Flandry

If Poul Anderson's Ensign Flandry had had a different title, then we would not have realized until its CHAPTER FOUR that it was about someone called Flandry.

CHAPTER ONE is set on Terra and its viewpoint character is Lord Markus Hauksberg who knows nothing of Flandry.

CHAPTER TWO is set in Highport on Mount Narpa on Kursoviki Island on the planet Starkad and its viewpoint character is Commander Max Abrams, Terran Imperial Naval Intelligence Corps, who knows that Ensign Dominic Flandry is missing, probably dead. The rest of the chapter is about other matters.

CHAPTER THREE is set on a terrace of Castle Dhanghodan on Merseia and its viewpiint character is Brechdan Ironrede, the Hand of the Vach Ynvory, who knows nothing of Flandry.

CHAPTER FOUR, set back on Starkad begins by identifying its viewpoint character:

"Ensign Flandry, Imperial Naval Flight Corps, did not know whether he was alive through luck or management."

-Poul Anderson, Ensign Flandry IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, January 2010), pp. 1-192 AT p. 29.

So he is alive. Flandry has had a massive build-up: first, Volumes I-III of The Technic Civilization Saga; then, CHAPTERs ONE-THREE of this, his first novel. From now on, we are with Flandry, mostly, until the mid-point of Saga, Volume VII.