Although the Traveler is a "great spaceship," she looks "...like a toy...against the enormous background of space." (p. 12)
The sky of the planet Haven is a "...roof against the naked blaze of space." (ibid.)
The Traveler is "...a tiny form in that thronging wilderness of stars." (pp. 12-13)
In "The Game of Glory," the stars fade toward barbarism, a rival Empire "...and the great unmapped Galactic night beyond that." (I, p. 306)
Elsewhere in the Technic History, that inter-imperial stellar region is referred to as "the Wilderness."
Although Poul Anderson's characters know that interstellar space is uninhabitable and inhospitable, they nevertheless aspire to traverse it and even, in some cases, e.g., the Nomads, want to spend their lives surrounded by it.
It is, of course, the same Galaxy that is contemplated in the Technic, Psychotechnic and other future histories. Might a character in one of these fictional futures travel to a region of space where the alternative timelines converge? Yes. A. Bertram Chandler's John Grimes meets Anderson's Dominic Flandry.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And I remember Rax's comments about the stars, in A CIRCUS OF HELLS.
I still recall vividly how disappointed and let down I felt by Chandler's version of Dominic Flandrdy! That "Flandry" simply did not feel, act, or speak like the real Flandry. I do not recommend that particular story.
Stirling has said he would love to do a Dominic Flandry pastiche. If the Anderson estate authorizes a second MULTIVERSE, I hope he will be able to contribute such a story. I am sure, as he did with Manse Everard and Wanda in "A Slip in Time," Stirling would create a convincing Flandry.
Ad astra! Sean
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