Children Of Empire II

Furthermore, the first Young Flandry novel, Ensign Flandry, mentions Emperor Georgios and introduces Crown Prince Josip. By the time of the third Young Flandry novel, The Rebel Worlds, Josip has succeeded. 

The Game Of Empire introduces the Merseian sleeper agent, Olaf Magnusson, and, in an explanatory chapter, informs us that Olaf's father, Erik, had become disaffected from the Terran Empire during the reigns of the well-meaning Georgios and the corrupt Josip. Brechdan Ironrede, who had appeared in Ensign Flandry, accepted Erik Magnusson's loyalty to the Merseian Roidhunate. Aycharaych, last seen in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, conditioned Olaf.

Skilful retcon (retroactive continuity) incorporates a new family, the Magnussons, into the established history. There is a third generation: Vida Lonwe-Magnusson's sons and daughter are with her when she publicly disowns her husband.

Children Of Empire

People and Planets

Ensign Flandry introduces Dominic Flandry, Dragoika and Max Abrams.

"The Warriors from Nowhere" introduces Princess Meghan.

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows introduces Hans Molitor.

The Day Of Their Return introduces the planet Aeneas.

"Hunters of the Sky Cave" introduces the planet Vixen.

Offspring and Descendants

Flandry's son appears in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows and his daughter in The Game Of Empire.

Dragoika's son appears in The Game Of Empire.

Abrams' daughter appears in A Stone In Heaven.

In A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, Molitor's two sons appear, a third, deceased, is mentioned and it is disclosed that Princess Meghan is Molitor's granddaughter.

Molitor's grandson is mentioned in The Game Of Empire.

In "Starfog," New Vixenites are descendants of Vixenites and Kirkasanters are descendants of Aeneans.

Thus, a vast panorama not only of successive events but also of people and peoples stretching forward into an indefinite future. 

Titles In The Terran Empire

This weekend: the Vintage Festival.

Terrestrial

His Imperial Majesty, the High Emperor

the Grand Admiral the Duke of Asia

the Viscount of Ny Kalmar

the Mayor Palatine of Britain

Lunar

Her Highness, Lady Megan of Luna

the Right Noble Lady Guardian of the Mare Crisium

Martian

The Duke of Mars

the Lady Marr of Syrtis

Extra-Solar

The Earl of Sidrath

I know many people, including my former self, who would have said, "What a lot of nonsense." I may have gained a better understanding of how different kinds of societies work while still preferring an egalitarianism in which such grandiose titles would be bandied about only as a joke. I think that there was an Army in Oz with an ascending hierarchy of Officers but only a single Private? (Turn the world upside down!)

Milk In The Milky Way?

"Hunters of the Sky Cave," VII.

Flandry offers Kit a drink, if not something alcoholic, then maybe just:

"'Buttermilk, for heaven's sake?'

"'Hm?' She raised a fleeting glance. He discovered Vixen had no dairy industry, cattle couldn't survive there, and dialed ice cream for her...

"She was pleased enough by discovering ice cream to relax a trifle." (p. 198)

I have carried Julian May's Galactic Milieu Trilogy all the way downstairs but am not going to start searching through it at this time of night. Somewhere in there is a colonized terrestroid extra-solar planet with a dairy industry where the milk is tinged blue by the different planetary chemistry.

We commend auctorial attention to detail:

Are any exo-planets terrestroid?

Will any be colonized?

Will some have dairy industries?

If so, how different will their milk be?

One thing is certain: there will be more differences than we can possibly imagine in every aspect of life, not just the milk or lack of it.

Vixen

In Mirkheim:

Vixen is a member planet of the Supermetals company founded by David Falkayn;

Henry Kittredge from Vixen was a ground operations chief on Mirkheim;

Supermetals profits fund Vixenite weather stations.

In "Hunters of the Sky Cave," Dominic Flandry and Kit Kittredge, a weather engineer's assistant, hide in a Vixenite weather station.

In The Game Of Empire, Ensign Helen Kittredge from Vixen joins the Magnusson Rebellion.

In "Starfog," Daven Laure, a Ranger of the Commonalty, is a Fireland mountaineer of the colony planet, New Vixen.

Thus, Vixen is an understated unifying factor in Poul Anderson's Technic History.

In The Hooligan

Poul Anderson's eight Captain Flandry instalments divide themselves into four pairs:

"Honorable Enemies" refers back to "Tiger By The Tail";

"The Plague of Masters" refers back to "A Message in Secret";

"Hunters of the Sky Cave" refers back to "The Game of Glory," which also refers back to "Honorable Enemies";

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows refers back to "The Warriors from Nowhere."

From this, we can deduce a reading order.

Flandry's Shalmuan servant, Chives, appears only in:

"Hunters of the Sky Cave"

"The Warriors from Nowhere"

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows

- and in the Admiral Flandry novel, A Stone In Heaven.

Flandry's private space speedster, the Hooligan, appears in "Hunters...," A Knight... and A Stone... and "...his private speedster..." is mentioned without being named in "The Warriors..."

In three works, the Hooligan departs from Earth bearing Flandry, Chives and a (different) woman.

"The Hooligan snaked out of Terran sky..."

-"Hunters of the Sky Cave," VII, p. 196.

"The Hooligan sprang from Terra, pierced the sky..."

-A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, IV, p. 392.

"Hooligan raised her lean form off the spacefield and hit the sky..."

-Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 1-188 AT VI, p. 62.

"Flandry and Chives in the Hooligan" could have become a longer sub-series. Of the three women, Flandry:

has a casual affair with Catherine Kittredge;

becomes engaged to Kossara Vymezal (but she is assassinated):

marries Miriam Abrams.

On Jupiter

"Hunters of the Sky Cave," V.

On Jupiter, Flandry hears:

"...the eternal snarling of a wind which would have blown down any city men could build..." (p. 179)

We ought to pause on such phrases rather than just speed past them. 

When the ship carrying Flandry and Chives has crashed on a floating iceberg in the Red Spot of Jupiter:

"The floor shook. It banged and crashed outside. A fog of free radicals drifted green past the window, and the red iceberg spun in Jupiter's endless gale." (p. 188)

OK: an endless gale; a red iceberg spinning around in the gale; on the berg, a wrecked ship; in the ship, Flandry and Chives in the classic scenario of fictional heroes facing death but devising a clever, last-minute escape...

Chapter VI opens with Flandry's report:

"- And in that well-worn nick of time..." (ibid.)

Dig it.

Ants

"Hunters of the Sky Cave," IV.

"'[The Ymirites]'ve never shown as much interest in our wars - the wars of the oxygen breathers on the pygmy planets - as you and I would have in a fight between two ant armies. Why should they care?'" (p. 175)

"VEIDT: ...which do you prefer, red ants or black ants?

"NOVA: Uh...? Well, I don't have any particular preference...

"VEIDT: Exactly. Well, imagine how Jon feels."

-Alan Moore, Watchmen (London, 1987), CHAPTER XI, p. 10.

Ymirites inhabit Jovoid planets. Jon is a superhuman who has passed far beyond the dull concerns of mere mortals, to quote from memory another work by Alan Moore.

It is to be hoped that we will soon meet beings who are as indifferent to human conflicts as are the Ymirites or Jon Osterman. We need a massive change of perspective, which the universe that we inhabit should be able to provide.

In The Crystal Moon

"Hunters of the Sky Cave."

The scene inside the Crystal Moon provides considerable scope for film-makers:

"...nonhumans of various races listened to the music." (II, p. 157)

We could be shown a mixture of familiar and unfamiliar races.

"A performer from Lulluan spread heaven-blue feathers..." (ibid.)

That is all that we are told and the only mention of Lulluan in the Technic History.

But the Crystal Moon itself, an artificial satellite, should be shown exactly as described:

transparent walls;

synthetic jewels, each weighing several tons, orbiting the central minaret in an artificial gravity field;

mutant ferns and orchids rippling rhythmically around a large sphere of water in a zero gravity conservatory;

tropical fish and naked human guests swimming in the water;

Aycharaych in a black cloak and Flandry in fiery garments flying across the conservatory.

(Arthur C. Clarke described such a swimming pool in an early work.)

Back From Nyanza

Because of its internal references, "Hunters of the Sky Cave" should be read immediately after "The Game of Glory." Flandry explicitly states that he has just returned from Nyanza and Aycharaych congratulates him on that affair. We are told that "Honorable Enemies" occurs during a two year period mentioned in the fourth paragraph of "The Game of Glory." We infer that "A Message in Secret" and its direct sequel, "The Plague of Masters," also occur during that period. Therefore, I suggest the following reading order for the Captain Flandry series:

"Tiger by the Tail"

"Honorable Enemies"

"A Message in Secret"

"The Plague of Masters"

"The Game of Glory"

"Hunters of the Sky Cave"

"The Warriors from Nowhere"

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows

I may have said this somewhere before. I think that that sorts it out as far as anyone can.