The Mule And Molitor

In Isaac Asimov's Second Foundation, Bail Channis has an audience with the First Citizen of the Union of Worlds, the Mule, who sends Channis on an expedition to locate the Second Foundation. The Mule has not "Converted," i.e., mentally modified, Channis who therefore will not be instantly recognized as a Mule's man by the mentally powerful Second Foundationers.

In Poul Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, Dominic Flandry has an audience with Terran Emperor Hans Molitor who gives Flandry a roving commission to investigate possible rebellion on the Taurian Sector capital planet, Dennitza. Flandry has so far refused promotion because clandestine missions are easier for a captain than for an admiral.

Despite the superficially similar interstellar imperialist settings of these two works, Anderson's account reads more like a historical novel, albeit future, not past. The Mule is a physically unprepossessing but mentally powerful mutant, thus an sf cliche, like a Martian or a telepath, whereas Hans is a credible human character, blunt, pragmatic, uncultured, unashamed, unintelligent but shrewd, scornful of biocosmetics, with the eyes of a wild boar.

Flandry's audience is embedded in the Technic History amidst detailed descriptions of the Coral Palace. First, Flandry meets the current Duke of Mars who had inherited that title from his nephew, a peripheral character in an earlier instalment. Hans mentions Diomedes and Avalon, each the setting of an earlier novel. Flandry refers to Hans' granddaughter whom he had rescued in the previous instalment. Subsequently, Chunderban Desai, conversing with Flandry, mentions the events of two previous novels and also Flandry's recurrent adversary, Aycharaych. A solid future history series.