Cold Victory

Psychotechnic League #2

by Poul Anderson

Stories of a future technological state tell of a robot wanderer, mutiny on a colony ship, a humanist revolutionary, immortality experiments, and an attempted spaceship hijacking

Genres: Science Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Fiction, Short Stories

Mass Market Paperback

First published September 29, 2011

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

[Brett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Science Fiction

[SciFiOne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grade B. Short stories. Book P2.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read a lot of Poul Anderson (1926-2001)--novels and short stories. However, I have not read any of his Psychotechnic League trilogy. This one, "Cold Victory," is the second of the trilogy, published in 1982.
The background of the series is that World War III happened in the 1950s. While some areas of the world were reduced to radioactive ashes, civilization was revived under the world organization of the United Nations. Something called "the Psychotechnic League" became the "torchbearer" for the human race. The first book of the trilogy, "The Psychotechnic League," tells how the U.N. and the League helped preserve the peace.
The second book shows that the human race has been busy colonizing the solar system. There are six stories and each highlights unresolved problems and/or conflicts that occur in the future. The story, "Cold Victory," is about a space war that occurs in the 22nd Century. The "Humanist Revolt" of Earth against the Psychotechnic League leads to Earth fighting against the colonies of Venus and Mars.
All the stories are good; my favorite is "The Troublemakers," about a conflict arising on a "generation ship" traveling to one of the stars...I like the question posed at the end of the book: "As our species moved out among the stars, would we finally learn to master ourselves?"

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cold Victory is a collection of Psychotechnic League stories published in magazines in the late 1950s. Stories like these are the reason I read the pulps in my long-gone youth.

Anderson speculates on technological unemployment, revolution on a generation ship, attacking Earth from space, Humanists in revolt, and exploring Jupiter’s atmosphere. I loved it all when I was 16. Truth to tell, I still do.

[James]

Born in the radioactive ashes of World War Three the institute for Applied Psychodynamics had guided Planet Earth to a period of plenty that for the first time fulfilled Science's promise. But it is the central irony of human existence that prosperity bears the seeds of its own destruction; this time not just Earth but the entire Solar System would endure the flames of war.

[Gr1972 · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 out of 5