"Tiger by the Tail"
"Honorable Enemies"
"The Game of Glory"
"A Message in Secret"
"A Plague of Masters"
Each story focuses on a different fictional extra-solar planet:
Scotha
Alfzar
Nyanza
Altai
Unan Besar
Scothans and Alfzarians are humanoid natives whereas Nyanzans, Altaians and Unan Bezarians are human colonials. Thus, there are two narrative strands. Human interstellar travelers either meet inhabitants of extra-solar planets or colonize uninhabited planets. However, the two strands converge:
Merseians are active either covertly or openly in the first four stories;
Alfzarians transport Flandry to Altai and Unan Besar.
I still feel that a tall, white-skinned, sword-fighting Scothan visiting Nyanza would be like an Elf making a cameo appearance in a contemporary novel: "It's the wrong genre!"
Star Trek has extra-solar humanoids who would make more sense as human colonials. The four post-Imperial installments of Poul Anderson's Technic History feature planetary populations that are descended from human colonists but have been isolated for long periods.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I disagree with what you said about Scothans. After all, we do see at least one Scothan after "Tiger By The Tail," a person who enlisted in the Imperial Navy and was among those selected by Admiral Walton to accompany Flandry on the mission where he captured Aycharaych in WE CLAIM THESE STARS. What this means is that after the chastening events seen in "Tiger," Scothani were still getting around, both as civilians and as members of the Navy. So it would not be out of place if, say, some Scothans eventually landed on Altai, perhaps as personnel in the Imperial flotilla which occupied Altai. And the sun of Nyanza would probably give Scothans the same kind of trouble it did fairer complexioned humans.
Sean
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