Continuing Villains

A continuing villain, whether individual or collective, should not appear in every instalment of a series. In Ian Fleming's Moonraker, Sir Hugo Drax is backed not by SMERSH but by Russian military intelligence, GRU (as was Stieg Larsson's Zala). In Diamonds Are Forever, the Russians are not involved when Bond takes on the (American) Spangled Mob.

In Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry series, the collective continuing villain is the Merseians while the individual continuing villains are Aycharaych and Tachwyr. None of these guys are involved in A Stone In Heaven. Edwin Cairncross thinks:

"'You pulled the fangs of the Merseians at Chereion, and we no longer have to worry about them.'"

-A Stone In Heaven, III, p. 37.

Flandry replies:

"'Oh, but I'm afraid we do....'" (ibid.)

And, sure enough, in the following volume, The Game Of Empire, Tachwyr presides as a long-laid plan of the now vanished Aycharaych comes to fruition. But surely that is the last? We know that the Merseians are no longer around as an interstellar power when the Terran Empire finally falls. I think that the demoralization caused by repeated defeats inflicted by Flandry is evident:

"'Our net loss is minor.'

"'Except for hope,' Tachwyr mumbled."

-Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 189-453 AT Chapter Twenty-Two, p. 447.