The Unpredictable

Rereading Poul Anderson, it is unpredictable what there will be to blog about. I am rereading Operation Luna (New York, 2000) in order to complete what I call Anderson's Old Phoenix Sequence. Because this sequence is about alternative timelines, rereading it led to a comparison of the very different treatments of this theme in three Anderson works: the Old Phoenix Sequence, the Time Patrol Series and the single novel, Genesis.

Because the narrator of Operation Luna makes two rather disparaging remarks about comic book characters, I also posted about how some recent comic books measure up to these remarks and also mentioned the more prominent visual medium of films. This led to a discussion of whether a particular Dominic Flandry story, "The Game Of Glory," could be filmed. I had already envisaged a film version of Section 1 of this story, perhaps as part of a TV program about Anderson's works and not necessarily as part of a dramatization of the entire story.

I had not previously considered articulating this proto-screen treatment but why not since it has come up in discussion? Further, the appreciation of the City of York in both Operation Luna and Genesis was worthy of comment. Thus, there have been four unexpected spin-offs.

Meanwhile, in Operation Luna:

a clever play on words - Congress members take their constituents' pulses, then their purses (p. 110);

Dr Fu Ch'ing is a formidable enemy of the US but, pleasingly, not against our heroes in this affair;

he mentions yet another difference between the timelines - CIA means "Centrum for Illicit Arcana";

Steve Matuchek makes an ill-advised remark about Oliver Cromwell on page 189 - we do not joke about Hitler with Jewish friends, indeed with anyone, and Cromwell ("the curse of Cromwell") is a very bad name in the Republic of Ireland.