Van Rijn And Age

"Lodestar" and Mirkheim are the two works that address van Rijn in even older age. I called "Lodestar" a mini-Mirkheim. In SFWA Bulletin, Fall 1979, Poul Anderson wrote that:

Satan's World had not got around to spelling out the point that he was trying to make;

"Lodestar" was a preliminary attempt to spell it out;

however, because it was only a novelette lacking space for sociological analysis, "Lodestar" could only "...show van Rijn as an old man whose day was ending." (p. 12):

Mirkheim should finally have clarified matters.

My Comments

"Lodestar" brilliantly shows van Rijn as an old man whose day etc but it also contains some sociological analysis.

When van Rijn concedes a point in argument, is this because the point is valid or because he is getting too old to keep fighting or partly both? We will consider the examples.