Sunday 24 January 2021

Flandry's Legacy

I imagine that, for commercial and practical purposes, Baen Books preferred The Technic Civilization Saga to comprise seven volumes of approximately uniform length. Uniformity also has an aesthetic appeal. However, if instead we consider the contents of the series and the periods of the Technic History, then we are bound to envisage volumes of unequal length. For example, I had originally thought that the concluding volume of the complete Technic History should be entirely post-Flandry and therefore that his name should not appear in its title. That would make the concluding Saga volume identical in contents with the earlier collection, The Night Face And Other Stories. But that would have been a much shorter volume.

I have become more inclined to think that both the contents and the title of the existing Volume VII, Flandry's Legacy, make sense. The legacy of a man's earlier and middle years begins to appear during his later years. It continues after his death but has begun before then.

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, A Stone In Heaven and The Game Of Empire do not really comprise a concluding Flandry Trilogy. A Knight... concludes the Captain Flandry series. Flandry has retained his freedom of movement by not as yet accepting the rank of Admiral. Instead, he answers directly to the recently installed new Emperor, Hans I, on a roving commission.

This is very different from the situation in A Stone In Heaven at the beginning of Flandry's Legacy when Flandry, now a Vice Admiral, has his own staff and his legacy is becoming apparent. The new Molitor dynasty which he has supported is firmly established and his achievement at Chereion is discretely referred to. Flandry, now a Fleet Admiral, merely cameos in The Game Of Empire which is a proto-series about his daughter. Starkadians have been settled on Imhotep.

In the four post-Flandry installments, certain planets have survived the Long Night, Vixen has even established a colony and the descendants of rebels expelled by Flandry have thrived and now re-contact civilization. These six works fit together.

7 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And it gets more complicated if we think in terms of a COMPLETE COLLECTED WORKS OF POUL ANDERSON, a la the VIRGINIA EDITION of the works of Robert Heinlein. I think it would make sense for one volume to comprise only "Outpost of Empire" and THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN, to be called OUTPOSTS OF EMPIRE. Another volume might collect the four post Flandry stories, plus including the original texts of the five Technic stories Anderson revised (including "The White King's War") and be called THE POST IMPERIAL ERA.

It might be a problem trying to think of a satisfactory way to handle the fictional introductions Anderson wrote for the stories in THE EARTH BOOK OF STORMGATE in a COMPLETE COLLECTED WORKS.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

If a COMPLETE WORKS meant everything in original publication order, then I would not want that. I would want the Technic History in either of its two reading order with all the fictional introductions in their proper places.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

No, that is not what I would want in a COMPLETE COLLECTED WORKS OF POUL ANDERSON. I would want series to be collected in their own volumes in terms of internal chronological order. Such as the Hoka series, the Psychotechnic series, the Technic series, etc. No objection to keeping Hloch's comments.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

But then there would be no problem about where to put the fictional introductions.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

You would keep Hloch's introductions in a COMPLETE COLLECTED WORKS prefacing the stories as we find those introductions in THE EARTH BOOK?

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

Yes. As they are in THE TECHNIC CIVILIZATION SAGA.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I should have thought of that as well. I have no objection to keeping Hloch's introductions and arranging the texts in a COMPLETE COLLECTED WORKS as we see them in the TECHNIC CIVILIZATION SAGA.

Ad astra! Sean