"'...have you ever perchance heard of Admiral Flandry?'"
-Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 1-188 AT I, p. 16.
Regular readers of Anderson's Technic History have read of Flandry but not until now of Admiral Flandry. Chapter III begins:
"Vice Admiral Sir Dominic Flandry, Intelligence Corps, Imperial Terran Navy, maintained three retreats in different areas that he liked. None was as sybaritic as his home base in Archopolis..." (p. 28)
Was Archopolis, capital city of the Terran Empire, named any earlier in the series? We are about to learn about it. Flandry rises, swims, exercises, showers, dresses, eats a souffle prepared and served by Chives and smokes beside the fountain in the roof garden where a brightly plumed Cynthian yaoti sings in an orange tree. They are surrounded by towers under white clouds and sparkling aircars in a blue sky. There is a cool breeze and muted machine sounds.
Andersonian description at its best, summarized here.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Besides that admirably described main residence of Flandry in Archopolis, we know something about other of his residences on Terra, that cabin with a few hectares of land he owned in the High Sierra. We don't know where his other retreats were located. Flandry might even have purchased the Mayor Palatine's villa on Catalina!
Yes, we see mention of Archopolis earlier in the Flandry stories. This is what I found in Chapter X of THE REBEL WORLDS, as Aaron Snelund and Admiral Pickens were discussing how to put down McCormac's rebellion: "Consider the virus spreading beyond this sector, out through the Empire, until it may indeed happen that one day he rides in triumph through Archopolis!"
And we also see mention by name of Archopolis in A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS.
Ad astra! Sean
Please bear with me. We have had the May Day march through Lancaster today so blogging has taken a back seat.
Kaor, Paul!
Of course! And this is still one of the busiest "amateur" blogs I know of.
Ad astra! Sean
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