We began to reread this story a week ago and, albeit with some digressions, we are still recapitulating its opening account of Flandry's journey as a prisoner to Scotha. During this journey, he:
discovers that the Scothans gamble;
learns their games;
teaches them some of his;
easily cheats his unsuspecting captors;
wins clothes and money.
Sean Brooks summarized the role of poker in Poul Anderson's Flandry series here. Thus, gambling is common to the careers of Dominic Flandry and James Bond although it is even more important in the latter - central in Casino Royale and pivotal in Moonraker, Diamonds Are Forever, Goldfinger and On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Fleming also covers both horse racing and golf. Those of us who do not play poker or other card games are unable to understand or appreciate the dramatic details of these games as recounted by the authors or even, as Sean pointed out, to understand a poker reference used as a metaphor.
There is chess, although not any particular chess moves, in Anderson's A Circus Of Hells and Fleming's From Russia, With Love. Does Anderson's "The Immortal Game" give moves? I can look it up although not this morning.
See Sean's Andersonian Chess.
Later: After a stroll by Morecambe Bay, the next post is taking shape but is taking longer than it used to.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Thanks for the nice mentions of my articles. Yes, as I slowly reread my way thru the Bond stories, I have noticed how important card games were in CASINO ROYALE and MOONRAKER. And of how much it MATTERS whether or not you cheat at cards.
Rather oddly, now that I thought of it, we never see any mention of horse racing in the Flandry stories. Has that sport fallen out of favor by Flandry's time?
Yes, I wrote in far more detail about Anderson's use of chess than I had of card games like poker. Precisely because I think, and hope, I have a greater understanding of chess than I do of poker. In "The Immortal Game," we see Anderson using the actual moves of a chess game by two real players shaping its plot. Albeit, I discovered Anderson used a variant line for a few of the moves not found in the standard sources I consulted for checking the moves.
One thing to note about A CIRCUS OF HELLS is how the AI of Wayland used chess, variants of chess, and wandering fighting robots to help preserve its sanity during long centuries of isolation. And Flandry compared the Wayland AI to the dreaming White King in Lewis Carroll's THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS.
I fully expect humans, and almost certainly non-humans, to gamble at games of chance or for stakes in chess games in future centuries. Because that is how I expect real people of any species to behave. Nor do I think gambling to be bad, unless practiced to excess.
Ad astra! Sean
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