Conversations

The Advisory Council member called "Missy Blades" definitely recounts at least two of the seven stories in Poul Anderson's Tales Of The Flying Mountains (New York, 1984). See discussion here. I enjoy the Interludes when the characters converse in safety and comfort between stories, as I also did in Gaiman's The Sandman. I also liked the introductory conversations in Asimov's Black Widowers stories before the dining club members had settled down to analyzing a particular problem. I think that an entire story could work on that basis.

As in Anderson's Technic History, these characters have "...antisenescence..." (p. 43) Some of them remember the Revolution more than a century previously. This makes it easier for a group of characters to discuss historical events that, in earlier ages, would have been before their time. It would be good now to talk to someone who had participated in World War I but I think that the last veteran died a while back.