Tuesday 29 April 2014

Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra

Volume VI of Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga by Poul Anderson, compiled by Hank Davis, is Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (New York, 2012), which collects:

"The Plague of Masters" (pp. 1-147);
"Hunters of the Sky Cave" (pp. 149-301);
"The Warriors from Nowhere" (pp. 303-337);
"A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows" (pp. 339-606).

Just four works, all about Flandry, three of them novels. "The Warriors from Nowhere", a very short story, can retroactively be regarded as a mere prelude to "A Knight..." Thus, Volume VI is effectively a Flandry trilogy, like Vol IV, Young Flandry. Given the parameters of the Saga, I can understand the rationale for Sir Dominic...

However, "The Plague of Masters" is a direct sequel to "A Message in Secret" and, I think, belongs with it. "A Knight..." is a sequel to the original Flandry series and is the first of three novels featuring sons or daughters of characters introduced in the first Flandry novel. I think that these three "Children of Empire" novels belong together and that the following four post-Flandry works should have a volume to themselves.

Thus, although I recognize that Sir Dominic... is a solid Flandry omnibus collection, I still have reasons to prefer a different way of dividing up Anderson's History of Technic Civilization.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

I want to beg and entreat any readers who see this not to be put off by the truly hideous cover illustration Baen Books chose for SIR DOMINIC FLANDRY. Don't let the awful cover deter you from reading the splendid stories in the book.

Sean M. Brooks