"Thy merchants chase the morning down the sea..."

I have been riveted by SM Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers (New York, 2003). American correspondent, Sean M Brooks, suggested that a Poul Anderson fan should read some Stirling. Having now read this one novel, I am bound to agree with him. So what next? For me, more Stirling and more rereading of Anderson but also more reading and rereading of other works not connected to this blog: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is dying for me to get back to her!

The Peshawar Lancers has a conventional happy ending with three marriages and the heroes returning home:

"The lord of Rexin laughed softly, shook his head, and looked up through the fresh green leaves of the chinar trees and the exploding white and pink flowers of the orchards, up toward the manor and its gardens." (p. 458)

The text concludes with a characteristically evocative quotation from James Elroy Flecker, in this case from his "Ishak's Song." (This is a double link to Neil Gaiman because Gaiman also quotes Flecker and because Ishak is the Court Poet of Haroun al Raschid, who is the central character of Gaiman's Ramadan.)

I do not begrudge Stirling's characters their happy ending and do not wish any more adventures on them but I do want to know more about their history: the international situation and the threat of a second Fall.