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.
Kaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteI 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