Van Rijn devises a complicated plan that happifies all.
He tells Joyce that he is not impossible, merely improbable. Where does either Falkayn or Flandry say this?
I am not about to do this but it would be possible to go back through the story from beginning to end quoting Joyce's changing perceptions of van Rijn from detestable oaf to very interesting person. I like to let blog readers do some of the work.
9 comments:
Paul:
Admiral Walton, in "Hunters of the Sky Cave," told Flandry, "You're incorrigible.... And spare me that stock answer, 'No, I'm Flandry.'" (The admiral was smiling, just a little, as he said it.) That's the closest I recall to Flandry using the "impossible/improbable" comparison.
David,
Thanks. I think that the other phrase is also to be found.
Paul.
Kaor, DAVID and Paul!
David: we see S.M. Stirling, fond as he too is of the works of Anderson, using exactly that same "incorrigible" line from Admiral Walton in CONQUISTADOR, when a slightly exasperated Adrienne Rolfe said to a friend, "You are incorrigible," and the friend replying "No, I'm X" (can't recall his name).
Paul: I think the "impossible/improbable" line came from A. Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. Something about how if the impossible is eliminated, whatever is left, however improbable, may be the answer to a problem/question.
Sean
Sean,
You are right about that phrase in Holmes. Anderson quotes it in "Time Patrol." I still think the other phrase occurs somewhere in Falkayn or Flandry.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
If you mean the "incorrigible" line, that was used only by Admiral Walton, as far as I know, in WE CLAIM THESE STARS.
Sean
Sean,
No, I mean the "not impossible, just improbable" line.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
That still strikes me as being an adaptation by Anderson of the line from the Sherlock Holmes stories.
Sean
Sean,
No it's different from that, the same as what van Rijn says to Joyce in "Territory."
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I'm now rereading "Territory," I'll watch out for that line.
Sean
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