Tuesday 4 December 2018

Spies

Spying is romantic in fiction except that John le Carre's fiction reminds us that it is sordid in practice. This late at night, let us just list some spies and who or what they spied on:

Odysseus, Troy;
Caleb, the Promised Land;
Dominic Flandry, enemies of the Terran Empire;
Aycharaych, the Terran Empire;
Venator, the Scaine Croi (scroll down);
Eric King, Bokhara;
the OSS, the Draka;
?, William Walker;
Fury, Uncle Rogi and Jack the Bodiless;
James Bond, Mr. Big, Dr. No, SPECTRE and Scaramanga's Group -

- and so on. And I am not going to complete the list.

6 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And, of course, there was Erannath, the Ythrian agent working for the Domain AND the Empire.

And I hope you will read some time the first two volumes of William F. Buckley's Blackford Oakes series: SAVING THE QUEEN and STAINED GLASS. A series fully worthy of being placed alongside the spy stories of Fleming and le Carre.

Sean

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

You included William Walker in the list above. The closest the Nantucketers had to a Director of the CIA or Chief of MI5 was Ian Arnstein and his wife Doreen. It was they who ran the spy networks of Nantucket and naturally strove to out intrigue Walker.

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
Yes but I think there was a guy working for Walker who turned out to be an agent of the Arnsteins.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I think you meant John Martins, a blacksmith in Nantucket kidnapped by William Walker and forced to work for him, including teaching men his metal working skills. Martins had no love for Walker, and once the opportunity came he became a double agent for Nantucket in Walker's own capital.

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
That's the man.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I thought so! In Walker's place I would have either ELIMINATED Martins or exile him to another part of his kingdom where he could not have become a danger to Walker.

Sean