See FTL Near A Sun.
I was wrong on one point. The space yacht in the opening sections of "Hunters of the Sky Cave" is borrowed, not Flandry's own Hooligan.
The relevant passages from Poul Anderson's works are as follows. When Flandry says that he will "'...go hyper right away...'," Hauksberg responds:
"'But - snakes alive, boy! You know what the concentration of matter is, this near a sun. If a microjump lands you near a pebble, even -'"
-Ensign Flandy, CHAPTER THIRTEEN, p. 138.
I thought that Flandry's reply had been that he would fly either straight up or straight down from the ecliptic plane. His exact words are that he will:
"'...head out normally to the ecliptic plane.'" (ibid.)
I am not sure what that means.
Next:
"Flandry re-entered the yacht and roused Chives.
"'Home,' he said. 'Full acceleration. On secondary drive, if you think you can handle it within the System in this clumsy gold-plated hulk.'
"Yes, sir. I can.'
"At faster-than-light, he'd be at Terra in minutes, rather than hours. Excellent!'"
-"Hunters of the Sky Cave," II, pp. 164-165.
Van Rijn goes hyper with Dewfall when flying directly toward the extinct sun of Mirkheim although he must return to normal state as gravitation intensifies.
Thus, yes, hyperdrive becomes more difficult or dangerous in a gravity well but neither Chives nor van Rijn considers the objection made by Hauksberg.
6 comments:
Paul,
Both this cover, and the Swedish one for ENSIGN FLANDRY ("Rymdkadett Flandry", litterally "Space Cadet Flandry") you had for an earlier post are the first Flandry stories I read, many years back, and this one was the very first. The cover of this one is indeed "stolen" or appropiated Star Trek art. Since that edition was published in 1984, it's in all liklihood concept art from the first Star Trek or II The Wrath of Khan.
The name of the Swedish translation "Rymdens erövrare" means "The conquerors of space", which of course has very, very little to do with the plot of the story. Given the phony title and obviously stolen cover, it's wonder I picked up this paperback, but my standards were luckily low back then - I also devoured every piece of Barry Sadler's "Casca" that I could get my hands on! :)
I also read THE REBEL WORLDS ("Rebellvärldarna") in Swedish translation from the same publisher. That one had a decent cover though. Much later I read PEOPLE OF THE WIND in Swedish translation too ("Vindarnas folk").
This was during the Swedish role-playing craze of the 1980s, so together with my brothers and some friends we started up a sci-fi campaign using adapted D20 rules from Swedish RPG Drakar & Demoner. It was heavily, shall we say "inspired", by those three Flandry stories. We had so much fun battling evil Merseians and other assorted alien menaces (imported from various other sci fi settings) to the rule of Imperial Terra!
Fond memories!
Johan,
Is "Rymdens Erovrare" "Hunters of the Sky Cave"?
Paul.
Correct, it is.
Kaor, Paul and Johan!
Paul: Thar ridiculous cover for WE CLAIM THESE STARS would look less absurd if we thought of the "ship" in it as an O'Neill habitat.
Johan: I recall Anderson commenting in an intro to one of his stories that for much of his writing career he did not have much control over whatever whimsical titles publishers stuck on his stories. The awful WAR OF THE WING MEN (over his preferred THE MAN WHO COUNTS) was merely one example of that. This cavalier titling of Anderson's works applied to foreign translations, alas!
I'm glad you and your brothers and friends had so much fun with Anderson's stories! He himself said that his primary purpose, after all, was to ENTERTAIN his readers. But he packed so much more than well done derring do into his stories.
Ad astra! Sean
Little control on titles and even less on covers.
It’s a pity, because Poul was -good- at picking titles — THE DANCER FROM ATLANTICS, CORRIDORS OF TIME, TIME PATROL, FLANDRY OF TERRA... these are all very evocative.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree that was the case most times. But, Anderson originally wanted to call WORLD WITHOUT STARS "Mary's Song," and John Campbell persuaded him that was too weak, which is how we got the current title.
Too many of the covers for Anderson's books, esp. the paperbacks, were gosh awful ghastly! But I like Roger Hane's covers for the Chilton Books editions of the Flandry stories. And Frank Frazetta's cover for THE DANCER FROM ATLANTIS was great.
Ad astra! Sean
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