Flandry In The Technic History

And so we return to Dominic Flandry although I am not sure how much remains to be said about him. I first read of Flandry in "The Game of Glory" in a British reprint edition of Venture SF. I did not know at first that Flandry was a series character or, later, that his series was part of a future history. It did not occur to me that that remark about lying to a telepath referred to an earlier story. At some stage, I learned of Nicholas van Rijn and his protege, David Falkayn, but was surprised to read in an sf mag letter column that Falkayn might have had dealings with Merseians. Now, of course, each of us can, if we want to, own the entire The Technic Civilization Saga with Flandry's name in the titles of four of the seven volumes. Van Rijn and Falkayn get one each which leaves just one other title: Volume III, Rise Of The Terran Empire, begins with Mirkheim and ends with The People Of The Wind with four pivotal shorter works between them. That is the turning point of the entire Technic History.

When Abrams thought that Flandry was probably dead, he could well have been. How many people did die that would have made a big difference if they had lived? Does even a hypothetical omniscient being know all the alternative possibilities? Or do these possibilities exist in any case? Such questions take us out of the Technic History but into other works by Poul Anderson.