Approaching The End

Poul Anderson's Technic History potentially opened up just when it was instead winding down. Anderson felt that the series had made its point - that a society that makes a wrong decision goes into a long-term decline through several discernible stages - but we had become more interested in the characters and their stories than in Anderson's point, interesting though that was when explained by Chunderban Desai to Dominic Flandry, then by Flandry to Miriam Abrams.

In The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume VII, Flandry's Legacy, The Game Of Empire has an internal title page on p. 189, a dedication to James P. Baen on p. 190, an Introduction by the author on pp. 191-192, maps of the Patrician System and its planets, Imhotep and Daedalus, on pp. 193-194 and an opening chapter that begins on p. 195. The Introduction gives away that this novel is a coda to Flandry's biography but not everyone reads introductions. We have not previously heard of Patricius, St. Barbara or Diana although p. 195 refers to Imperial offices which suggests that the narrative might still be in the Terran Empire. The following page confirms this by referring first to the Troubles, then, explicitly, to the Terran Empire. However, for the rest of this evening, I will return to rereading Stieg Larsson and/or Neil Gaiman!