Nowadays, I can reread Poul Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows while simultaneously consulting my own previous notes on its text, e.g.:
Dominic Hazeltine
spiral arm
Catalina
Mayor Palatine
niello
Trohdwyr
zmay
ychani
Gwyth
Zorkagrad
etc
The first three chapters of A Knight... make many references to earlier installments of the Technic History:
Persis d'Io in Ensign Flandry;
Fenross who was Flandry's superior in "Hunters of the Sky Cave" and "The Warriors from Nowhere";
Scotha in "Tiger By The Tail";
Princess Megan in "The Warriors from Nowhere";
Avalon in The People Of The Wind;
van Rijn on Diomedes in The Man Who Counts;
Manuel Argos in "The Star Plunderer";
Kheraskov from The Rebel Worlds;
Chunderban Desai from The Day Of Their Return;
the McCormac rebellion in The Rebel Worlds;
the potential Aenean jihad in The Day Of Their Return;
the Polesotechnic League becoming cartelized in Mirkheim -
- and, in a later chapter, a flashback scene is set on Talwin which was introduced in A Circus Of Hells.
But we are also told the sequels to some of the earlier events:
Persis' son by Flandry;
what happened after Emperor Josip, against whom McCormac had rebelled, died;
what happened in Sector Tauria after Flandry's rescue of Princess Megan;
what Chunderban Desai did after his spell on Aeneas;
what Flandry has been doing - taking it easy.
Thus, we are introduced to an entire new period in Imperial history with a new set of threats and also to the later phase of Flandry's career.
Kaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteWhat happened, alas, after Josip died was the legitimate order of succession to the throne dissolving in chaos and a civil war breaking out over the succession.
And I think, after three years of being on leave, that Flandry was getting bored and thinking of asking for an assignment.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteI should have added that many of your blog pieces would make good annotations for many of the stories in a hoped for COMPLETE COLLECTED WORKS OF POUL ANDERSON.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Paul.