Friday, 11 August 2017

High Living In The Future

Chives will serve a tournedos that will require a red wine and he recommends the Chateau Falkayn '35, not Flandry's suggestion of a Beaujolais. (Chives also suggests that drinking and smoking cease until the meal is ready.) Thus, here is a further indirect reference back to the days of the Polesotechnic League. (See reference to "Ansa," here.)

David Falkayn -

saviour of Merseia;
saviour of Technic civilization;
discoverer of Mirkheim;
founder of Supermetals;
Founder of Avalon -

- must be the greatest hero of the League.

The Mayor Palatine of Britain owns Catalina, has built a lodge on its heights and has lent the lodge to Dominic Flandry who, sitting on a terrace of the lodge, sees and senses a summer evening:

shadowy land;
a bay;
the vast, calm Pacific;
a cool breeze;
scents of rose and Buddha's cup;
sky ranging from amethyst to silver-blue;
stars twinkling forth;
sunset glow on contrails;
quiet -

- "Traffic was never routed near the retreats of noblemen."
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT Chapter I, p. 355.

(Life is good for noblemen.)

I thought that Buddha's cup was a name given to an extraterrestrial plant. Was I mistaken or has this plant, like Livewell, been imported to Earth?

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

While life was good for Imperial nobles it was not limited only to them. It's plain wealth was widely distributed on Terra, as was only to be expected from a society with such a high level of technology, including a FTL drive.

Given that, I don't much object to traffic being routed away from the Mayor Palatine's retreat! After all, similar things are done for powerful persons in the HERE and now.

Sean