Swordsmen Of Terra

Dominic Flandry is a swordsman and "Flandry of Terra." Thus, although Poul Anderson's uncollected short story, "Swordsman of Lost Terra," was not incorporated into his History of Technic Civilization, I had hoped that it would be set in a similar future. However, the story turns out to be "The third book of the Story of the Men of Killorn" and to recount "How Red Bram fought the Ganasthi from the lands of darkness..."

Skipping ahead before turning in, I gather that the lands of darkness are not a supernatural realm but the unlit half of a planet whose other side permanently faces its sun and, further, that this planet is Earth in a far future.

In sf, the Latin noun, "Terra," with the specially coined adjective, "Terran," usually differentiates Earth from other planets in hard sf futures. However, in this story, unless I have missed it, the word "Terra" appears in the title though not in the text and the characters do not know that their world had been called "Earth."

Thus, so far, two of the uncollected stories, "War-Maid of Mars" and "Swordsman of Lost Terra," have not turned out as expected, although I will read "Swordsman..." through to ensure that I am not missing anything.

The Spanish Prisoner?

I can tell you what happened today and link it to Poul Anderson. The image shows Morecambe which is part of Lancaster City District. Because we had gale force winds, I neither drove to gym nor walked into town and a meeting that I would have attended was cancelled because some local trains weren't running.

Instead, I stayed at home and got ahead with Latin before meditating and now blogging. After Livy on Hannibal, our text book presents Petrus Adolphus, a Christianized Jew and godson of the King of Aragon in the twelfth century.

Petrus retold Arab moral tales in Medieval Latin, contrasting markedly with Cicero's and Livy's Classical Latin. In one such story, a Spaniard traveling to Mecca deposits a thousand talents with a supposedly honest individual en route although that individual denies it when the traveler returns. A hermitess devises this plan:

fill ten ornate boxes with crushed stone;
have them carried in a long line to be deposited at the house of the unscrupulous man;
the man who was deceived to return and again ask for his money back just as the first box arrives;
the unscrupulous man, seeing the first box arrive and the others approaching, will return the money in case those bringing the boxes decide against depositing them with him.

As I was reading this, I was reminded of a deception perpetrated by Dominic Flandry in "The Plague of Masters" and described by Flandry as a refined version of a "...Spanish Prisoner..." (Flandry Of Terra, London, 1976, p. 157).

So have I now read the original version?

Continuity In The Flandry Series

The opening trilogy of novels, written later, is carefully constructed so that it is fully consistent both internally and in relation to the remainder of the Flandry series.

In "Tiger by The Tail," (January, 1951) Captain Dominic Flandry sabotages the barbarian Scothani empire.

In "Honorable Enemies," (May, 1951) Captain Flandry, described as "'...the single-handed conqueror of Schothania...,'" learns how to lie to the telepath, Aycharaych. (Poul Anderson, Agent Of The Terran Empire, London, 1977, p. 62)

In "The Warriors from Nowhere," (1954) Captain Flandry, who has a superior called Admiral Fenross, a Shalmuan servant called Chives and a private spaceship not yet called the Hooligan, prevents the secession of the Taurian Sector from the Terran Empire.

In "The Game of Glory," (1958) Captain Sir Dominic Flandry learns how to lie to a telepath (details in "Honorable Enemies") and travels alone in "...a high-speed flitter..." to the planet Nyanza, where he prevents a rebellion. (Flandry Of Terra, London, 1976, p. 13)

In "Hunters of the Sky Cave" (1959): Flandry has come Home from Nyanza; Aycharaych congratulates him on l'affaire Nyanza; Flandry's superior is Vice Admiral Fenross; Flandry still has Chives and a private spaceship, now called the Hooligan.

In "A Message in Secret,"(1959/1961) Flandry has no private spaceship and must travel as a passenger.

"The Plague of Masters" (1961) is a direct sequel to and fully consistent with "A Message in Secret."

In A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, (1975) Flandry again has Chives and the Hooligan, works to prevent rebellion in the Taurian Sector and opposes Aycharaych - for the final time.

I am pressed for time today but will comment on the above soon.

Indian Summer

A passage from Poul Anderson's "Hunters of the Sky Cave" is worth quoting at length for two reasons: first, for its beauty; secondly, because it shows Dominic Flandry already displaying an intuitive grasp of the theory of history that Chunderban Desai will later expound to him in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows and that he himself will have accepted by the time of A Stone In Heaven.

Speaking of a social group that he identifies as "...we aristocrats of Terra...," he says:

"'The measure of our damnation is that every one of us with any intelligence - and there are some - every one sees the Long Night coming. We've grown too wise; we've studied a little psychodynamics, or perhaps only read a lot of history, and we can see that Manuel's Empire was not a glorious resurgence. It was the Indian summer of Terran civilization. (But you've never seen Indian summer, I suppose. A pity: no planet has anything more beautiful and full of old magics.) Now even that short season is past. Autumn is far along; the nights are cold and the leaves are fallen and the last escaping birds call through a sky which has lost all colour. And yet, we who see winter coming can also see it won't be here till after our life-times...so we shiver a bit, and swear a bit, and go back to playing with a few bright dead leaves.'" (Agent Of The Terran Empire, London, 1977, p. 125)

We do not expect such a speech from a space opera hero setting off to fight alien invaders. His extended metaphor mixes time frames. Imagine if seasons really were so long or human life-times so short that, literally, the winter would not come until after our life-times.

Flandry has already grasped both that the Empire represented a late stage of the decline of a civilization and that its Fall is, he thinks, inevitable. The theory says that it becomes increasingly likely with the passage of time.

A Perpetual Banquet

Poul Anderson's hero, Dominic Flandry:

"...went to Terra on leave, was invited to the perpetual banquet of the Lyonid family, spent three epochal months..." (Flandry Of Terra, London, 1976, p. 9).

A perpetual banquet, like the Mad Tea Party in Alice? How would that work? Domestic slaves serve the family and guests who are seated at one half of a large circular table while a second team of slaves clears and resets the other half so that the banqueters can keep moving around the table? (I say "slaves" because we are talking about the Terran Empire here. Otherwise, domestic servants would play this role.)

Assuming eight hours for sleep, no one can possibly eat continuously for sixteen hours every day indefinitely. The family must take it in turns to host the meal while the guests change every three months or so. There must also be intervals, as at the theatre, when guests can attend to other business using computer consoles either set in the table or just behind where they sit or can stretch their legs by strolling around the Lyonid mansion and garden.

Tolkien's Hobbits eat seven meals a day, I think. If these were spaced out through the day, they might just provide enough instalments for a perpetual banquet.

8.00: rise, butler brings cup of tea.
9.00-10.00: breakfast.
10.00-11.00: second breakfast.
11.00-12.00: elevenses.
12.00-14.00: lunch.
14.00-16.00: buffet snacks available from tables set around the dining hall walls.
16.00-17.00: afternoon tea.
17.00-18.00: buffet snacks as above.
18.00-20.00: dinner.
20.00-22.00: buffet snacks available in the bar.
22.00-23.30: supper.
24.00: retire.

By eating and drinking sparingly while concentrating on enjoying the conversation and no doubt also entertainment provided, a guest might survive for a few months, as Flandry does.