In Poul Anderson's Technic History, is the Terran Empire good or bad? We have been through this before. The Empire, even if "good" overall, must endure first the depraved Emperor Josip, then civil war, then the usurper, Emperor Hans. "Good guys" like Flandry work to restore order even when legitimacy has been lost. Aycharaych turns out to have had basically "good" motivations for his undeniably evil machinations. These complexities, albeit fictional, bear the stamp of real life. A repentant Aycharaych would have made for an interesting sequel. The Technic History could have been extended indefinitely without becoming repetitive whereas franchise sf mass produces new volumes with a single familiar word or phrase in their titles. At the cinema, we saw not only Dune, Part 2, but also the trailer for a new Planet Of The Apes film which, of course, evidently had better special effects than before.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, but before Josip's reign the Empire had already existed for over 400 years. And I believe it was more good than bad, else I doubt it would have lasted so long, before and after Josip.
While I have some regrets over how Anderson ended the Technic series with THE GAME OF EMPIRE, I can see why he did that. Everything he had wanted to say in those stories had been said, so it was time to move on to other ideas and themes.
Still, a Young Nick story or a story with Flandry in his extreme old age would have been great!
Ad astra! Sean
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