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Flandry #3
The Rebel Worlds
Near-Shakespearean tragedy in a galactic setting. Who in this novel can be classified as "good guys" or "bad guys?"
. . The corrupt and dissolute aristocracy governing Earth's empire?
. . The alien Merseians, lurking in the interstellar dark, poking and prodding at the Empire, awaiting its fall?
. . The former High Admiral who can no longer tolerate watching the Empire fall apart, and finds he MUST lead a rebellion, even though he knows it's wrong, even though he knows it's hopeless?
. . The young officer Dominic Flandry, scornful of the collapsing Imperium, but true to his duty?
. . Or the beautiful woman loved by both men, turned into a pawn by the reptilian aliens? YOU decide!
. . The corrupt and dissolute aristocracy governing Earth's empire?
. . The alien Merseians, lurking in the interstellar dark, poking and prodding at the Empire, awaiting its fall?
. . The former High Admiral who can no longer tolerate watching the Empire fall apart, and finds he MUST lead a rebellion, even though he knows it's wrong, even though he knows it's hopeless?
. . The young officer Dominic Flandry, scornful of the collapsing Imperium, but true to his duty?
. . Or the beautiful woman loved by both men, turned into a pawn by the reptilian aliens? YOU decide!
141 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1969
3 people are currently reading
310 people want to read
About the author
Poul Anderson
1,631 books1,117 followersPseudonym A. A. Craig, Michael Karageorge, Winston P. Sanders, P. A. Kingsley.
Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards.
Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1948. He married Karen Kruse in 1953. They had one daughter, Astrid, who is married to science fiction author Greg Bear. Anderson was the sixth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, taking office in 1972. He was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls to Anderson and eight of the other members of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy.[2][3]
Poul Anderson died of cancer on July 31, 2001, after a month in the hospital. Several of his novels were published posthumously.
Series:
* Time Patrol
* Psychotechnic League
* Trygve Yamamura
* Harvest of Stars
* King of Ys
* Last Viking
* Hoka
* Future history of the Polesotechnic League
* Flandry
Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards.
Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1948. He married Karen Kruse in 1953. They had one daughter, Astrid, who is married to science fiction author Greg Bear. Anderson was the sixth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, taking office in 1972. He was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls to Anderson and eight of the other members of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy.[2][3]
Poul Anderson died of cancer on July 31, 2001, after a month in the hospital. Several of his novels were published posthumously.
Series:
* Time Patrol
* Psychotechnic League
* Trygve Yamamura
* Harvest of Stars
* King of Ys
* Last Viking
* Hoka
* Future history of the Polesotechnic League
* Flandry
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
February 4, 2016
More than either of the two previous Flandry books, The Rebel Worlds is suffused with thoughts of doom. Flandry muses on the fall of the Empire and the coming of the Long Night. The new Emperor is weak and feckless. The Merseians are knocking at their doorstep. And a new General, appointed by the Emperor himself, has been indulging in acts of terror in his far off little corner of the Empire. Anderson makes explicit the depravities this General is guilty of - slavery, extortion, mass executions, and bodies on crosses lining the roadway rotting in the sun. The discovery of these bodies is probably the best scene in the book. The quandary is, the General sits in the higher echelons of the very Empire that Flandry has sworn to defend. And defend it, he must do - for Flandry’s mission this time is to stop a rebellion against the General, a rebellion led by an Admiral of the Navy. Flandry is sent to capture the traitorous Admiral, but through a series of circumstances, he ends up traveling there with the Admiral’s wife, a woman who believes firmly in her husband’s cause, and hence is this series, after a serious misstep, returned to exactly where it belongs – the place where morals and politics intersect. The question evoked by this situation is a clever one. Obviously, this despot needs to be stopped. But can open rebellion ever be tolerated, even if ostensibly for a good cause? Flandry, dark and philosophical musings in tow, is ushered over to that corner of the galaxy to sort all this out.
Along the way, he experiences some welcome disasters, faces some challenges, has that cocky smirk wiped several times off his face, and yet…and yet…while this is without question an improvement on Circus of Hells, it is never as engaging or as tightly-plotted as Ensign Flandry, not by a mile. It meanders. It wastes time. It doesn’t get to the heart of things. In a nice scene, Flandry fails at his first command and crash lands on an alien planet; we are introduced to an interesting race made of three symbiotic partners. But none of that is integrated thematically or narratively. It’s just there. The book describes them for a while. Then it moves on. This flaw is less fatal here than it was in Circus of Hells, but Anderson still hasn’t solved the problem that plagued him in the previous novel, the problem of unity. The narrative is not well-constructed. It includes inessential things and fails to spend enough time on essential things. The story feels like a stone skipping along a lake, semi-randomly, just hitting the surface lightly and quickly, but rarely plunging into it.
Worst of all, there is an entirely superfluous love story that is both adolescent and implausible, and serves mainly to take up space that would have been better dedicated to the issues suggested by the premise. Here, I think, is the real problem, and I only realized this after the third novel: Dominic Flandry is nothing but a cipher. He has no real personality. He functions as a mover of plot. This particular plot requires him to fall in love with the wrong woman, so he does. And because Anderson imagined this as a tragic love story of sorts, he has that wrong woman sort of fall in love with him back. But it’s empty. They are in love because they have to be to establish the conflict. When the plot requires him to be a prig, he is. When it requires him to mope philosophically about the end of the Empire, he does. In the final scene, Flandry’s solution to the dilemma is wonderful, something Van Rijn himself might have conceived, and the whole chapter consists of Flandry expounding eloquently and succinctly why he made the decision he did, and how it’s the right decision for the human race. But where did all this wit and political astuteness suddenly come from? Just a few pages earlier, he was refusing to help a woman unless she agreed to have sex with him. The point is, Flandry is inconsistent in characterization, in maturity, in attitude, even in intelligence. He is either being an ass (on his bad days) or being the mouthpiece for Anderson’s political philosophy (on his good days.) He is simply not a well-conceived character, and here, in a novel that should have been better given its premise, that flaw becomes especially overt. And the plot of this novel isn’t fluid or full enough to distract us from the failures of characterization.
So, I’m torn about this series. Ensign Flandry is a gem. Circus of Hells is a washout. This one is somewhere in between, a sufficiently entertaining if slapdash adventure with a few good but undeveloped ideas and an intriguing solution to its central problem. After the heights established by Ensign Flandry, it is impossible not to read both these two sequels as a disappointment.
Along the way, he experiences some welcome disasters, faces some challenges, has that cocky smirk wiped several times off his face, and yet…and yet…while this is without question an improvement on Circus of Hells, it is never as engaging or as tightly-plotted as Ensign Flandry, not by a mile. It meanders. It wastes time. It doesn’t get to the heart of things. In a nice scene, Flandry fails at his first command and crash lands on an alien planet; we are introduced to an interesting race made of three symbiotic partners. But none of that is integrated thematically or narratively. It’s just there. The book describes them for a while. Then it moves on. This flaw is less fatal here than it was in Circus of Hells, but Anderson still hasn’t solved the problem that plagued him in the previous novel, the problem of unity. The narrative is not well-constructed. It includes inessential things and fails to spend enough time on essential things. The story feels like a stone skipping along a lake, semi-randomly, just hitting the surface lightly and quickly, but rarely plunging into it.
Worst of all, there is an entirely superfluous love story that is both adolescent and implausible, and serves mainly to take up space that would have been better dedicated to the issues suggested by the premise. Here, I think, is the real problem, and I only realized this after the third novel: Dominic Flandry is nothing but a cipher. He has no real personality. He functions as a mover of plot. This particular plot requires him to fall in love with the wrong woman, so he does. And because Anderson imagined this as a tragic love story of sorts, he has that wrong woman sort of fall in love with him back. But it’s empty. They are in love because they have to be to establish the conflict. When the plot requires him to be a prig, he is. When it requires him to mope philosophically about the end of the Empire, he does. In the final scene, Flandry’s solution to the dilemma is wonderful, something Van Rijn himself might have conceived, and the whole chapter consists of Flandry expounding eloquently and succinctly why he made the decision he did, and how it’s the right decision for the human race. But where did all this wit and political astuteness suddenly come from? Just a few pages earlier, he was refusing to help a woman unless she agreed to have sex with him. The point is, Flandry is inconsistent in characterization, in maturity, in attitude, even in intelligence. He is either being an ass (on his bad days) or being the mouthpiece for Anderson’s political philosophy (on his good days.) He is simply not a well-conceived character, and here, in a novel that should have been better given its premise, that flaw becomes especially overt. And the plot of this novel isn’t fluid or full enough to distract us from the failures of characterization.
So, I’m torn about this series. Ensign Flandry is a gem. Circus of Hells is a washout. This one is somewhere in between, a sufficiently entertaining if slapdash adventure with a few good but undeveloped ideas and an intriguing solution to its central problem. After the heights established by Ensign Flandry, it is impossible not to read both these two sequels as a disappointment.
December 8, 2023
Poul Anderson is one of those names that I've heard a lot, but I don't think I've actually read anything by him before. I bought this book on a recommendation from a friend, and it's pretty good, although not having read any of the other Technic Saga books, I feel like I'm missing some context.
The Terran Empire is a vast enterprise, succumbing under the weight of bureaucratic inertia and the personally corruption and stupidity of the Emperor. When a regional governor's sadism inspires a military revolt, it's up to Dominic Flandry, the last competent man in the room, to salvage the situation.
There's some musing on political stability and corruption, great xenobiology with a tripartate symbiotic alien species, and action and adventure. Flandry is a decent man in service of a bad cause, and it's fun to watch him wheedle and deal in service of a galactic order that promotes bad men and punishes good ones. There's a long, slow, seduction of a beautiful blond, space battles, aliens of all sorts. It's a big kitchen sink setting, and one thing that struck me was how fast everything moves. The longest story arc is a transcontinental journey from a crashed spaceship across a primitive alien world to get back to the spaceport and hijack a ship. Anderson does this in about 50 pages. David Weber and John Ringo wrote an entire series of doorstoppers (March Up Country etc) on the same subject.
I'm sold enough that I'll read the rest of them, assuming I can work out the best way to get ebook omnibus versions.
***
Okay, so I did pick up an omnibus of Flandry, finally working my way to book three, and this is definitely a step up from the unnecessary and somewhat grotesque Circus of Hells Kathryn is definitely an actual strong female character, even if she's more the Madonna side of the Madonna/Whore dynamic. The explanation of Empire, espionage, and the Mersenian threat really needs book 1, but this might be my favorite, for much of its sheer weirdness and the evil of its villains.
The Terran Empire is a vast enterprise, succumbing under the weight of bureaucratic inertia and the personally corruption and stupidity of the Emperor. When a regional governor's sadism inspires a military revolt, it's up to Dominic Flandry, the last competent man in the room, to salvage the situation.
There's some musing on political stability and corruption, great xenobiology with a tripartate symbiotic alien species, and action and adventure. Flandry is a decent man in service of a bad cause, and it's fun to watch him wheedle and deal in service of a galactic order that promotes bad men and punishes good ones. There's a long, slow, seduction of a beautiful blond, space battles, aliens of all sorts. It's a big kitchen sink setting, and one thing that struck me was how fast everything moves. The longest story arc is a transcontinental journey from a crashed spaceship across a primitive alien world to get back to the spaceport and hijack a ship. Anderson does this in about 50 pages. David Weber and John Ringo wrote an entire series of doorstoppers (March Up Country etc) on the same subject.
I'm sold enough that I'll read the rest of them, assuming I can work out the best way to get ebook omnibus versions.
***
Okay, so I did pick up an omnibus of Flandry, finally working my way to book three, and this is definitely a step up from the unnecessary and somewhat grotesque Circus of Hells Kathryn is definitely an actual strong female character, even if she's more the Madonna side of the Madonna/Whore dynamic. The explanation of Empire, espionage, and the Mersenian threat really needs book 1, but this might be my favorite, for much of its sheer weirdness and the evil of its villains.
September 17, 2014
An excellent book – four and a half stars! Anderson integrates a well thought out alien race, action adventure, and political shenanigans to produce a real page-turner. There's also romance, although modern readers may have difficulty coping with the 50s viewpoint of fidelity, rather than sex as recreation (cf The Forever War ).
I've always loved Anderson's stories about Falkayn and van Rijn set in the Polesotechnic League, but I haven't got into Flandry before. I think this is because I wasn't impressed by the story "The White King's War" way back in Galaxy August 1969. I don't remember why that was, but there's been so much else to read that I'm only just going back to have a look at this series. That particular story was expanded to the novel "A Circus of Hells", so I shall trying reading that.
This is the third of the Flandry novels set in the Terran Empire in the series' internal chronology, but was actually published some time after the stories which were collected in "Agent of the Terran Empire" and "Flandry of Terra". In some ways it can be see as what, in comics, would be a "secret origins" story, setting up his later character.
If you want to buy a new copy of the novel today, you'll have to pick up the Baen Omnibus "Young Flandry" which includes "Ensign Flandry" and "A Circus of Hells" as well as "The Rebel Worlds".
I've always loved Anderson's stories about Falkayn and van Rijn set in the Polesotechnic League, but I haven't got into Flandry before. I think this is because I wasn't impressed by the story "The White King's War" way back in Galaxy August 1969. I don't remember why that was, but there's been so much else to read that I'm only just going back to have a look at this series. That particular story was expanded to the novel "A Circus of Hells", so I shall trying reading that.
This is the third of the Flandry novels set in the Terran Empire in the series' internal chronology, but was actually published some time after the stories which were collected in "Agent of the Terran Empire" and "Flandry of Terra". In some ways it can be see as what, in comics, would be a "secret origins" story, setting up his later character.
If you want to buy a new copy of the novel today, you'll have to pick up the Baen Omnibus "Young Flandry" which includes "Ensign Flandry" and "A Circus of Hells" as well as "The Rebel Worlds".
July 28, 2010
Excellent book. Poul Anderson did Space opera with some heart and did it better than just about anyone.
November 1, 2017
OK story, not his best work.
May 28, 2022
Some great Anderson-ian touches elevate this one for me even above many of his other (better regarded?) works. I was a little confused at first because the last Anderson book I read was about van Rijn, and I was thinking of Flandry as the younger version of van Rijn, which he most certainly is not. Different series though taking place in the same "polesotechnic" era of the Anderson-verse.
In this one, Flandry gets his first command, which he does not want, in order to see what he can do about a rebellion where a respected Admiral has declared himself emperor in order to curb the cruel excesses of the local governor.
The larger tension stems from the fact that the local governor really is awful and has bad designs for the empire, but a civil war in an empire facing pressure from other empires and barbarian hordes is catastrophic.
The local tension stems from the Admiral's hot wife who's been captured by the governor and who Flandry falls for, hard. Would this otherwise practical agent of the state give it all up for love? Will he have the opportunity? Since the Admiral's cause is just, is there worth in joining his cause?
The thing that kind of put it over for me, beyond the low-level drama having such high-level stakes, is a weird alien race that consists of, like, a rhino, a monkey and a hawk. Their evolution is such that the rhino eats and the monkey and hawk drink the rhino's blood, and while the three are so joined, their low-level intelligence raises considerably, enough for language and crude construction and some understanding of abstractions.
The three creatures form a unit, but they can be swapped out to form a different unit with different abilities. And there are multiple tribes on the planet that have taboos about what creatures can form the trio, whether it's okay to swap out partners and so on.
So after the human drama unfolds there's a nice little stinger where we revisit these aliens and realize their role in the human adventure has changed their culture forever. It'd be worth reading the rest just to see if these creatures come back as players at some point.
In this one, Flandry gets his first command, which he does not want, in order to see what he can do about a rebellion where a respected Admiral has declared himself emperor in order to curb the cruel excesses of the local governor.
The larger tension stems from the fact that the local governor really is awful and has bad designs for the empire, but a civil war in an empire facing pressure from other empires and barbarian hordes is catastrophic.
The local tension stems from the Admiral's hot wife who's been captured by the governor and who Flandry falls for, hard. Would this otherwise practical agent of the state give it all up for love? Will he have the opportunity? Since the Admiral's cause is just, is there worth in joining his cause?
The thing that kind of put it over for me, beyond the low-level drama having such high-level stakes, is a weird alien race that consists of, like, a rhino, a monkey and a hawk. Their evolution is such that the rhino eats and the monkey and hawk drink the rhino's blood, and while the three are so joined, their low-level intelligence raises considerably, enough for language and crude construction and some understanding of abstractions.
The three creatures form a unit, but they can be swapped out to form a different unit with different abilities. And there are multiple tribes on the planet that have taboos about what creatures can form the trio, whether it's okay to swap out partners and so on.
So after the human drama unfolds there's a nice little stinger where we revisit these aliens and realize their role in the human adventure has changed their culture forever. It'd be worth reading the rest just to see if these creatures come back as players at some point.
June 22, 2019
A solid space opera. Flandry must help put down a justified rebellion caused by a corrupt governor and his mistreatment of the rebel leader's wife. Flandry rescues the woman with the intent of contacting her husband, but his ship crashes on a planet where the natives are three-part symbionts. These aliens are one of Anderson's better creations (and an inspiration for Vinge's Tines?). Of course, Flandry manages to solve his quandry, but he does not get the girl. The series continues to improve as Anderson matures as awriter (or simply has more time to craft his stories).
January 27, 2020
3/5 (Average)
This was the first Poul Anderson book I managed to finish (I got bogged down in one of his later novels a few years ago). The Rebel Worlds is part of a series of books by Anderson about his main character Dominic Flandry and the failing Terran Empire. The series includes Ensign Flandry (1966), A Circus of Hells (1970), etc.
The paradigm of collapsing [...]
Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...
This was the first Poul Anderson book I managed to finish (I got bogged down in one of his later novels a few years ago). The Rebel Worlds is part of a series of books by Anderson about his main character Dominic Flandry and the failing Terran Empire. The series includes Ensign Flandry (1966), A Circus of Hells (1970), etc.
The paradigm of collapsing [...]
Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...
January 2, 2022
I really have this at 3.5 stars and listened to it, although the audio version is part of a collected edition.
Flandry becomes captain of a small ship. He is sent to defuse a rebellion. He fights rebels, meets a strange 3-part alien species, falls in love with a married woman, and becomes an enemy of the the worst duke in the empire.
I'd probably give it 4 stars, but the narrator does not suit the material in the least.
Flandry becomes captain of a small ship. He is sent to defuse a rebellion. He fights rebels, meets a strange 3-part alien species, falls in love with a married woman, and becomes an enemy of the the worst duke in the empire.
I'd probably give it 4 stars, but the narrator does not suit the material in the least.
March 5, 2022
This is a great novel. Vivid details, well-thought, fine action, and some brilliant tension. I found it to be an engrossing read.
I noticed some details that served as inspiration for things in both the original Star Wars and TESB movies, and also some that inspired parts of the movie Avatar.
I noticed some details that served as inspiration for things in both the original Star Wars and TESB movies, and also some that inspired parts of the movie Avatar.
June 13, 2022
Another really tremendous space opera about Dominic Flandry from Poul Anderson. Terrific characters, alien aliens, a plot that twists and turns, and more about the Empire. Fascinating to watch Flandry's development as he grows older. Don't miss this!
July 17, 2019
Quite powerful novel.
August 28, 2019
Вот умеет Пол опускать "воду", молодец, если бы подобное произведение писал, скажем, Дэн Симмонс произведение было бы в 3 раза объёмнее.
July 3, 2024
3.5/5. Cool aliens that seem like a possible inspiration for Vernor Vinge’s Tines. Would have liked to see them explored more deeply.
November 14, 2012
The first Anderson book I ever read, so it has sentimental value to me :)
The basic gist is that Dominic Flandry (James Bond of the future) is on a quest to bring down a provincial rebellion threatening to disrupt the galactic empire, while breaking as many rules as he can and skirting war crimes and romance on his way to promotion and status.
The main thing I liked about the book is probably the extended sequence stranded on an alien planet with weird symbiotic natives, since I like the exploratory thing (new races, languages, behaviours). There are a number of things I dislike about the book, too, but that comes from reading too much Anderson so that I start recognising bits that sneak their way into pretty much everything he wrote (type of music, appearance of love interest, insistence on certain words, etc); still, see the first sentence for why I still enjoy the story.
The basic gist is that Dominic Flandry (James Bond of the future) is on a quest to bring down a provincial rebellion threatening to disrupt the galactic empire, while breaking as many rules as he can and skirting war crimes and romance on his way to promotion and status.
The main thing I liked about the book is probably the extended sequence stranded on an alien planet with weird symbiotic natives, since I like the exploratory thing (new races, languages, behaviours). There are a number of things I dislike about the book, too, but that comes from reading too much Anderson so that I start recognising bits that sneak their way into pretty much everything he wrote (type of music, appearance of love interest, insistence on certain words, etc); still, see the first sentence for why I still enjoy the story.
July 26, 2012
This was, in my opinion, the best of the Flandry stories. This is the only time that we really get to see deep inside Dominic Flandry, and realize that the jaded cynic we've come to love truly believes in what he is doing, to the point where sacrifices his own soul on the altar of the Empire.
And the poor damned Admiral McCormac is the perfect foil to Flandry. He's everything Flandry has never tried to be, the perfect hero figure. In the end we see that the true hero is - and always has been - Dominic Flandry.
And the poor damned Admiral McCormac is the perfect foil to Flandry. He's everything Flandry has never tried to be, the perfect hero figure. In the end we see that the true hero is - and always has been - Dominic Flandry.
November 11, 2015
A compelling story written in gorgeous prose by an intelligent, thoughtful author. Explores the theme of unity on multiple levels and showcases the complex character of Flandry. Besides all that, it's great straight-up sf, and a marked improvement on A Circus Of Hells. It sags somewhat in the second quarter, but is otherwise a tight and brilliant work. Recommended to fans of space opera in any form.
March 22, 2009
It is difficult to understand the point that the author was trying to make with this story. That unity under tyranny is still better than no unity attall? Some interesting concepts touched upon but not all seem pertinent to the story.
July 10, 2019
Lieutenant Commander Flandry gets a ship and a mission. He rescues a woman and falls for her but she belongs to another. Really fascinating creatures on Dido. Really sad about death of Rovian. If MacCormack was supposed to be a hero..he failed.
July 18, 2015
A story about a guy falling in love with a married girl in an endeavour to save the world. And his punch line is that bureaucrats are good because they can keep a stupid emperor in check whereas mutiny against a tyrant is bad because it sets a bad precedent.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 22, 2011
Grade B. Book A3.
May 11, 2012
Flandry - should re-read these
March 7, 2016
Excellent story. I'll have to read the rest of the series. the concept of a tri-symbiotic civilization is interesting.
September 8, 2008
Interesting alternate biology, alternate world tale.
Read
December 8, 2018I have the german translation,
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews