Friday 4 March 2016

Poul Anderson's Recommendation

"Jerry Pournelle at his best, with a colourful, fast-paced story that also gives the reader a great deal to think about."
POUL ANDERSON
-Jerry Pournelle, King David's Spaceship (London, 1984), back cover.

As when Anderson recommended SM Stirling's Under The Yoke, this is not empty praise but an accurate description of the book. The action moves quickly as MacKinnie is arrested by the secret police of his former enemies and pressed into the service of King David to face the common Imperial threat to their planet.

There are also colorful details:

"Stark looked around the chamber, noting the carved wooden furniture, and the crystalline rock formation patterns in the parts of the floor not covered by carpets woven in the Archipelago. 'Fancy quarters, uh, Trader, sir.'" (p. 43)

Fancy indeed. And a map shows us where Haven City and the Archipelago are on the surface of Prince Samual's World.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I actually exhumed my copy of Pournelle's KING DAVID'S SPACESHIP to look for that Poul Anderson blurb, but it wasn't there. I then checked the publication date--and it was printed in 1981 while your copy dates from 1984.

As I've said before, Poul Anderson was not in the habit of contributing blurbs to books unless he had read AND liked them. So, if he thought well of Pournelle's book that was a good sign!

Sean