Wednesday, 21 March 2018

Flandry, Kit, Svantozik And The Spiral Arm

Flandry asks Kit whether she could betray twenty of her comrades to save her planet. I could not. Apart from anything else, such plans can go wrong and the betrayal be in vain.

Svantozik has only secondhand information about human beings whereas Flandry:

"'...has spent a lifetime dealing with all shapes and sizes of other species. Already I see what the Ardazirho have in common with several peoples whom I hornswoggled in the past.'" (XIII, p. 250) (For full reference, see here.)

In this, Flandry exactly resembles van Rijn and Falkayn except that van Rijn speaks of:

"'...cultural comparisons and swogglehorning.'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Trouble Twisters" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 77-208 AT II, p. 99.

While van Rijn briefs Falkayn about his new trade pioneer crew idea, the omniscient narrator reminds us that:

"The galaxy, even this tiny fragment of one spiral arm which we have somewhat explored, is inconceivably huge."
-op. cit., p. 98.
at

1 comment:

  1. Sean M. Brooks21 March 2018 at 06:56

    Kaor, Paul!

    And Svantozik himself knew there were gaps in both his knowledge and experience, that he would need time to learn much more before he could be a match to Flandry.

    And the bit about mankind knowing only a tiny part of one spiral arm was a precursor to the anxious reflections in later centuries about how small and insignificant the Terran Empire was.

    Sean

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