The image shows Adzel, David Falkayn and Chee Lan (listed here in descending order of size).
These three team members and their ship's computer, Muddlehead, play poker. If we have been reading The Technic Civilization Saga consecutively, then we are meeting Falkayn for the third time, Adzel for the second time and the other two for the first time although we have previously read about Chee Lan's home planet, Cynthia. Originally, this was also Adzel's first appearance.
"The Three-Cornered Wheel" will also cameo Nicholas van Rijn, explaining his new trade pioneer crew concept to Falkayn. In a galactic sector that explorers have bypassed, SSL will establish a base and dispatch hundreds of cheap automatic craft to report on planetary surface conditions. Then the crew, one Master Merchant, one planetologist and one xenobiologists, all of different species, will further investigate promising planets and hopefully initiate commercial agreements for van Rijn to approve.
Falkayn will learn that they are a new breed, not troubleshooters but trouble twisters, twisting ghastly situations to their advantage. (XI, p. 206) The story of Falkayn's advancement from apprentice through journeyman to Master Merchant has been completed and a new series about "trouble twisters" begins.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I'm not happy about that illustration. It shows both Adzel and Chee Lan as too large and David Falkayn as too small. And Chee looks too much like a monkey to boot!
Ad astra! Sean
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