Sunday 5 December 2021

A Team Of Four

Decades ago, a superhero team with five active members would learn of a three-pronged threat to Earth, split into two duos and a solo to address the threat, then reunite in a grand finale.

Adding van Rijn to the trader team makes a group of four which could then have been divided into:

van Rijn and Falkayn, Adzel or Chee Lan;
Falkayn and Adzel or Chee Lan;
Adzel and Chee Lan -

- but Poul Anderson does not explore every combination. However, Falkayn and Chee Lan go to Beta Crucis while van Rijn and Adzel remain in the Solar System and they reunite elsewhere later. The novel ends with the team of three - four counting Muddlehead - outward bound once more. But major changes have occurred.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And other writers have used a similar idea. The Fellowship of the Ring, in Tolkien's THE LORD OF THE RINGS, has the nine members of the Fellowship breaking up (with Boromir being slain), and the survivors eventually reuniting. After many adventures, of course. And there was Rudi's quest to the Sunrise Lands in Stirling's Emberverse series, also comprising nine.

Ad astra! Sean