One difference is that Falkayn works for a profit-making outfit whereas Flandry works for his government. This makes me feel more in tune with Flandry. The job that I retired from was with Lancashire County Council. I was happy to work for the County that my family lives in rather than for a private organization. What I might do if I had to earn a living in the Solar Commonwealth of Falkayn's period I discussed here.
Both Falkayn and Flandry have:
been electronically crammed with the Merseian language, Eriau;
spent time in Ardaig on Merseia;
worked with Merseians - in Flandry's case, on Talwin;
found it expedient to cooperate with an unsavory customer, Falkayn with Haguan Eluatz and Flandry with Leon Ammon, two corpulent but canny crooks.
Each had an exceptional mentor, Nicholas van Rijn and Max Abrams, respectively. Falkayn married van Rijn's granddaughter whereas Flandry, eventually, married Abrams' daughter. Van Rijn was Catholic, Abrams Jewish and our two worthies non-religious. I am sure that other comparisons and contrasts will emerge.
8 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
True, what you said about Dominic Flandry working for his government, the Imperium. But, in Chapter I of A CIRCUS OF HELLS we see Flandry wistfully desiring to have lived during "...the high and spacious days of the trader princes" of the Polesotechnic League (quoting from memory).
And I hope you don't think it's somehow wrong for people to work for enterprises seeking to LEGALLY make a profit. Such, as say, the UK's candy confectioner, Cadbury's.
And I think we see one or two times when Flandry almost wished he too believed in God. One of them being the time he visited the remains of Kossara Vymezal when her body laid in state in A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS.
Sean
Sean,
Wrong to work for profit-making enterprises? Far from it.
Yes, Flandry's preference is the opposite of mine!
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I am glad you agree it's not wrong, per se, for people to work for profit making businesses.
Am I right thinking you don't quite approve of the Polesotechnic League, however? I can agree with such a view after it started to break down, as we see in "Lodestar."
Sean
Sean,
The League started right, I think. The Commonwealth government was incapable of functioning on an interstellar scale so the League kept the peace to a certain extent.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree, the Commonwealth was simply not able to function on an interstellar scale. And the League even had a small navy, sufficient for putting down piracy. But nothing capable of handling truly large scale attacks--such as what might have happened if the Shen in SATAN'S WORLD had managed to break loose.
Sean
I made an error in my first comment here. The passage from A CIRCUS OF HELLS I was quoting from memory came from Chapter II, not I, of that book. The text from Chapter II ran: "He would much rather have lived in the high and spacious days of the trader princes, when no distance and no deed looked too vast for man, than in this twilight of empire."
An intriguing thought, might Flandry himself have headed a Polesotechnic League company like Solar Spice & Liquors or worked for Old Nick? I think they might well have had a difficult working relationship!
Sean
Paul and Sean:
One other resemblance between Falkayn and Flandry is amorous success with women on a casual basis. Recall how in *Satan's World* a girl who'd been set to spy on Falkayn and, as Chee Lan put it,
"...found she couldn't cope with his technique or whatever the deuce he's got. Last call, she actually admitted she'd been on a job, and blubbered she was sorry and she'd never, never, never--"
There's a line -- somewhere -- that describes Flandry's charm as having (approximate quote) "...bowled over female hearts from Scotha to Antares...." *Ja*, as Old Nick would say, "two of a kind."
Hi, David!
True, their attractiveness to women was one of the things Falkayn and Flandry had in common! And I do remember the line about Flandry, if not which story it came from.
And Falkayn KNEW the girl he was seeing in SATAN'S WORLD had been hired to spy on him--and he didn't even mind too much. Because the girl was both attractive AND the spy he knew was better than someone he did not know was a spy.
Sean
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