Thursday, 15 December 2022

From "Tiger By The Tail" To "The Saturn Game" II

I forgot to mention that, after Argos but before Flandry, the Terran Empire tried to annex Falkayn's colony planet, Avalon, which was successfully defended by, among many others, Tabitha Falkayn, a direct descendant of David, and that, during Flandry's lifetime, an Avalonian Ythrian of Stormgate Choth helped to defend the Empire against the Merseians, the continuing villains who had been introduced in that second Flandry story, "Honorable Enemies." We have discussed these details and more before but the point that I am always trying to make is the amazing degree of interconnectedness between the different narrative strands of the Technic History and the way to make this point is to summarize the relevant narratives yet again. Aycharaych, the Chereionite telepath working with the Merseians and introduced in "Honorable Enemies," is the title character of the culminating Captain Flandry instalment, A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, which is the fourth last volume in the original publication order of the Technic History. Our attention as readers passes back and forth along the fictional chronology, tracing every detail and connection.

Two Ythrian-employed human explorers of the planet Gray, the future Avalon, in "The Problem of Pain" are from Aeneas, the planet where Erinnian of Stormgate later helps to thwart Aycharaych.

Tabitha Falkayn, brought up by Ythrians on Avalon, is Hrill of Highsky Choth but marries Christopher Holm, who is Arinnian of Stormgate. Tabitha's experience partly parallels that of Flandry's daughter, Diana Crowfeather, who grows up spending time among Tigeries on Imhotep at a time when the last scheme of Aycharaych, now deceased or disappeared, reaches fruition.

2 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

One point you could have stressed was of how relations between Domain and Empire, hostile in THE PEOPLE OF THE WIND, gradually thawed and became downright in the two centuries after that book. Partly that was for good sound reasons on Ythri's part, fear of and alarm at the rise of a Merseia as hostile to the Domain as it was of the Empire. And partly because the Domain had no existential grudge against Terra--because the war described in PEOPLE was fought by them for limited gains or losses. It was not a desperate life or death struggle where one or the other would be destroyed.

Ad astra! Sean

Sean M. Brooks said...

Darn! I forgot to type in "cordial" after "downright" in the first sentence of my above comment.

Sean