-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 327.
What an image! The dead man's jaw is Earth and the single tooth is a slightly higher fragment of a shattered wall. And readers of this story, "The Star Plunderer," in Planet Stories, would not have paused to appreciate the image because they would have read on to find out who was shooting at whom.
This is science fiction, and specifically space opera, because gray four-armed barbarians are attacking Terra. They are firing slugs of a sickly-sweet gas which makes the narrator ill and dizzy whenever a slug bursts on his helmet. Why? Two of his comrades sprawl like corpses. Not dead. Like corpses.
"They'd taken direct hits and they'd sleep for hours." (p. 328)
The barbarians, described as Baldics but also as Gorzuni, want slaves, as John, the narrator, reminds his still active comrade, Kathryn, when she says that they might "'...blow us to the Black Planet.'" (ibid.) This science fictional phrase for death is also used in Anderson's "Sargasso of Lost Starships," published the same year but set two centuries later.
This text merits further study but not tonight. However, one closing question: who is the Star Plunderer of the title?
1 comment:
Hi, Paul!
I too was not satisfied that the title "The Star Plunderer" truly FITS the story There is actually an alternate title for that story. The bibliography for the works of Poul Anderson in the April 1971 issue of THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION has "Collar of Iron" after "The Star Plunderer" (PLANET STORIES, September 1952). That latter title is far more satisfactory, because the first time we see Manuel Argos he is described as wearing the iron collar of a slave.
Hmmm, I can easily see Manuel Argos not discarding the iron collar after seizing the Gorzuni ship, due to his sardonic sense of humor. The iron collar worn by the Founder of the Empire might even have become a relic cherished by later Emperors!
Sean
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