-Poul Anderson, "The Big Rain" IN Anderson, The Psychotechnic League (New York, 1981), pp. 201-280 AT VIII, p. 278.
But this would have been an opportunity for Anderson to summarize several decades of his Psychotechnic History. Both Falkayn and Flandry remember:
The End
Near the end of A Stone in Heaven, the reader believes that Flandry and Chives will die in space. Flandry remembers…then they are rescued. While he remembers, he assesses his life: he had wrought evil but enjoyed life and saved more lives than he ruined. Is it true that he sold his soul to prolong the doomed Empire? (8) Flandry himself does not put it as strongly as that and neither would I. He does contemplate the erosion of his spirit but not the loss of his soul.
-copied from here.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And unlike what some of the characters in the Flandry stories think, I don't think the Terran Empire was that bad! Compared to many actual, real world regimes, it shows itself far preferable to them.
Sean
Like the Roman Empire, even bad Emperors were generally superior to the alternatives; few did much harm outside the central areas and especially in Court circles.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
Which is almost exactly what Admiral Kheraskov told Dominic Flandry in Chapter II of THE REBEL WORLDS, speaking about Josip III. And that Emperor also being not exactly very intelligent would also tend to lessen the harm Josip might otherwise have done.
As for the Roman Emperors, I recall how even the most hostile sources had to concede that some bad Emperors, such as Domitian, were not entirely bad. Domitian was an able soldier and a just judge, for example.
Sean
From the *Sten* series by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch:
"...this Empire, which maybe it's done things wrong, and even some evils, has still held civilization together for two millennia and longer."
Kaor, DAVID!
Which is about the best any state which has risen to become a Great Power can hope to do!
Sean
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