Parts One and Two have led up to Gunnar Heim privateering in Fox II. At the beginning of Part Three, he summarizes Fox II's record to date:
"'Four months of commerce raiding, eighteen Aleriona ships captured, and we haven't had to kill anyone yet.'" (p. 140)
But then something happens that brings the campaign to an end! So the narrative has skipped past nearly all of the campaign, those four months and eighteen ships captured. An entire "interquel" sub-series could have been inserted between Parts Two and Three. But I would not want it to be written by anyone other than Poul Anderson.
Not three years but four months and we don't see them! But there is a sequel, Fire Time, but that is different. Poul Anderson confounds expectations. Alan Moore said that a good writer gives his audience not what they want but what they need - and they prove him right by continuing to read.
3 comments:
Most military operations - particularly those that don't involve actual combat, but a lot of the ones that do too -- are profoundly -boring-.
A high tolerance for tedium is one of the basic qualifications for being a soldier; or a navy sailor, too.
In fact, one of the reasons navies have had their crews compulsively scrubbing and polishing everything in sight is just to keep them busy. You don't have to do that on a merchantman, but fighting ships traditionally carried very large crews, far more than they needed to -sail- the ship. There was a limit to the time you could have the gun-crews rattling their cannon in and out, too.
(This has changed a bit recently.)
As the old rhyme goes:
"Six days thou shalt labor
And do all thou art able;
The seventh the same
And pound on the cable."
Armies do the same, though not traditionally to quite the same extent. Usually they find it easier to do actual training to fill in the time, but not completely -- one reason why close-order drill is still prominent. It sort of suspends the mind, too, as an added bonus.
There's a "Willie & Joe" cartoon from WWII, that shows Willie & Joe waiting in a trench with artillery firing overhead, flares and machine-gun bullets passing by, all of them waiting for the order to advance.
Joe is glaring and saying: "Say somethin' funny, Willie. I needs th' distraction."
Tedium, terror, and sometimes tedium -and- terror.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And I think privateers like Heim's STAR FOX would need esp. large crews so some would be able to crew captured enemy merchant ships, taking them to planets where the ships and cargoes could be sold.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: Yup.
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