Monday, 20 May 2013

Conclusions


 In The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume V, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2010) by Poul Anderson:

p. 238 is the last page of The Day Of Their Return;
p. 239 is blank;
p. 240 is a verse by Kipling;
p. 241 is the first page of "Tiger By The Tail."

This generates the impression that the verse is meant to precede or introduce the short story and therefore should have been included when I listed "Introductions" in earlier posts. However, checking The Day Of Their Return (London, 1978) confirms that the Kipling verse comes at the end of the novel where it makes more sense.

Although, as we have seen, many Anderson works have elaborate Introductions, they do not usually have corresponding conclusions, although The Rebel Worlds both begins and ends with the perspective of a Didonian composite intelligence while A Knight Of Ghosts and Shadows both begins and ends with an inhabitant of the planet Dennitza reflecting on the culminating event of the novel.

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