Sunday 20 November 2022

Grimes And Flandry

A. Bertram Chandler, The Dark Dimensions IN Chandler, Gateway To Never (Riverdale, NY, May 2015), pp. 151-294.

References in this novel to Kinsolving's Planet reminded me of something. Checking in the cellar, I found Galaxy, July 1969, which I have because it contains "The City That Was The World" by James Blish, a fragment of Blish's unfinished novel, King Log. However, this issue of Galaxy also contains:

Dune Messiah, Part I, by Frank Herbert;
"The Kinsolving's Planet Irregulars" by A. Bertram Chandler.

I now have enough Chandler/Grimes material to enable me to decide whether to seek out any more and so far my impression is negative. The Galactic Lens is referred to without being described. The means of FTL travel seems to be a mixture of primitive and advanced and is not described convincingly. Dominic Flandry is the Captain of the Vindictive, serves the Emperor Edouard XIV and is accompanied by Ensign Bugolsky. None of this fits any of Poul Anderson's accounts.

As far as I have read, Flandry has been described only as perceived by Grimes. Would he come across as described? Maybe but nothing else fits.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Your comments here describes well why Chandler's stories did not appeal to me. Frankly, I thought his version of Flandry was a slanderous caricature of the real Flandry!

Ad astra! Sean