-Poul Anderson, "Tiger by the Tail" IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 241-276 AT p. 243.
The revised version of this story imports the phrase, "known space," and makes the familiar point about how we are at the end of one spiral arm. See here.
In the original text, Flandry thinks that the decadent Terran Empire might have a renaissance of Galactic glory when its ancient wisdom guides vigorous new peoples whereas, in the revised text, he thinks that it is in an even worse state than Queen Gunli realizes. These are different future histories. See "An Alternative History Of Dominic Flandry," here.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I did wonder if you are slightly misreading the ending of the revised version of "Tiger By The Tail." Queen Gunli said, "I don't believe the Empire is in such a bad state," she said, "Not when it has people like you." Flandry's unspoken, italicized thought was: "No," he thought, "it's worse off. But why hurt you again by explaining?" For a long I thought what Flandry meant was that the Empire was worse off because of having HIM. But I think now Flandry was thinking the Empire was more decadent than Queen Gunli realized.
Sean
Sean,
The latter, I think.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
This is not the first time I've seen texts in Anderson's works I thought rather odd, ambiguous, or capable of having more than one meaning. And I don't mean this as a criticism. Rather, such ambiguities makes alert readers THINK about what PA could have actually meant. Albeit, in some cases, I think these ambiguities were accidental.
Sean
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