Saturday, 18 January 2025

All The Wind II

My hand-written notes include "'Wind lulled...,' p. 362, p. 119." 

"p. 362" was discussed in the previous post. "p. 119" does not refer to the same Technic Civilization Saga volume. However, when I checked Volume V, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire, p. 119, I found:

"...thereafter were darkness, stillness, and the wind."
-Poul Anderson, The Day Of Their Return IN Captain Flandry..., pp. 74-240 AT 6, p. 119.

Thus, looking for a lulling wind, we find a bleak one. The lulling is in the next volume:

"Wind lulled around the flyer."
-Poul Anderson, "A Plague of Masters" IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, March 2012), pp. 1-147 AT XII, p. 119.

Flandry has evaded pursuers by flying through a storm so this lulling represents the quiet after the storm.

Further on:

"[Flandry] stood for a time under the stars, breathing the night wind."
-ibid., XVI, p. 147.

This is the second last sentence of "A Plague of Masters" and represents another quiet after a storm. After the climactic action, the heroine of this story, Luang, has realized that she will have no permanent future with Flandry and has walked away from him. He does not follow her. Like the similar ending of "Hunters of the Sky Cave," this defines Flandry's attitude to women at this stage of his career. He stands under the stars and breathes the night wind rather than trying to retrieve a relationship.

Back to the previous instalment:

"The wind yammered in [Flandry'] ears."
-Poul Anderson, "A Message in Secret" IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, February 2010), pp. 341-397 AT X, p. 380.

This time, an Altaian flying creature is carrying Flandry through a violent freezing storm at night so the description is purely physical, I think!

There is more but I must attend my daughter's birthday meal.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

In fairness to Flandry, he made no promises to Luang about any long lasting or permanent relationships. But interesting, if they had tried.

And I still think Aline Chang-Lei, whom we see in "Honorable Enemies," would have been nearly perfect for him. And her title of "The Lady Marr of Syrtis" (on Mars, no less!) makes me wonder if Aline was a baroness of the Empire. Or a baronetess?

Details, details!

Ad astra! Sean