Nicholas van Rijn and his employee, Captain Bahadur Torrance, fight over a woman. Torrance learns that there is muscle under van Rijn's fat. Van Rijn floors Torrance, then revives him with brandy and says:
"'Don't tell anyone or I have too many fights, but I like a brass-bound nerve like you got. When we get home, I think you transfer off this yacht to command of a training squadron. How you like that, ha? But come, we still got a damn plenty of work to do.'"
-Poul Anderson, "Hiding Place" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 555-609 AT pp. 602-603.
(Regular blog readers have already reminded us of this incident. See Careers Advance, combox.)
As with Eric Wace on Diomedes, van Rijn has seemed to loaf while others worked but has instead Thought and Solved the Problem. And advancement under van Rijn does not mean that anyone stops working.
Torrance remembers his home planet:
"...Ramanujan, where gilt towers rose out of mists to catch the first sunlight, blinding against blue Mount Gandhi." (pp. 598-599)
Centuries later, Chunderban Desai has:
"...a spectacular holograph, a view of Mount Gandhi on his home planet, Ramanujan."
-Poul Anderson, The Day Of Their Return IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 74-238 AT 3, p. 85.
So how many mountains on other planets might be named after historical figures? In James Blish's Cities In Flight, Volume III, John Amalfi visits the planet He and centuries later, in Vol IV, the highest mountain on He is called Mount Amalfi.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I love that comic bit you quoted from "Hiding Place"! That story is a wonderful mix of both serious problem solving and comedy. Something I think many writers would find very difficult to successfully bring off. And "Hiding Place" again shows us how deceptive appearances can be: Old Nick is NOT just a fat slob, he really is "the man who counts." Including knowing how to get others to work EFFECTIVELY.
Btw, was that ANALOG cover an illustration for Robert Heinlein's novel DOUBLE STAR?
Sean
Sean,
No but I am not sure what it did illustrate.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
The cover certainly does not illustrate Anderson's "Hiding Place." I think now it illustrates the Mack Reynolds story.
Sean
Paul and Sean:
I'd say it's almost certain that cover illustrated Reynolds' story. I looked up "Ultima Thule" by Reynolds, and this is a quote from one of the reviews:
"[The main character is] a new agent of a United Planets agency.... He is assigned to track down a man, Tommy Paine, who apparently travels from planet to planet stirring up trouble. He is given an assistant who has the annoying habit of disagreeing with every opinion he expresses about any of the cultures they encounter.
"Their first stop is a planet with a theocracy where the leader has just been assassinated. The case is somewhat analogous to a locked-door mystery. The assassin used a bomb that could not have been made on that planet. However, the only outsiders that have been permitted on the planet have been United Planets employees - and none of them fit the profile for Paine."
Note: assassination of the leader, as mentioned in the newspaper the fellow in the foreground has tucked under his arm.
Note: the presumed assassin was "Tommy Paine" ... and the poster shown in the background is marked with The Rights of Man, the title of one of Thomas Paine's books of political activism.
"Q.," as Nick van Rijn said smugly in "Hiding Place," "E.D."
Incidentally, I realized from the review that I'd read "Ultima Thule" years ago as part of Planetary Agent X.
Kaor, DAVID!
Amusingly put! I agree, the cover is meant to illustrate the Mack Reynolds story. I was puzzled because I did see a cover for Heinlein's DOUBLE STAR which resembled the one for "Ultima Thule."
I think I remember you commenting on Mack Reynolds and saying he wrote interesting stories well worth reading.
Sean
Sean:
I think I know the Double Star cover to which you're referring, and it's by Frank Kelly Freas. I'm not certain, but I believe this "Ultima Thule" cover is also Freas' work; it's at least quite like his style. He was well known as one of the best cover artists, who read the stories he was illustrating, so his covers either depicted actual scenes from the stories or, somewhat more often, conveyed the feeling of the tale without being a literal portrayal of any particular bit of action.
Kaor, DAVID!
That's it! The style, design, the way colors were used, etc., in this cover of ANALOG reminded me strongly of the cover illustration for DOUBLE STAR. The POV character was in front of a campaign poster of the Supreme Minister he was going to impersonate.
Besides Freas work, there were other illustrators of SF whose art caught my eye. Such as Frazetta and Bonestell. I esp. loved the cover painting Frazetta did for Anderson's THE DANCER FROM ATLANTIS.
Sean
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