The works in which Dominic Flandry is a Captain are:
"Tiger by the Tail"
"Honorable Enemies"
"The Game of Glory"
"A Message in Secret"
"The Plague of Masters"
"Hunters of the Sky Cave"
"The Warriors from Nowhere"
A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows
In the first five of these works, Flandry as yet neither employs Chives nor owns the Hooligan. Chives is his Shalmuan servant whereas the Hooligan is his private spaceship. The last three works feature both.
According to Flandry in "The Warriors from Nowhere," the Terran Empire is at that time in a period of peaceful decadence whereas, according to the same character in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, the Empire was, during the events of "The Warriors from Nowhere," in a state of civil war.
If it were merely a matter of the dates, i.e., if the Chronology of Technic Civilization informed us, as it does, both that "The Warriors from Nowhere" was set in 3042 and that the civil war was being waged in that year, then it would be sufficient to revise the Chronology, e.g., by moving "The Warriors from Nowhere" to an earlier date like maybe to before "Hunters of the Sky Cave." However, the contradiction is in the texts of "The Warriors from Nowhere" and A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows. We are left with one of Anderson's rare inconsistencies.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I've already said this, but I think the only way to reconcile this inconsistency is to think Flandry believed, despite the civil war following Josip's death, that the Empire was still in not too bad a shape. Esp. if Hans Molitor was not only the most able of the pretenders claiming the throne, but also was winning that civil war.
Ad astra! Sean
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