A considerable quantity of prose fiction consists of dialogues between pairs of characters. Thus:
CHAPTER ONE: Flandry and Tachwyr;
CHAPTER TWO: Flandry and Ammon;
CHAPTER THREE: Djana and Rax;
CHAPTER FOUR: Flandry and Djana.
I am not about to analyze the whole novel but this pattern continues. To interact, characters must talk. Ammon hires Flandry for a job that will require a companion. Flandry insists on a female companion who will be Djana. Rax, working for the Merseians, suborns Djana. Flandry and Djana begin to work together. And so on. The conversation with Tachwyr repercusses later.
A very good suggestion by Sean M. Brooks was that, later in the series, back on Terra, Flandry could have met and reminisced with an ennobled Ammon who would by then have become very much a law and order man. In a single chapter of A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, Flandry converses successively with the Duke of Mars, Emperor Hans and Chunderban Desai. Leon Ammon could have been slotted in there.
The previous Duke of Mars had appeared in "Hunters of the Sky Cave" and Desai had appeared in The Day Of Their Return. Never waste a character or a reference.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree, again I wish Flandry had met Ammon in later years, when he truly did have a big stake in the continued stability and strength of the Empire. That reception at the Coral Palace would have been ideal for such a meeting.
Ad astra! Sean
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