In Prologue, Y minus 24, Sandra Tamarin informs us that she has had a son, Eric, by Nick van Rijn. Thus, this section of the Prologue is a sequel to The Man Who Counts. In Prologue, Y minus 18, David Falkayn discovers Mirkheim. Thus, this section is set between the two narrative sections of "Lodestar."
Sandra's father has business interests that disqualify him from election as Grand Duke of Hermes, therefore she will probably be elected as Grand Duchess. Although this is not mentioned here, readers should remember that Hermes is David Falkayn's home planet.
Peter Asmundsen, who cannot avoid giving preferential promotions to Followers, thinks that his Traver employees have legitimate grievances and that he might threaten to strike if he were in their place. He manages this situation first by traveling to meet Traver leaders in person and secondly by hammering out compensations for Travers like extra vacations. This whole social structure sounds unwieldy and unstable. Why not just abolish this distinction between Followers and Travers? Even if he were minded to do so, Asmundsen lacks the authority to upend society unilaterally. In this passage, Poul Anderson shows us how a man of intelligence and goodwill is able to manage his employees within the framework of an inherently unequal social system. Elsewhere in the novel, he shows us how men lacking goodwill operate.
If Asmundesen had opted to handle the issue from a distance, then he would have been able to use the "'...complete equipment, communication, computation, data retrieval...'" (p. 5) in Sandra's parents' home. Anderson, writing in 1977, listed these functions separately instead of just referring to computers.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I would have thought simply resigning from, transferring, or selling those business interests would have removed the disqualification from Sandra Tamarin's father being elected Grand Duke.
And I think you overlooked the most important "compensation" Travers had for the privileges
Followers had: they were not taxed by the Ducal gov't (if I recall correctly). Nor did I think Hermetian society that unwieldy and unstable. No more so than the average real world human society (and far better than many!).
And computers were only just starting to become as widely used as we see them now by the time Anderson wrote not just MIRKHEIM but the earlier written THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN. So, a regrettable but unavoidable touch of "datedness" was almost inevitable.
And the most obvious example, of course, of "datedness" in the Technic stories being the lack of any kind of mobile, pocket, cellular phones.
Happy New Year! Sean
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