the many-towered Palace is built on and encompasses an atoll;
aircars like fireflies, responding to radioed instructions, leave their passengers on flanges, then depart for parking rafts;
guests pass slaves, guards and tall waterspouts into an ultraviolet-lit transparent domed ballroom with views of the sea, lunar city lights and a sky illumination forming a gigantic banner with the Sunburst of Empire in royal blue;
black-clad Crown Prince Josip, receiving, resembles disembodied green hands and head with red eyes;
gravshafts descend to a lower floor where Policy Board members meet in a sealed office.
In Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, the Emperor Hans throws a bon voyage party in the Coral Palace before leading an armada against the barbarians:
the Palace, in Oceania, has towers and domes;
the antechamber of fountains remains but with more guardsmen;
unlike Emperor Josip, Hans does not use psychogenic vapors but there is champagne in an indoor arbor;
Hans meets Captain Flandry at the top of a tower;
Flandry takes a young woman to a jasmine vine-screened pergola;
Flandry and Desai talk in a small garden cantilevered from a wall above an illuminated fountain in a courtyard, with a view of the dawn sky and the glowing ocean.
We miss or soon forget most such details as we follow the characters' conversations and intrigues.
9 comments:
Hi, Paul!
But it's precisely the details you listed, as regards both persons and places, which gives the works of Poul Anderson so much of the color and depth they have. I esp. note how, in ENSIGN FLANDRY, Lord Hauksberg, seeing how Crown Prince Josip was offended by a remark he made while being received, immediately found a deft way of soothing him so that they parted affably. And those who paid attention will recall how Crown Prince Dietrich was very tired from the strain of greeting dozens, even hundreds of guests at that farewell party we see in A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS.
Another point I recall about the Coral Palace was how it was mentioned as being used to display a wide selection of painted and sculptured art going back many centuries. Anderson had mentioned how Flandry had wished to view some of these art works before he chanced to meet Chunderban Desai.
And the Coral Palace might well have been a good place for Flandry to have again met Leon Ammon, the ex gang boss from Irumclaw who paid, er, bribed Flandry to check out Wayland, a moon rich in rare metals found in the Mimirian system. What happened to Ammon after the events in A CIRCUS OF HELLS? We don't know!
Sean
Sean,
Not just painted and sculptured art. I will look it up.
I remember you mentioned Ammon in this context before and I agree that a conversation with him would have been an excellent extra ingredient in KNIGHT.
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
Thanks, as regards you again looking ut bits about the Coral Palace!
And how might Leon Ammon changed in the decades since we last saw him in A CIRCUS OF HELLS? Still the vile and odious creature Flandry regarded with distaste? Or might he have changed for the better, because the great wealth and hence power Wayland gave him might have instilled in him a sense of the need for using that power wisely?
I'm reminded of how Greg Bear told me at his blog that his father in law had left boxes full of papers at the time he died. Perhaps some of those papers are publishable fragments relating to the Technic History stories and others of Anderson's works?
Sean
"...the centuried treasures of static and fluid art which the palace housed..." SIR DOMINIC FLANDRY, p. 384.
Is it too much to imagine old Ammon apologizing to Flandry for earlier attitudes and behavior?
Hi, Paul!
Thanks for the two additional comments you left here! That was a very interesting turn of phrase Anderson used: "...the centuried treasures of static and fluid which the palace housed..." I think "static" art refers to paintings while "fluid" art referred to carved and sculpted works. Yet another example of Poul Anderson's skill in creating thought provoking written images.
IF Leon Ammon had changed for the better since A CIRCUS OF HELLS, I would certainly hope he told or showed Flandry he had regret, even remorse for his former way of life. Yet another of those mysteries and unanswered questions we find in Anderson's works. And that, of course, is a strength, not a weakness, because it makes us think.
Some readers might wonder why I should take such an interest in Ammon. The answer to that question is in Chapter X of A CIRCUS OF HELLS, where Flandry discussed almost exactly that point: "He sighed, Leon Ammon is evil and contemptible," he went on. "Under different circumstances, I'd propose we gut him with a butterknife. But he does have energy, determination, actual courage and foresight of sorts."
A person with qualities with like that has a chance of not being all bad! I can imagine a remote chance of how the power gained him by the wealth of Wayland might help change Ammon for the better.
Sean
And I hope that Flandry would not really gut anyone.
Sean,
I think there is a passage where Anderson describes Admiralty Center as a "company town" but I can't find it. Any ideas?
Thanks,
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
Indeed! While Flandry could be hard when necessary, that did not mean he practiced torture or enjoyed killing even enemies. No, he killed them swiftly.
The passage about Admiralty Center you have in mind is in Chapter VI of WE CLAIM THESE STARS. One of those elegiac passages you find in Anderson's works which sticks in my memory.
Sean
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