Customer Reviews

Agent of the Terran Empire

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Dominick Flandry is a 30th Century Horatio Hornblower. This is space opera, plain and simple. But it is very very high quality and readable space opera, and Poul Anderson really does put some effort into speculating about what human society will evolve into, and what alien races will be like. These stories are entertainment. Flandry is extremely likable, and so are the Merseians, the alien bad guys. (They are more or less a cross between the Klingons (whom they predate) and an iguana.)

These short stories are meant to be fun and are that. This is not deep meaningful literature. More like what you'll want to read while drinking beer and eating chips. Hey, nothing wrong with that! What's not to like? If you can find it, buy it!

Poul Anderson has only been gone a few years, but already most of his extremely long list of novels and story collections is out of print. iBooks deserves praise for reviving one of Anderson's best characters, Captain Sir Dominic Flandry. Anderson was a pillar of science fiction from the late 1950s into the 1990s, and the Flandry books--part of the larger Technic future history that includes the van Rijn/Falkayn series--were from his strongest period.

I read these stories as a kid and later as an adult and was impressed by how they grew with me--lots of bold adventure, but some serious musings, as well. Flandry is a very modern character, in some respects, with sophisticted tastes and inner conflicts, but also very much a man of his corrupt and decadent time.

If iBooks perseveres with this series, then the best Flandry book--and one of Anderson's best--should be out soon, "A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows."

Four stories that pits superagent Dominic Flandry against his Merseian nemesis/counterpart/duelling partner. Flandry has the Terran resources to back him, but his opposite number is a telepath of no mean ability.

It is hard to plot and plan with him around, particularly in a diplomatic setting. Batman would be pretty happy with Flandry's valet/butler, pretty good with the spaceship and the raygun.


Agent of the Terran Empire : 1 Tiger by the Tail - Poul Anderson
Agent of the Terran Empire : 2 Warriors From Nowhere! - Poul Anderson
Agent of the Terran Empire : 3 Honorable Enemies - Poul Anderson
Agent of the Terran Empire : 4 A Handful Of Stars - Poul Anderson


Flandry gets involved with some of the ruling class of an alliance opposed to his, and uses their tribal society system against them via some political destabilisation, and a spot of duelling.

4 out of 5


Flandry has to deal with an opposite number with a telepathic advantage.

3 out of 5

Rescue from a dragon by your opponent who is always aware of what you are doing leads Flandry to come up with a cunning plan.

3.5


Flandry gets into to grass roots work on a planet with some nasty conditions, and ends up in deadly shipboard combat, all with the help of a local woman.

3.5 out of 5

Part of the action of one of these Dominic Flandry stories takes place on the Great Red Spot of Jupiter. "_On_ the Great Red Spot?" you ask. Yes, indeed:

"It's been known a long time, even before space travel, that it's a... a mass of ariel pack ice. Lord, what a fantastic place to die! What happens is that at a certain height in the Jovian atmosphere, the pressure allows a red crystalline form of ice-- not the white stuff that we splash whisky onto, or the black alletrope down on the surface, or the super-dense variety in the mantle around the Jovian core. Here the pressure is right for red ice, and the air density is identical, so it floats... the Red Spot is a pack of flying glaciers, stretching broader than all Terra. And we've been crashed on one of them!" (106-107)

Yes, we now know that the Red Spot is a perpetual hurricane. But I still have a fondness for Anderson's floating icebergs, as I do for Martian canals and Venusian seas. It's a great piece of imaginative detail that Anderson tosses off as almost a side adventure.

For readers not familiar with this series, Sir Dominic Flandry is like the boy with his finger in the dike. He knows that the Terran Empire is weak and corrupt and that it will eventually fall. But he hopes to delay the fall so that the Long Night that follows will not be quite as long and dark.

He is not a great undercover agent. He gets caught by the villains an awful lot, and many times his "cover" consists mainly of pretending to be a stupid, Colonel Blimp type of officer. Oddly enough, it seems to work fairly well for him.

Most of the stories in this collection are early entries in Flandry's saga: "Tiger by the Tail" (_Planet_, 1951), "Warriers from Nowhere" (_Planet_, 1954 as "The Ambassadors of Flesh"), "Honorable Enemies" (_Future_ combined with _Science Fiction_, 1951), and "Hunters of the Sky Cave" (_Amazing_, 1959 as "A Handful of Stars"). They are not as smoothly written or as complex as some of the later stories in the series. But they have a certain amount of energy and zest. They are less dark and world-weary, and they are, I think, a bit more fun.

This is the Horatio Hornblower of science fiction! Great space opera, perfect for a beer and chips afternoon at the beach or whatnot.

Here, the Polesotechnic League has fallen (see Anderson's "Trader to the Stars," "Mirkheim," "Satan's World," "The Trouble Twisters," and several others) to be replaced by a decadent and corrupt Terran Empire, which rules millions of worlds in the Galaxy. It is opposed by all manner of villains, including the warlike Merseans. Everyone can see that the Terran Empire, like the Roman Empire before it, will oneday fall, and that this will be a bloody business costing billions of lives. This is the time in which Dominic Flandry, of the Imperial Terran Intelligence Service, finds himself. His purpose is to basically try to hold the Empire together, at least for his time. As he says, "what is the point of living in a decadent age if you don't know how to enjoy the decadence?" Great fun. Flandry is unforgettable, and these stories are enjoyable reads that are not in the least bit banal. This is excellent "hard" science fiction of the Space Opera genre.

Take my word for it: if you give this one a chance, the odds are excellent that you will become a fellow Flandry addict!