Eric Wace
Van Rijn:
"'If you think I give away sinecures, you are being too optimist. I am offering you a job of importance for no reason except I think you can do it better than some knucklebone heads on Earth. I will pay you what the job is worth. And by damn, you will work your promontory off.'
"Wace gasped for air.
"'Go ahead and insult me, public if you wish... Just not on company time...'"
-Poul Anderson, The Man Who Counts IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 337-515 AT XXII, p. 509.
Emil Dalmady
Van Rijn:
"'Spirit, too! I like, I like!...'
"'...I want you. Hoo-ha, how I want you!'
"'Entrepreneur! You will keep title of factor, because we can't make jealousies...'"
-Poul Anderson, "Esau" IN The Van Rijn Method, pp. 517--553 AT pp. 551-552.
Bahadur Torrance
Van Rijn:
"'Don't tell anyone or I have too many fights, but I like a brass-bound nerve like you got. When you get home, I think you transfer off this yacht to command of a trading squadron. How you like that, ha?'"
-"Hiding Place," pp. 602-603.
David Falkayn
Van Rijn:
"'Ja, by damn, I think you has here the bacteria of a good project with much profit. And you is a right man to carry it away. I have watched you like a hog, ever since I hear what you did on Ivanhoe when you was a, you pardon the expression, teen-ager. Now you got your Master's certificate in the League, uh-huh, you can be good working for the Solar Spice & Liquors Company.'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Trouble Twisters" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 77-208 AT II, p. 97.
(Falkayn was already working for SSL in "A Sun Invisible" which is set between his Ivanhoan adventure and "The Trouble Twisters" but was published after the latter.)
"[Van Rijn's] business was burgeoning, thanks to excellently chosen personnel in established trade sites and to pioneers like the Muddlin' Through team who kept finding him profitable new lands."
-Poul Anderson, "Lodestar" IN David Falkayn: Star Trader, pp. 631-682 AT pp. 639-640.
Falkayn leads the Muddlin' Through team.
Falkayn:
"'In effect, I'll take over the Solar Spice & Liquors Company, try to keep it afloat through all the hooraw to come.'"
-Poul Anderson, Mirkheim IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 1-291 AT XXI, p. 281.
Meanwhile, van Rijn will try to keep the Polesotechnic League afloat.
4 comments:
"The best leader is one who has good sense enough to pick the right people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it." -- Theodore Roosevelt.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
I agree absolutely! Too bad we have so many bungling leaders these days.
Ad astra! Sean
A German general once divided officers into the following categories:
1: energetic and brilliant.
2: brilliant but lazy.
3: stupid and lazy.
4: stupid but energetic.
He then added that 1 was best, 2 next, 3 was tolerable, but 4 was a menace that had to be crushed.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, and this applies to politics as well. I recall how Raj Whitehall, in THE GENERAL series you co-authored with Dave Drake, made precisely such a categorizing of officers. With Raj stating that the last General of the Brigade ruling the Western Territories belonged to that disastrous last category: energetic but stupid.
Ad astra! Sean
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