In Poul and Karen Anderson's
The King of Ys Tetralogy, former Ysans establish a settlement that will become Quimper. In John Gardner's
The Secret Families, Donald Railton travels through Quimper. So is Gardner's Railton Family Trilogy a sequel to the Andersons' Tetralogy? Well, no, it isn't, but imaginative readers are free to make fanciful links between diverse texts!
The King of Ys is set in the Roman Empire period of a timeline which, other things being equal, will, centuries later, have a Cold War period. The Railtons are active during the Cold War period of a timeline that definitely had a Roman Empire period. So, very remotely, the two series could connect.
Also in The Secret Families, a supporter of a dictator says that society needs a strong hand. That rang a bell. Merseians are autocratic and ruled by "Hands." However, the Hand of a Vach is (not meant to be) a hand on the Vach. That would be a major difference of meaning.
Finally, for now, we learn a great deal more about intelligence agents' "tradecraft" from Gardner's characters than from Dominic Flandry, James Bond or Matt Helm. Different authors cast light on each other. To Poul Anderson readers, I recommend John Gardner, Ian Fleming and Donald Hamilton.
16 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
So many books I should read--and how impossible it is to read them all!
I still remember you discussing that Frederick Forsythe novel about how, after the monarchy was restored in Russia, a British prince was offered the crown. An intriguing if implausible scenario!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
And it turned out it was a real guy, Prince Michael of Kent, first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And that still boggles me! There are still some Romanovs left, after all.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Forsyth laid out a set of criteria that a claimant to the Russian Throne would have to meet and apparently this Prince Michael met them.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Now, I'm getting interested. Alas, Forsyth's books no longer seem to be in bookstores, meaning I have to find this one online.
Ideally, of course, after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 a Provisional Gov't with real teeth would have taken over and call a Zemsky Sobor or Constituent Assembly to freely decide the form of the Russian state, as set out in the abdication manifesto of Michael Romanov. And this time with no would be Lenin seizing power!
Unfortunately for Russia nothing like that happened.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: unpleasant, but not surprising given the long mis-education of Russian political culture.
Somehow I missed Sean's latest comment here. If I seem not to respond to anything important, please draw my attention to it.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: Too true. Ever since 1917 and down to at least 1991 Russian education has been warped and twisted, forced to fit into the rigid strait jacket of Marxis-Leninist ideology. I doubt there has been much improvement since then.
Paul: I try to keep up here, but sometimes it's hard! (Smiles)
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: true, but not complete. Russian political culture under the Tsars was bad too; that's why Lenin & Co. came out on top.
Myself I think the crucial mistake was made in 1861, when the serfs were emancipated but the "mir" -- the peasant commune that periodically redistributed lands -- was maintained, because the Tsarist government thought it was an instrument of stability.
This was a very bad error.
If the emancipation had been combined with the distribution of lands as individual property to peasant families, with freedom to use them (or sell them or divide them or whatever) the same evolution that took place in central and western Europe would have taken place.
That is, the bulk of the peasantry would have become a -conservative- political force, as they did in most of Europe proper.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And I agree! From reading sources like Crankshaw's book or Solzhenitsyn's NOVEMBER 1916, preserving the Mir system was a bad mistake of the Tsarist gov't. I would add that more and more came to understand that was a mistake. I would say as well that the land reforms pushed thru by the PM, Peter Stolypin in 1906 went a huge way to addressing that problem. In the years before 1914 the reform was so successful that Lenin himself despaired of ever being able to seize power. Given just a few more years peace that land reform, plus the setting up of the State Duma in the 1906 Constitution would have so transformed Russia there would almost certainly have been no Revolution.
Yet another reason for loathing Gavrilo Princip!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: precisely.
There's no stabilizing force as strong as a land-owning peasantry.
Witness independent Ireland for generations.
Tho' it was the British government that launched land reform there, starting in the 1870's and it was pretty well complete by 1914.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Because land owning peasants would have a big stake in the system and regime enabling them to get that land. And be hostile at attempts by radicals seeking its overthrow.
Unfortunately for the UK that Irish land reform came too late to prevent the breakaway of what became Eire. Too much anger and bitterness, due to Anglican/British persecution and oppression, had accumulated for the reforms starting with Catholic Emancipation in 1829, to bring about reconciliation. A pity!
Ad astra! Sean
There's something in the water in Ireland...
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Ha! But I would put more of the blame for that estrangement on Henry
VIII and the Penal Laws of Elizabeth I and her successors.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: what Henry did wrong was to -ignore- Ireland. If he'd pushed hard to extend the new settlement to Ireland, it might have followed the same trajectory as England.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
On the contrary what Henry should not have done was to quarrel with the Pope so badly that he dragged England into schism and heresy, things I can never agree are right.
And it was right that most of the Irish refused to become Anglicans or Presbyterians.
Ad astra! Sean
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