Fran made three remarks about Poul Anderson's Technic History.
(i) When I pointed out that van Rijn never profited by selling weapons to both sides in a war, Fran agreed, "He is a good guy."
(ii) He said that he knew of David Falkayn "...and his merry crew."
(iii) He thought that Anderson just wanted Flandry to be a "Hornblower of space." I tried to read Hornblower in chronological order but found that Volume III was out of print and unavailable and gave up so I cannot comment further but I suspect, no more than that, that Anderson's reflections on historical processes go further than Forester's.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I mostly agree with Fran's first two comments, but disagree with his assessment of Flandry. For one thing, it's only in THE REBEL WORLDS that we see Flandry commanding a Navy warship. And that would have been only a temporary assignment, at most, as part of his training for Naval Intelligence.
Hornblower, by contrast, was a line officer whose career in the Royal Navy was spent largely on being posted to or commanding Navy ships. Not Intelligence work.
Ad astra! Sean
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