"He answered with a leer. 'That it is a long way to Starkad.'"
-Ensign Flandry, CHAPTER FOURTEEN, p. 148.
"Saxo glittered white among the myriads."
-CHAPTER FIFTEEN, p. 149.
Saxo is the sun of the planet Starkad. What does this prove? If Poul Anderson had written in the way suggested by the cover of Young Flandry, then perhaps an intermediate chapter would have been devoted to the exploits of Flandry and Persis en route to Starkad? Instead, he and we rightly respect their privacy.
How likely is it that an interstellar spaceship's boat will have a smaller boat that Flandry can use as a missile to disable a pursuing Merseian destroyer whose captain knows that Flandry's vehicle is unarmed and therefore should be defenseless? Anderson invents the boat's boat as a solution to a problem. Flandry always finds a solution.
When Dan Dare's (see also here) opponent, the Mekon, flees in a spaceship, that ship is destroyed but we see the Mekon continuing his journey in a smaller craft with his head visible inside a transparent bubble, his escape craft. That craft is destroyed but the Mekon continues his flight in a smaller version as his speech balloon explains, "Even my escape craft has an escape craft!"
6 comments:
The covers on that series of collected works are -caricatures- of bad SF covers from the pulp era, differing mainly in having even fewer clothes on the women.
Caricatures - that (partly) explains it.
The next post about Flandry is in my head but I really must not write it this late. Will finish reading NORTHERN LIGHTS instead. Tomorrow, a morning rendezvous with High Priest Nygel but maybe a post over breakfast.
UNITENTIONAL caricatures, I meant — which is even worse. If they’d been done with ironic intent it would be so bad... 8-).
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: I agree, we don't NEED a chapter in ENSIGN FLANDRY showing us the more personally intimate activities of Flandry and Persis. This kind of reticence on Anderson's part is a relief when you recall how many other writers these days think nothing of giving us blow by blow descriptions of the sexual high jinks of their characters.
Mr. Stirling: And I utterly loathe and abominate the covers for the first three of Baen Books covers for the Flandry volumes! They make Flandry look like a goon whose only interest was in being chased by naked bimbos!
Yes, I agree those truly ghastly covers do look like unintentional parodies of the lurid covers of pulp mags like PLANET STORIES! And I found those covers to be BETTER and more artistic than the Baen Books covers.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I forgo to add that I don't think it was that implausible for a full size FTL ship owned by the domain of Ny Kalmar and used by the Viscounts, would have a smaller FTL boat to be used by the crew and passengers in emergencies. And it would make sense for that smaller ship to have a boat which could shuttle back and forth from the ship to groundside.
Ad astra! Sean
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