James Blish's organization called simply "the Service" is not a Thought Police but an Event Police without being an Assassins' Guild - although it might become a Traitors' Guild (Quincunx, p. 97);
Poul Anderson's Time Patrol can also be described as an Event Police and might become an Assassin's Guild.
To complete the picture:
although Blish's flying "Okie" cities have escaped from the thought police of the Bureaucratic State, one Okie mayor is prepared to use a local Assassins' Guild "'...for the survival of the city...'" (Cities In Flight, p. 268);
as Sean M. Brooks points out, there is mention of assassins' guilds in some of Anderson's works;
after John Carter overthrew the religion of Issus and became Warlord of Mars, his next task was to wage war on the ubiquitous Assassins' Guilds.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Darn! It's plain I've completely forgotten Edgar Rice Burroughs had John Carter contending with assassins guilds
in the Barsoom books. And I must have read all of them at least three times!
Heck, if someone really WANTS to, it is not alas, impossible for him to find and hire hit men in the criminal underworld.
Sean
Paul and Sean:
Of course, Carter's technique was simply to murder the assassins. It's in *Swords of Mars*.
Hi, David!
Thanks! It's surprising how much can be found in ERB's Barsoom books. Such as a discussion I and other online friends had about Barsoomian finances and economics (e.g., see A PRINCESS OF MARS, Chapter 20).
One veru favorable point I remember about ERB's Barsoom books was how he took into account the lighter gravity of Mars compared to Earth's heavier gravity. Which gave John Carter greater strength and agility than what the Barsoomians had.
Sean
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