Introducing Flandry

Dominic Flandry gets a big build-up not in his earlier published series beginning with "Tiger By The Tail," when Flandry is already a Captain, but certainly in his later published prequel trilogy beginning with Ensign Flandry. In this novel, Flandry does not come on stage until the opening sentence of Chapter Four but then is formally introduced to his readers as:

"Ensign Dominic Flandry, Imperial Naval Flight Corps..."
-Poul Anderson, Ensign Flandry IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, 2010) AT Chapter Four, p. 29.

His transfer to Intelligence is one of the plot elements in this novel.

Chapters One, Two and Three form a narrative trilogy with a powerful symbolism. See Understated Symbolism. In Chapter Two, Max Abrams even thinks that young Flandry is dead so the uninformed reader is in for a pleasant surprise when he gets to Chapter Four - although the title of the novel is a clue that Ensign Flandry is not to be dismissed so quickly.