UNCLE And Un-Men

Fictional heroes sometimes spend their time identifying a chief villain and locating his secret HQ. Blofeld moved from Paris to an Alp to a Japanese Castle of Death. The Man from UNCLE TV series repeatedly referred to the enemy HQ, THRUSH Central. In his UNCLE novels, David McDaniel invented three mobile THRUSH Centrals and, beyond them, a THRUSH Island that had to be eliminated by a naval attack. A character thought that she had been on the island but did not know where it was.

Poul Anderson matches this in just a few pages of "Un-Man." The Un-Men neatly trick the leader of the "gang" into leading them to his global HQ which is under a mobile sea station. The story ends quickly as the gang is beheaded in a single page but this UN action is the equivalent of the protracted UNCLE campaign against THRUSH. We appreciate Anderson's heroes-versus-villains scenarios but are also grateful that he wrote a lot more than just that.