In the former, Chunderban Desai converses with:
Uldwyr of the Vach Hallen;
Aycharaych, supposedly of "Jean-Baptiste";
Peter Jowett of the industrial Web in Nova Roma on Aeneas.
In the latter, Dominic Flandry converses with:
the Duke of Mars;
Emperor Hans Molitor;
Chunderban Desai.
A spectacular cast of characters. I agree with Sean Brooks that A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows could also have included a conversation with an ennobled Leon Ammon, the man whom Flandry had met when he, Ammon, was still a gangster on an Imperial border planet. Future histories include fictional biographies, like those of Falkayn and Flandry, and Ammon would have been a sound addition.
My favourite Technic History short stories are "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" and "Lodestar" for reasons previously stated. The Technic History is better than good both as a series and as a (large) number of individual narratives.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
All of these are good selections, and Peter Jowett interests me, being representative of a new mercantile/industrial class on Aeneas who felt themselves more akin to the Empire than to either the University or the Land folk.
Thanks for the nice mention of me! I have wondered more than once what happened to Leon Ammon in later years after A CIRCUS OF HELLS. I recall how Flandry regarded hm with distaste, as someone he would rather "gut with a butterknife." But Ammon was still a man of unusual energy, courage and intelligence and his plans for what he hoped to do mining the wealth of Wayland would greatly strengthen the Empire. We can hope all this might have changed Ammon for the better--meaning he and Flandry could have met again at the Coral Palace and conversed with a certain wry mutual respect.
Ad astra! Sean
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