

Δε θα κλάψει κανείς αν το προσπεράσετε, άλλωστε ο ίδιος δημιουργός έχει δώσει πολύ πιο αξιομνημόνευτα έργα.

[Peter Goodman · Rating 3 out of 5]

"For Love and Glory," by Poul Anderson (Tor books, 2003). There seem to be several stories blended not all that well in this small novel. A human Explorer named Lissa and an alien who resembles a tyrannosaur discover an artifact on an alien planet placed there by the Forerunners, a mysterious race of beings that apparently lived millions of years or or billions of years before any of the multitude of sentient races now filling the galaxy. A faction among one of the races, who look like lizards, has become militarized and is trying to gain control at least of its own people. I'm having trouble keeping the different plots separate but there are elements involving environmental destruction of a planet, an expedition to find artifacts left by the forerunners, and a couple of love affairs that Lissa becomes involved in. There was a good bit of science involving the mechanics of black holes, a collision between two black holes, and a little bit of space opera gunplay. It's well-written but not terribly engaging. Apparently it's one of the last works that Anderson wrote; he died in 2001 it was published in 2003.

https://www.fantasticfiction.com/a/po...

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anderson, Poul. For Love and Glory. Tor, 2003.
Published two years after his death, For Love and Glory is probably the last novel Poul Anderson wrote. He was a grandmaster of adventurous science fiction with an interest in libertarian ethics and a corresponding distaste for world government. Space is the new frontier, where there are aliens that fill any number of useful niches. For Love and Glory hits all Anderson’s usual bases, but it suffers from structural problems as a reboot and reshuffle of short stories originally published as part of the Asimov Universe franchise. For all that, it is an entertaining read with its rejuvenated protagonists, dangerous planets and aliens with an intriguing variety of motives and abilities. I am especially fond of Karl, a dinosaur-like physicist.

[The Brain in the Jar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some think fun adventures and depth don’t go together. That’s a silly thing to think. Nothing in the adventure structure prevents it from showing us new ideas and make us look at the world in a different way. Adventures are, after all, tend to be an intense series of events that highly influence the character. This novel is a good enough example of such an adventure, but it’s the only good thing about it.

Anderson has some interesting ideas. His Created World feels like something that needs more novels written about. Inventions don’t exist just for convenience, but their effects are apparent. Life can be extended for almost eternity, yet a human can’t contain all these memories. It also doesn’t stop the gap in perspectives. Those who were born when the invention first kicked in got a different outlook and a different culture to draw on.

Anderson also takes the Multiple Alien Civilization to an interesting direction. He can’t come up with interesting organisms (They are basically Argonians and Khajits, from Elder Scrolls) but the behavior is. There’s a stab at racism here. Authors often use races to represent ideas. There is a race of strong, a race of stealthy, a race of intelligent and so on.

Anderson acknowledges that, unless a race has a hive mind the effect of intelligence will result in individuality. His approach is like the Elder Scrolls. A rule may apply generally, but there will be plenty who will deviate from the stereotype. He also creates a barrier between the races. Two species are too different in mindset to ever form a close relationship.

Such ideas and others rear their head, but they tend to go back down. For Love and Glory is a Foundation novel without Asimov’s spare prose and with a hefty dose of The Power of Love.

I wonder if Anderson also avoided sexuality in his early books, like Asimov. We get here the excitement of the discovery. Sex is fantastic, and it’s always around. Nothing can stop it. No adventure is too intense to be put on-hold for a romance.

Unlike Asimov, Anderson’s view of sexuality is closer to reality. The people who will fall in love and have crazy sex with be the beautiful and skilled. They will not be social outcasts and iconoclasts who are stuck on their hobbies. They will be low-fat adventurers and women of royal birth.

It never occurs to Anderson that the Beautiful People are just another elite. Money is great when you have it but it sucks when you don’t. The same goes for sex. It’s harder to imagine an alternative to sex, though. Currency is something human came up with, but sexuality was imposed on us. You can’t get away from sexuality.

That’s why I see no one questioning the promise that we will all get a hot women (or men) in the end. No one dares to acknowledge the existance of the unattractive. The only time we talk about them is as People We Will Never Have Sex With. In sex talks with guys, they talked about these girls like they’re low-quality products in a shop. They never thought that they are just like them, and that being in such a position isn’t fun.

Anderson halfway acknowledges the reality of the ugly people, but the result is insulting. Esker is what you’d expect from a social outcast. He fits nowhere. He’s ugly. He’s also very good at his field and that’s all he has. He’s pretty unpleasant, which is the result of being constantly spat out by society.

Despite all his rage he’s a rat in a cage, and Anderson is fine with that. He never stops to show some empathy for the poor thing. He appears once in a while and we’re invited to be disgusted by him, just like Lissa and Torben are. I couldn’t be disgusted. I saw in him what I am and what many people are. It’s the disgust that Anderson shows for Esker that makes him act that way in the first place. You can extract a meta novel out of this. Esker is mad at the God who created him and then scoffs at him. The result is a ‘metaphysical rebellion’ and, if we get a film adaptation a soundtrack full of Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson.

There’s also descriptive prose that tries to be unique but just ends up as gibberish. Exact descriptions of machinary are boring. Novels are not a visual medium and the writing shouldn’t try to do what film does better. Anderson understands that, but his descriptions are too abstract.

Authors should describe outer space with such wonder. There is no other way to talk about a ball of gas with beautiful rings surrounding it, just hanging there. The description often slip from expressing wonder to abstract word salad. It often hits scenes whose descriptions are supposed to be precise. There is a collision of ships in this novel, only the word ‘collision’ doesn’t appear. The purpose of langauge is not to obscure the event. If you’re not going to use the exact word, use words that imply and make us feel it. Anderson just skips the collision.

These problems are not a result of the novel’s background. It’s composed of fragments, some which were supposed to be a part of a Shared Universe project. The story is fragmented, but plenty of authors write fine fragmented stories. Good writing will take a fragmented structure and let the story come out of it. Anderson’s ambition for a literary adventure are appreciated, but the result is either incoherent or insulting. The few interesting ideas make me want to see what else he has, and hope this is just the product of an old man who’s past his prime.

2 alien civilizations out of 5

If you enjoyed this review, you may want to visit my blog for more reviews and other things:
https://allcoloursdotorg.wordpress.co...

[Claudia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Obviously, not the best book by Poul Anderson, probably because it wasn't meant to be a book; this is a bunch of several incomplete stories mixed in a not very smart way to make this novel.

Some of the concepts raised here are interesting but they are not enough to hold a tale that is, let's face it, quite predictable.

I guess even Poul Anderson can have a bad day :P

[Elden · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not finish this book. I just couldn't get into it. I read a few of his books over a decade ago and liked them, since then though my tastes have changed. I might try to read this again in the future, but I have a massive to read list to get through.

[Jeremy Steingraber · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh.. Had a few ok moments but, choppy pacing and nothing really stands out. Forgettable.

[Captnamerca · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too long, and without a worthwhile payoff.

[Kelly · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not finish. Read the first hundred pages.

The writing of this book is so jarring I was always more distracted by the language and wording than the story or characters (example phrases below). Even without that, there are random timeskips between chapters and it quickly becomes difficult to know what is "present" and what has already happened.

We get this exchange early about the artifact:

"You must have learned something."
"Of course. I think."
Eagerness throbbed. "What?"

Thoughts at a mistake:

"Damnation, but he'd bungled!"

At another meeting:

He inhaled a fragrance from the cuisinette. "Your coffee's ready, milady. I'll bring it."

Reason for appreciating gravity in the ship:

"Weightlessness made faces go puffy and unattractive."

And finally, I stopped after a character told the female MC a sad story, so obviously:

"She knelt to enfold the man who had opened himself to her."

I just couldn't do it.

[Faith Justice · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those who crave one last novel from Anderson, Tor has produced For Love and Glory. This book is a prime example of Anderson's ability to tell a tale with depth and integrity. In the far future, the adventurous have left Earth and the last inhabitants turn increasingly to a machine-maintained mental community. Far-flung human colonies build homogenous and increasingly divergent societies. Lissa Davysdaughter Windholm, from a ruling merchant house on the planet of Asborg, meets "freelancer" Torben Hebo (a man so old he was born on Earth) when they both explore an important artifact left by the mysterious Forerunners.

In another's hands this story might degenerate into the clichéd Beauty and the Beastly Man, but Anderson sends them on separate adventures, deftly weaving back and forth. In a time when information is power, Lissa steals a march on the Susaians, a paranoid military race hoarding a secret. Torben takes a necessary, but nostalgic, trip to Earth. Rejuvenation has extended human life indefinitely, but has not provided a system for handling the increasing memories. Torben needs his memories "edited," but what to discard and what to keep? The two eventually meet up again to squabble and foil another plot by the Susaians, but this time at a deadly cost.

For Love and Glory is not among my favorite books from Poul Anderson. Its fragmented nature betrays the inspiration for the novel—two short stories reworked and expanded. But Anderson doesn't take the easy way out, doing the cliched or expected in his story telling. The characters are true to themselves. They don't have any sudden or inexplicable changes in behavior or personality to suit the plot. For Love and Glory is an "average" Anderson novel, but his "average" is better than most people's best.

This an excerpt of a longer review I published at Strange Horizons

[Tina · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has as many problems as it has ideas that are clever and original. OK, I lied. There are way more problems than redeeming ideas. The characters are terrible. Lissa is boring, despite being constantly “thrilled” by things. She just moves with the story and doesn’t seem to do anything to further it. Hebo has slightly more depth but just when you start to like him, he turns just as boring as Lissa. And all that bullshit about human and alien species being “unable” to connect on a personal level more than acquaintances seems to me as an excuse to make the aliens utterly boring as well. Every single person in this story needs way more back story. Speaking of the story, the love interest was entirely predictable to the point of me dreading it because it was so stupid. Lissa should have slept with Orchialic or however you spell his name – that at least would have made the novel slightly more exciting.

There were also other problems, such as the writing and how the people spoke. Why, in the future, do they speak like they are in a 1700s novel? It only served to make it confusing and dull.

While I liked the sections where they were in space and the way the technology was described, what the hell is an “electric gun”? Does he mean a gun powered by an electric source, like a minigun? I can only hope so, because otherwise, was he trying to say a plasma rifle or maybe a pulse rifle like in Aliens? Or are we just make up our own minds what kind of guns they have? Not like they use them. Which is pretty much why the ending is terrible.

The only thing I liked about the book, really, were the concepts, like the re-generation and the way the worlds were; the idea of the alien cultures wasn’t bad either. But overall, this novel was rather bland.

[Gaurav · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is clearly a set of two stories that were combined after Anderson's death into one (supposed) novel. I am not too sure of whether the second story was indeed completed by Anderson himself, since the thought process of Earth being involved with the Forerunners is only starting to be developed.

Also, it is ridiculous to close the story by ramming two spaceships, with the heroes' spaceship surviving unscathed.

Either ways, this is an average novel at best. Nothing sparks through as brilliant.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm always trying to find that great sci-fi book, such as Rendevous with Rama. This one isn't great but isn't bad either and was my first by Poul Anderson, now deceased. He was a good writer with well thought out ideas. I've downloaded and read some of his short stories and they're okay. This one is enjoyable if you like stories involving space travel, alien interaction, archeology involving advanced technologies, yadda, yadda. Good old fashioned space opera.

[Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a very adventurous book that goes from planet to planet. This book takes place in the future and earth is just one of the many planets that is in our galaxy that has been discovered. there is even different races of people and there planets too. This book in my opinion is really enjoyable if you like science fiction and tales of space adventure.

[Ruby Hollyberry · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrible sexist soap-opera garbage. If it was the first sci fi novel I'd read, I might have stopped there!

[John]

For Love and Glory by Poul Anderson (2003)

[John]

For Love and Glory by Poul Anderson (2003)

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slow. Dull.

[Anthony Faber · Rating 2 out of 5]

So-so space opera.