Within the Technic History, Sumu the Fat is maybe like a criminal Nicholas van Rijn:
"Sumu made a sign against evil. 'Nine sticks of incense to the gods at Ratu Temple!'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Plague of Masters" IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY< 2012), pp. 1-147 AT VII, p. 50.
I have not counted how often van Rijn offers candles to St Dismas. See here.
In Kompong Timur, Sumu rules the part of the slum, Swamp Town, that lies between:
Lotus Flower Canal;
Barati & Sons spice warehouse;
the Canal of the Drowned Drunkard;
the tenement rafts between Swamp Town and swamp.
Artisans, rentiers, joy girls, bazaar keepers, freight haulers, priests, wizards, coiners etc pay Sumu regular tribute. His men keep out rival gangs and make examples of lone-wolf robbers. He himself fences, makes business connections, dispenses justice and funds the annual Feast of Lanterns.
He lives in a large, wooden, expensively air conditioned house, guarded at every door, confusingly crowded with furniture, drapes, rugs, incense burners, caged songbirds, aquaria and crockery, with a harem of perhaps a hundred. Sumu himself lolling and conducting business with tea and cookies to hand definitely recalls van Rijn.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I wish I had thought of that, the parallels to be seen comparing Sumu the Fat to Nicholas van Rijn. Yes, Sumu might have been an Old Nick gone somewhat bad. I only say "somewhat" because Sumu is not that bad. Nowhere as evil as Leon Ammon, for example.
The rise of gang bosses like Sumu would be another example of the kind of feudalism Lord Hauksberg and Flandry saw developing within (and outside) the Empire. Bastard feudalism, you might say.
Sean
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