Tuesday 9 February 2021

"A Handful of Stars"

"A Handful of Stars" (Amazing, June 1959) was expanded as We Claim These Stars (Ace Books, New York, 1959). The title of the latter is followed by an exclamation mark on the title page although not on the cover. This longer version was collected as "Hunters of the Sky Cave" in Agent Of The Terran Empire (Chilton Books, Philadelphia, Penn, 1965) although I have the British edition published by Coronet Books, Sevenoaks, Kent, 1977. Finally, "Hunters of the Sky Cave" was again collected in Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012).

The Ace Books cover describes this work as "A 'Flandry of Terra' novel." I know that a novel is defined by word-count. However, not being able to estimate the number of words in a book, I apply a rule-of-thumb that 100+ pages equals a novel. The expanded version of this story has over 100 pages in each of the three editions in my possession although the page-counts varies considerably:

in We Claim These Stars, 121;
in Agent Of The Terran Empire, 103;
in Sir Dominic Flandry..., 151.

So, by my criterion, it is a novel, although shorter than the five (or six) other works that we think of as Flandry novels by contrast with the two collections, Agent Of The Terran Empire and Flandry Of Terra.

4 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Vern nice, that magazine illustration for "A Handful of Stars," showing Flandry and Lady Diana as they arrived at the Crystal Moon. As you know I recently discussed some textual oddities I belatedly noticed in WE CLAIM THESE STARS, the expanded version of "Handful." I wonder if all of those oddities are in the shorter version?

And I think that somewhat ominous figure in the right background is supposed to be Aycharaych!

Btw, my copies of the Chilton Books edition of AGENT OF THE TERRAN EMPIRE gives HUNTERS OF THE SKY CAVE 118 pages. And the 159 Ace Books paperback I have of WE CLAIM THESE STARS gives the story 120 pages (pages 5 to 125).

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

The text of the Ace Books edition starts on p. 5 and ends on p. 125 and therefore has 121 pages.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

You're right. I goofed! (Smiles)

Ad astra! Sean

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

If we ever see a COMPLETE COLLECTED WORKS OF POUL ANDERSON, I would like to see the illustration you gave of the AMAZING version of "A Handful of Stars" being included with HUNTERS OF THE SKY CAVE in such a collection.

Ad astra! Sean