Monday 22 July 2013

Flandry's Supporting Cast II

Fancy forgetting Tachwyr! (See "Flandry's Supporting Cast," Comments.) I also agree that Josip is a major supporting character. Although he only appears once, his later influence is pervasive.

Admiral Walton appears in the first Dominic Flandry story, "Tiger by the Tail." Both he and Admiral Fenross were mentioned in the original version of the second story, "Honorable Enemies," although the reference to Walton was dropped from the revised version, and Fenross, who is for a while Flandry's immediate superior, first appears in the third written story, "Warriors from Nowhere."

Another little known supporting character is the Merseian Korvash who appears in "Honorable Enemies" and is mentioned in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows. In the former, he is His Excellency Korvash the Farseeing, Merseian Ambassador to Alfzar, Betelgeuse, where he wears multi-colored robes, gold and jewels. In the latter, he is back on Merseia, has become Hand of the Vach Rueth and corresponds with a member of the House of the Zmayi (beings Merseian by species) on Dennitza (a human colony planet).

Aycharaych's influence extends further than his appearances. In fact, he does appear briefly in the retrospective summary of Olaf Magnusson's pro-Merseian conditioning in The Game Of Empire, which is set long after his, Aycharaych's, death or disappearance on Chereion. I think that that now completes the summary of the supporting characters in the Flandry period of Poul Anderson's Technic Civilization History.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

We might mention Persis d'Io, Flandry's lover in Ensign Flandry and the mother of Flandry's enemy and son, Domenic Hazeltine in Knight of Ghosts and Shadows.

Bob Hutchinson

Paul Shackley said...

But she appears only once.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

To use a van Rijnism (from "Margin of Profit"), the later influence of Josip in the Terran Empire was "grismal." Combining both "dismal" and "grim." An all too apt neologism!

Sean