War

"'You can't leave now,' Daniel Holm told his son. 'Any day we may be at war. We may already be.'"

-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 437-662 AT I, p. 437.

That is the opening paragraph of the novel.

"'-Sir, we may be on the edge of a real war.'"

-Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 189-453 AT CHAPTER ONE, p. 215.

That is the closing sentence of the opening chapter of the novel.

There can be a sense of excitement at the beginning of a war. Things are going to change, maybe for the better. There can certainly be excitement in reading about a, real or fictional, war. In these two novels, as in Mirkheim, Anderson vividly conveys a sense of what it is like to live in troubled times.

We have got used to living in a world where wars happen somewhere else, not here. Or in history or fiction. Now, Iran might attack US bases in Britain.

"Any day we may be at war. We may already be..."

"...we may be on the edge of a real war."

Fiction reflects life.