Satan's World Review

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(More customer reviews)Vital part of Anderson's future history (early on, before the empire that Dominic Flandry defended even existed), when Nick van Rijn's traders discovered a rogue world that was approaching a sun close enough to get warmed up. The notion of brown bodies was new in the 1960's when this was written, and the human battles over this freak of nature was as good as anything Anderson has ever written. His desciption of what was going on as the planet warmed up were great as well.

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Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight of Terra (Technic Civilization) Review

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(More customer reviews)"Earthman, Go Home". Although the natives prefer he leave, Captain Sir Dominic Flandry of the Intelligence Corps, Imperial Terrestrial Navy visits the lost world Unan Besar. His mission is to bring the planet back into the Terran Empire before the Merseians use it as a military base.
"Hunters of the Sky Cave". Flandry helps a woman escape from a Merseian supported insurgency while setting up a counterinsurgency, but ponders that "We Claim These Stars" even while the Terran Empire will go the way of previous superpowers during the Long Night
"The Warriors from Nowhere". Flandry battles his Merseian adversary Aycharaych, who has the advantage of telepathy.
"A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows". The Terran Empire is rapidly decaying as fortyish Flandry knows due partly from high level corruption. When Molitor seizes control, Flandry supports him as he believes a strong military leader is the only hope to prevent the Empire from imploding immediately. He also recently learns he has a son after a tryst with Persis the dancer and begins one with aristocratic slave Kossara from Dennitza. However, he will soon find out that his greatest success leaves him empty with nothing more than pride for accomplishing his job, no challenges left that matters, and a despondent look back at what he achieved and what he failed at.
The four reprints are entertaining tales of outer space daring do. The first three star the carefree James Bond in space swashbuckling hero, which feel somewhat repetitive although Hunters of the Sky Cave hint at a darker outlook. The last contribution is superb as a middle age Flandry muses that all he did over the last couple of decades was place his thumb in the dyke while the slow flood of rot and decay spreads; he concludes he slowed down the death of the empire as all nations turn to stardust.
Harriet Klausner


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Captain Dominic Flandry has been knighted for his many services to the Terran Empire—an Empire which is old, jaded, and corrupt, as Flandry well knows. And while that "Sir" before his name may be an added attraction to comely ladies (not that he has ever lacked for the pleasant company of the same), he expects that it will also bring him less welcome attention from envious "colleagues" within the empire. What it is not likely to do is make him more of an object of interest to the Merseians, whose plots he has repeatedly foiled and who are much too aware of how much simpler their plans to replace the Empire would be if he were the late Sir Dominic Flandry. Flandry himself has come to understand that there may be no more point to all his victories than that a few trillion of his fellow creatures may live out their lives before the inevitable coming of the Long Night of galactic barbarism. At best, he may have postponed its coming and shortened its duration. But if that is the most he can achieve, so be it—he'll keep on fighting, hoping that the barbarians too will pass, followed by a new round of civilization.

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Rise of the Terran Empire: The Technic Civilization Saga (Technic Civilization Series) Review

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(More customer reviews)Poul Anderson was one of the undisputed Grand Masters of Science Fiction, and these are some of his better stories. Poul Anderson created a dazzling "future history" scenario in which mankind has perfected cheap and reliable interstellar space travel, and expanded into the Galaxy. In doing so, mankind meets many alien races, and author Anderson is a master at imagining biologically and psychologically credible alien races. The author also postulates that when humans travel to the stars, they will bring with them all of our flaws--avarice and greed. Capitalism and freedom (the author believes that the two go hand-in-hand) require elbow room, says the author in one of these stories, and the Galaxy is the ultimate elbow room in which capitalism, for a time, flourishes.
These stories range from the beginning to the end of what the author calls Technic Civilization, more specifically the Polesotechnic League ("League of Selling Skills") -- a sprawling, brawling combine of merchantilist corporations spread throughout the Galaxy. Their interactions with alien cultures and races is the overarching theme of the book. In short, here Mr. Anderson seeks to answer the questions of what humans will find when they achieve interstellar travel and what this will do to mankind.
These stories are more or less arranged chronologically within the future history series. "Mirkheim" is placed at the beginning, which is appropriate as that novel heralds the end of the Polesotechnic League and the beginning of the Empire stage of Technic Civilization. In my opinion Mirkheim is one of the best Technic Civilization novels. Each of these stories stands very well alone, and these are all wonderful speculative reads. Highly recommended. RJB.

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Nicholas van Rijn, the most flamboyant member of the Polesotechnic League of star traders, could see dark times ahead. Fellow league members were using tactics verging on outright piracy, and others were all too eager to sell starships and high-tech weapons to alien barbarians. A planet not previously known for interstellar commerce suddenly revealed a secret fleet of armed starships, and started building an empire. Even if Van Rijn and his right-hand man David Falkayn could find a way to stop this blatant aggression, the glory days of the League were over. Hereafter, for its own protection against well-armed alien marauders the Earth must maintain a strong military fleet, and one charismatic man would found an empire that would learn nothing of the lessons history taught about the fates of other empires as it began annexing other star systems, whether they wanted to join the Terran Empire or not . . . This is the third volume in the first complete edition of Poul Anderson's Technic Civilization saga, and it includes a classic novella which appears here in book form for the first time. And the next volume begins the adventures of Poul Anderson's other legendary character, Captain Sir Dominic Flandry.

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Captain Flandry: Defender of the Terran Empire (The Technic Civilization Saga) Review

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(More customer reviews)Captain Dominic Flandry of the Terran Intelligence Corps is the 31st Century James Bond. These excellent stories are set in a fabulous background in which mankind has established the sprawling Terran Empire across 400 light years and containing four million stars and countless inhabited worlds. But the Empire is decadent, and alien barbarians as well as other interstellar empires such as the Merseians are plotting its downfall. Dominic Flandry is a larger-than-life player in this game of interstellar intrigue and these stories, in which Flandry fights to save an Empire that he knows is on borrowed time, are great fun. Like James Bond, Flandry enjoys wine, women, and song and recognizes that "true decadence requires work to be appreciated--it isn't lolling around on cushions eating drugged custard!" But he is also an intellectual hero with an appreciation of history who sadly acknowledges that the Empire is in its late decadent stage, vulnerable to alien conquest or revolution from within.
Author Poul Anderson had a splendid gift for imagining and creating plausible aliens who truly were alien. In these stories the reader will come to know and like the Merseians, the Betelgeusians, the Scothans, the Urduhu and many others. These aliens are truly alien, with their own non-human motivations and characteristics. In particular the squaring off between Flandry and Aycharaych, the ace intelligent operative of the Merseians, makes for terrific enjoyment.
Poul Anderson was one of the greats of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. It is terrific that his works are being republished so that new generations of readers can enjoy these superb stories. (I look forward to the day when more of his works are available on Kindle.) Space opera does not get better than this. Those who like well-written science fiction yarns should not pass this one up. Most readers will read and enjoy these stories many times, as I have. Highly recommended. RJB.

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No longer a brash, young ensign, Captain Dominic Flandry has risen in rank, but now appreciates fully that the Terran empire is old and tired, wanting to be left in peace. But the enemies it has made and the competing empire of Merseia will give it no peace. Too evenly matched for open warfare not to destroy them both, the opponents engage in subtle thrust and counter-thrust, feint and counter-feint, with Flandry in the thick of it. Though through this and his succeeding adventures he will struggle gloriously and snatch victory from the alien jaws of defeat, Flandry is yet a tragic figure: a man who knows too much history, who knows that battle, scheme and even betray as he will, in the end it will mean nothing. For with the relentlessness of physical law the Empire is falling and the Long Night is approaching. If that darkness is not to fall in his own lifetime, if the things he cares about are to be saved, he must do what he can. And anyone, human or alien, who gets in his way will most definitely regret it.

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