Dead Already?

See:

Sacrifice And Resurrection In Faith And Fiction

 

Dead, Not Really

 

Poul Anderson makes it seem that Flandry is dead before his series has even started. Max Abrams thinks:

 

"Wasn't just that a flitter was missing, nor even that the pilot was probably dead. Vehicles got shot down and men got killed more and more often. Too bad about this kid, who was he, yes, Ensign Dominic Flandry. Glad I never met him. Glad I don't have to write to his parents." (Ensign Flandry, CHAPTER TWO, p. 13)

Fodaich Runei says:

"'...we hold it had no right, as a foreign naval vessel, to fly over the waters. Any consequences must be on the pilot's own head.'" (p. 18)

Later:

"Where had young Flandry been from, and what memories did he carry to darkness?

"On a sudden impulse Abrams put down his cigar, bent his head, and inwardly recited the Kaddish." (ibid.)

So R.I.P. Flandry? The title tells us that this novel is about Ensign Flandry but it is conceivable that the rest of the text will turn out to be an extended flashback returning readers to the moment of his death...

Then the (figurative) resurrection:

"Ensign Dominic Flandry, Imperial Naval Flight Corps, did not know whether he was alive through luck or management." (CHAPTER FOUR, p. 29)

After three chapters and twenty four pages of build-up and lead-in, we finally get to the man himself and his point of view. The rest is future history.