Comparing Grimes And Flandry

Despite all their surface similarities, A. Bertram Chandler's John Grimes series and Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry series are completely different kinds of writing. Chandler merely projects a merchant navy into space. Thus, the Grimes saga is not any kind of serious speculative sf. Somewhere in Chandler's autobiographical essay, he quotes his editor, John W. Campbell, as having said precisely that. The series is meant to entertain through its continuing characters and bizarre events and has clearly been both successful and popular on the intended level but I do not expect to read any more of it after my current quick reread of "The Kinsolving's Planet Irregulars."

At any earlier age, I would have read anything that was labelled as "science fiction" and might at that stage have had more time for Grimes. However, I did not come across this series back then. I find Kinsolving's Planet far less interesting than Avalon or Aeneas and will shortly return to the latter.