Because Flandry is to meet a Duke, Chives has laid out his "'...formal uniform and decorations...'" (p. 40) Flandry no longer cares how he dresses:
"...had not since a lady died on Dennitza, fourteen years ago..." (p. 42)
A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, and The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume VI, end when Flandry tells his murdered fiancee's uncle, the Gospodar of Dennitza, that he will not remain on Dennitza but will instead return to Terra because:
"'I have my own people.'"
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT XX, p. 605.
That was a good ending for a novel, for an omnibus volume and for the Captain Flandry series and would also have been an appropriate ending the entire fictional biography of Dominic Flandry on a par with:
"For James Bond, the same view would always pall."
- which comes right at the end of Ian Fleming's posthumously published The Man With The Golden Gun (New York, 1965).
However, we are pleased to read about Flandry fourteen years after the events on Dennitza and Chereion.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I think of Flandry being about 61/62 years old in A STONE IN HEAVEN. And while he might no longer cared that much about how he dressed, he did stay up to date in fashions from both habit and political practicality. To say nothing of how Chives would not have allowed Flanddry to slack off too much!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
A STONE.. states the Flandry is 61, near the beginning of Chapter III.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Got it. Flandry was 61 in STONE.
Ad astra! Sean
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