Poul Anderson: all kinds of stuff, as we know
How do distinct genres approach and overlap? Forsyth's Icon, published in 1996, is set in 1999 but with flashbacks to the 1980s. Such near future fiction soon becomes effectively alternative history fiction although it also incorporates much genuine history. Googling differentiates fictional and historical characters.
As with Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, some readers might imagine Anderson's Time Patrol agents infiltrating the KGB, GRU, CIA, SIS etc but, if such agents are present, Forsyth cannot refer to them! His text presents an intricate but single timeline. However, the issue of alternative timelines arises when comparing Forsyth's own works because Icon culminates with the restoration of Tsarism which need not be assumed in any other novel.
If you enjoy reading Anderson's accounts of Time Patrol operations, then you might also enjoy reading Forsyth's accounts of CIA and KGB operations.
Spasibo.
16 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
This arouses many thoughts in me. I've never read any of the Forsyth books, but ICON does seem interesting, esp. because he hypothesizes the restoration of the monarchy in Russia. An idea which I thought was sheer fantasy when another online friend talked seriously about that. It had me checking to see if there was any significant sympathy for a Romanov restoration in in that country. I was frankly astonished to discover at least 47 percent of Russians who were polled about that in 2017 were at least sympathetic to restoring the monarchy. If there was ONE thing I thought the Communists would succeed in doing it was stamping out monarchism!
It does make me wonder what might have happened after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 if a provisional gov't basing itself on the Abdication Manifesto of Michael Romanov (the brother of Nicholas II) had taken over. That document specified the Provisional Gov't had to summon within a reasonable time a Constituent Assembly to decide the political form of Russia: whether or not to accept "Michael II's" CONDITIONAL abdication or set up some kind of republic.
Also, post-Soviet Russia STILL has not come to terms with the horrors and evils of the Soviet period. No analog of the Nuremberg Court and Trials was appointed to sit in judgment of the Soviet regime and its most senior surviving leaders. No cathartic rejection of the Soviet past of a kind enabling a post-Marxist Russia to make a clean break with that past was achieved. Too many ex-Soviet apparatchiks like Vladimir Putin himself, imbued with bad Soviet ideas and even worse habits, clung to power.
I think something like what I outlined above might be at least thought about in a post-Putin Russia.
Most people, when they think about spy thrillers, think of the novels of Tom Clancy, John le Carre, or Frederick Forsyth. I have more than once recommended the Blackford Oates stories of William F. Buckley, Jr. Esp. the first two: SAVING THE QUEEN and STAINED GLASS. Witty, carefully thought out, entertaining novels.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I am not surprised at a lot of people possibly being interested in a restoration of tsarism given everything they have been through since then.
Paul.
So far as espionage novels go there are many hidden gems (like those about Blackie Oates) including one offs like The Burlington Files series by Bill Fairclough. It's meant to be six autobiographical spy novels but only one has been released to date, apparently for a combo of legal and security reasons. That should come as no surprise if you have read Beyond Enkription, the only novel published to date.
Beyond Enkription (intentionally misspelt) is a raw and noir matter of fact pacy spy thriller that Len Deighton and Mick Herron could be forgiven for thinking they co-wrote. Coincidentally, a few critics have nicknamed its protagonist, Bill Fairclough aka Edward Burlington, “a posh Harry Palmer”.
This elusive and enigmatic novel is a true story about a maverick accountant (Edward Burlington in Porter Williams International aka Bill Fairclough in Coopers & Lybrand in real life). In 1974 in London he began infiltrating organised crime gangs, unwittingly working for MI6. After some frenetic attempts on his life he was relocated to the Caribbean where, “eyes wide open” he's recruited by the CIA and is soon headed for shark infested waters off Haiti.
If you’re an espionage cognoscente you’ll love this monumental book but just because you think you know it all don’t surf through the prologue: you may miss some disinformation. If you felt squeamish when watching Jaws, you may find the savagery of the opening chapter upsetting, but it soon passes.
This epic is so real it made us wonder why bother reading espionage fiction when facts are so much more exhilarating. Atmospherically it's reminiscent of Ted Lewis' Get Carter of Michael Caine fame. If anyone ever makes a film based on Beyond Enkription they'll only have themselves to blame if it doesn't go down in history as a classic thriller … it’s the stuff memorable films are made of.
Whether you’re a le Carré connoisseur, a Deighton disciple, a Fleming fanatic, a Herron hireling or a Macintyre marauder, odds on once you are immersed in it you’ll read this titanic production twice.
M16,
Thank you. I hope that you are a person, not an organization. I am just about to start reading the Matt Helm series.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul and MI6!
Paul: A little reflection can show us some possible reasons why so many Russians might like a restoration of the monarchy. The first months of 1917 was the last time Russia had any kind of legitimate and NORMAL gov't. A regime which, despite its faults, was neither a brutal ideological tyranny of the kind set up by Lenin or its kleptocratic, bungling, increasingly despotic post-Soviet successor.
I was surprised when I googled Forsyth's ICON, that the plot has a British prince being nominated as Tsar for a restored monarchy in Russia. After all, despite Soviet massacres and executions, there are still patrilineal Romanovs most would think had a better claim on the crown.
MI6: Many thanks for your very interesting comments. Because of Paul, I had been getting interested in Forsyth's books. NOW, your own compels me to add other writers!
Ad astra! Sean
Both royal families were closely connected over the centuries. As for other espionage writers/books do include Macintyre (Traitor + Spy) and Fairclough (Beyond Enkription).
Kaor, MI6!
That is true, since Peter the Great's time, But there are still some patrilineal Romanovs descended from Nicholas I. I would argue a Zemsky Sobor or a Constituent Assembly would consider offering the crown to one of them first if the decision was made to restore the monarchy.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
FF sets out a set of conditions to be met by a claimant to the Russian throne, then shows that only one man meets them. I must say that FF is very clever even though his restored tsardom is fantasy.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Before I looked up Russian monarchism, the very idea of restoring the monarchy there certainly seemed fantastic to me! It does make me wonder if Putin's bungling despotism MIGHT lead to such a restoration, implausible as it still seems to me.
But I'm definitely interested in hunting up a copy of ICON. Esp. since some attention to what I might call "retroactive legality," the Abdication Manifesto of Michael Romanov, would be desirable.
Ad astra! Sean
The proposal to restore the Tsar is commendable and plausible in the longer term but many might wrongly argue Russia would simply be replacing one with another. On a lighter note, it might be met with some tsarcasm!
Kaor, MI6!
I still find it hard to think a restoration of the monarchy in Russia is plausible. But I have to concede it is possible.
And I don't think it's necessarily true such a restoration means replacing one despotism with another. Because, however slowly and clumsily, Tsarist Russia HAD been gradually reforming itself, dating from the accession of Alexander II in 1855.
Ad astra! Sean
A modern Tsar is unlikely to be a tyrant like Stalin. We must leave this topic but we think it's a credible outcome.
FF's idea is for a constitutional monarchy to prevent a dictatorship.
Kaor, MI6 and Paul!
MI6: You would have to go back to Ivan the Terrible (or the "Dread") to find a Tsar analogous to Stalin!
Paul: And with the Constitution drafted in 1905-06 Russia had achieved a start in becoming a constitutional monarchy.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: the problem was that Nicholas was a dimwit -- an earnest, hardworking dimwit, which is the worst sort -- and his wife was worse.
A capable, pragmatic Czar at that point might well have done much better.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree Nicholas II was fatally prone to indecision, but people who knew him did not think he was stupid. I recall one sympathetic character in Solzhenitysn's MARCH 1917 reflecting that up till December of 1916 the Tsar was making intelligent and reasonable decisions. After that, alas, Nicholas succumbed to a paralyzing fatalism.
A Tsar more like Nicholas' father and grandfather would almost certainly have been more forceful and pragmatic.
Ad astra! Sean
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