Monday 11 September 2023

Foundation And Flandry

I browsed Isaac Asimov's Forward The Foundation in a charity shop and was doubly grateful for Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization. The common theme is the imminent fall of an interstellar empire but how different are the two accounts.

There are also structural parallels: 

(i) The earliest written part of Asimov's series was called a Trilogy because its first book publication was in three collections. Anderson's Captain Flandry series, although not marketed as a trilogy, fills two collections and one novel.

(ii) Anderson wrote three novels about the younger Flandry. Asimov wrote two novels about the younger Hari Seldon.

(iii) Anderson wrote two novels featuring Admiral Flandry and four shorter works about later future history. Asimov wrote two novels about later Foundation history.

(iv) Anderson decided that his Polesotechnic League series was a prequel to his Flandry series. Asimov decided that his Robots series was a prequel to his Foundation series.

(v) In both cases, there are works set in intermediate periods.

Given book sales, there must be a lot of people who have read Foundation but not the Technic History and there is even a Foundation TV series. Something should be done about this.

6 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Absolutely! I'm tired of this fixation so many still have on Asimov, STAR TREK, and STAR WARS, when Anderson's works are so much better.

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Damned right. Poul's stuff is just -better- than Asimov's, frankly.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

Asolutely! While I believe the most important thing Elon Musk is doing is working to get mankind off this rock and founding a colony on Mars, it would also be good if he took an interest in funding van Rijn and Flandry movies. Frankly, I think it would take an entrepreneur with deep pockets before anyone might seriously try making movies.

Some of your stories are also very filmable--such as THE SKY PEOPLE and IN THE COURTS OF THE CRIMSON KINGS.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

I would like to see films of THE PESHAWAR LANCERS and CONQUISTADOR.

DaveShoup2MD said...


Musk spending money on producing popular entertainment would bring the Howard Hughes parallels full circle. ;)

Elon living in a hotel penthouse, storing urine in bottles, and never clipping his fingernails doesn't seem the "most" unlikely way for his particular saga to end ...

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul and Dave!

Paul: I agree, those books by Stirling would also be good candidates for filming.

Dave: I think Musk's greatest strictly personal hope would be to end his days on Mars. Analogous to how D.D. Harriman longed to go to the Moon!

Ad astra! Sean