What do you think?
Rate this book
Flandry #2
A Circus of Hells
DEATH MOON!
Crack Lieutenant Dominic Flandry was not a man easily swayed from his duty to the Empire... not, that is, until galactic vice king Leon Ammon offered him a million credit bribe, a voluptuous woman called Djana, and a commission to explore a dark and treasureladen moon.
But within the desolate peaks and valleys of that strange world of ice and shadow, Flandry found more he had bargained for. Supposedly barren, the planet swarmed with a hideous race of strange, inhuman creatures... infernally controlled by a deranged and brilliant computer brain. Each creature, like a piece in a bizarre and lethal chess game, was programmed to kill.
And although Flandry did not know it – so was the woman he loved...
Crack Lieutenant Dominic Flandry was not a man easily swayed from his duty to the Empire... not, that is, until galactic vice king Leon Ammon offered him a million credit bribe, a voluptuous woman called Djana, and a commission to explore a dark and treasureladen moon.
But within the desolate peaks and valleys of that strange world of ice and shadow, Flandry found more he had bargained for. Supposedly barren, the planet swarmed with a hideous race of strange, inhuman creatures... infernally controlled by a deranged and brilliant computer brain. Each creature, like a piece in a bizarre and lethal chess game, was programmed to kill.
And although Flandry did not know it – so was the woman he loved...
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
5 people are currently reading
269 people want to read
About the author
Poul Anderson
1,625 books1,113 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
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
June 25, 2019
Written in the 60s, I see Poul Anderson’s character Dominic Flandry as a Jonny Quest who made it big and went to outer space, and took on a James Bond / Austen Powers hype.
He was bold, cool, and had a certain way with the ladies.
Anderson’s complex characterization again takes the top prize, reeling in a spaghetti western mess of a plot into something worth reading. Poul’s ability to tell a balanced story with good, bad, and ugly on both sides of the Berlin Wall is in rare form here as the “evil” galactic lizard men have theological warmth while our hero comes off as something of an ass.
Most pleasing is Flandry’s “Bond girl” a former prostitute named Djana, who shows surprising depth of character and a dynamic portrayal.
Setting the Dominic Flandry series about 500 years after the Poletechnic Van Rijn / Falkayn action, Anderson has cast this later Terran Empire into a decaying and increasingly decadent culture, with the not incorruptible Flandry staving off the eventual decline of his society.
Ever the quintessential “idea guy” of the classic science fiction pantheon, ultimately, Anderson threw too much into this one and it kind of came apart at the seems.
One fun mention is the combination animal and machine creations may have been an influence on John Varley’s Gaean trilogy, with its description of a predatory factory.
All good fun, great for an Anderson nerd like myself, entertaining for an aficionado of 60s pulp, but maybe not the best for a first time reader.
He was bold, cool, and had a certain way with the ladies.
Anderson’s complex characterization again takes the top prize, reeling in a spaghetti western mess of a plot into something worth reading. Poul’s ability to tell a balanced story with good, bad, and ugly on both sides of the Berlin Wall is in rare form here as the “evil” galactic lizard men have theological warmth while our hero comes off as something of an ass.
Most pleasing is Flandry’s “Bond girl” a former prostitute named Djana, who shows surprising depth of character and a dynamic portrayal.
Setting the Dominic Flandry series about 500 years after the Poletechnic Van Rijn / Falkayn action, Anderson has cast this later Terran Empire into a decaying and increasingly decadent culture, with the not incorruptible Flandry staving off the eventual decline of his society.
Ever the quintessential “idea guy” of the classic science fiction pantheon, ultimately, Anderson threw too much into this one and it kind of came apart at the seems.
One fun mention is the combination animal and machine creations may have been an influence on John Varley’s Gaean trilogy, with its description of a predatory factory.
All good fun, great for an Anderson nerd like myself, entertaining for an aficionado of 60s pulp, but maybe not the best for a first time reader.
January 31, 2016
From one of the best novels in Anderson's Technic Civilization saga, we arrive at one of the worst. This sequel to the wonderful Ensign Flandry is a dud, from start to finish, an interminable slog, and a surprisingly shoddy affair from a writer that usually, at least, has a competent handle of the basics.
Let's start with the characterization. Flandry must have let his success on Starkad get to his head, because he's now an insufferable prig. Gone is the earnest and conflicted philosopher of the first book. Anderson has rewritten him here as an aloof and arrogant scumbag, a man who casually demands of his employer that he be supplied with a prostitute for his upcoming mission, to attend to his needs. Having received this prostitute, he spends the rest of the novel treating her abysmally - having sex with her, yes, but also snapping at her, ordering her about, insulting her, humiliating her, and mocking her. If his characterization is juvenile and unpleasant, hers is utterly woeful - she weeps and begs and pleads, continually asking Flandry to hold her. No matter how much Flandry scolds her and infantilizes her, she keeps falling into his arms and crying, "Oh Nicky! Oh, Nicky! Save us!" He even calls her a slut at one point. In another scene, after he rescues her from something, he says, "I shall expect you to show your gratitude in the ways you know best." Gah! This whole relationship is just so icky, so unnecessary, so poorly thought-out, it makes the whole novel sink into shrillness before the plot even gets started.
Hah! Did I just say plot? Sorry, I meant incoherent banality. What we have here is a Frankenstein monster of a book, stitched together out of bits and pieces of ideas for stories, none of them good. It feels, frankly, like Anderson was just making it up as he went along. First, there’s a “find the treasure and get the reward” plot. This soon morphs into a standard “guy-and-his-whiny-girlfriend-walking-through-the-desert” plot, and it isn't Anderson's fault, to be fair, that these scenes reminded me of the movie Spaceballs. In any case, Flandry and his prostitute eventually arrive at an automated city where some robotic bugs are playing a massive game of chess. Okay, one thinks, the mystery deepens...is this novel about an artificial intelligence? Or an enemy machine? No and no, because on the next page, our heroes are whisked off this planet and captured by the Merseians, and those bugs, and that planet, and indeed the entire mission that began the book and sent them there in the first place are quite literally never mentioned again. Never. Not once. The first half of the book is abandoned, like an unwanted baby left on a doorstep. Suddenly, we’re in a different story, this one about a joint human/Merseian expedition to explore some alien natives. At this juncture, the book, with a straight face, jarringly takes on an anthropological and scientific tone, as if, despite the offensive and lightweight stupidity of the earlier pages, Anderson secretly wished all along this were a hard sf novel. It begins to expound, for pages and pages on end, on planetary fauna and flora, on geological activity, on weather patterns, on native cultural practices. These descriptions, long and tedious as you can imagine, couldn’t be of less interest to the reader. Flandry is a prisoner during all this, threatened with mindwipe, or possibly death – why should the lives of these natives mean anything to him, or to us? Why is Flandry actually exploring them? Is it because, for a few pages there, Anderson tries his hand at a “white-guy-saves-the-natives” plot? Anyway, no matter, because soon enough, these natives are left behind just as quickly as the chess-playing bugs were, and we’re off like a flash to the next whim of Anderson’s aimless narrative.
And that whim is a doozy: Flandry’s prostitute, it turns out, is some kind of Jedi. So says the wizened old Merseian who becomes her new father figure. (She goes from an oppressive boyfriend/client to a kindly father figure – how nice.) She has some kind of power within her, like Rey from The Force Awakens, and for a couple of chapters, she spends time being trained in the ways of the psychic prostitute. Again jarringly, these pages are filled with experimental narrative devices, ellipses, short paragraphs, dream imagery, streams-of-consciousness. It's all very serious and artistic. I wondered if someone had glued a few pages from another novel into the middle of this one, as a joke. Anyway, very soon we beam to the next plot, the prostitute’s power utterly forgotten, and there’s an escape, and some heroics, and I think there’s an attempt to make some kind of political story out of all this, but I don’t know. Whatever. Near the end, the prostitute begs Flandry to stay with her, because she loves him. He refuses, because he has too many other women to fuck, and she wanders out of the book and, hopefully, out of Anderson’s canon entirely. What are we supposed to think of all this? Is Flandry a loveable rogue? Is he a tragic lonely figure? Is he a stereotypical and clichéd plot mechanism? Take your pick.
Offensive attitudes aside, these jagged and clunky shifts in tone and plot are devastating to the novel’s functioning. None of it works. We’re in a space ship listening to some asshole berate his prostitute as she cries in his arms, and then we’re suddenly in a hard sf novel that describes, for three pages, the hydrogen dissipation in a supernova. Then, we’re on an anthropological expedition to learn from the natives, and then we’re in something like a Zelazny novel, with symbolic dream imagery and temporal dislocation, as our Jedi prostitute gets her training. Then it's an action plot. Anderson clearly has no idea what story he wants to tell, and the only thing that holds any of it together are a pair of characters that are completely unsympathetic, implausible, and unworkable.
I will continue to the read the Technic Civilization saga, because it has given me many hours of pleasure. But for those only interested in the peaks of Anderson’s storytelling career, I strongly encourage you to skip this one. It was very difficult to get through.
Let's start with the characterization. Flandry must have let his success on Starkad get to his head, because he's now an insufferable prig. Gone is the earnest and conflicted philosopher of the first book. Anderson has rewritten him here as an aloof and arrogant scumbag, a man who casually demands of his employer that he be supplied with a prostitute for his upcoming mission, to attend to his needs. Having received this prostitute, he spends the rest of the novel treating her abysmally - having sex with her, yes, but also snapping at her, ordering her about, insulting her, humiliating her, and mocking her. If his characterization is juvenile and unpleasant, hers is utterly woeful - she weeps and begs and pleads, continually asking Flandry to hold her. No matter how much Flandry scolds her and infantilizes her, she keeps falling into his arms and crying, "Oh Nicky! Oh, Nicky! Save us!" He even calls her a slut at one point. In another scene, after he rescues her from something, he says, "I shall expect you to show your gratitude in the ways you know best." Gah! This whole relationship is just so icky, so unnecessary, so poorly thought-out, it makes the whole novel sink into shrillness before the plot even gets started.
Hah! Did I just say plot? Sorry, I meant incoherent banality. What we have here is a Frankenstein monster of a book, stitched together out of bits and pieces of ideas for stories, none of them good. It feels, frankly, like Anderson was just making it up as he went along. First, there’s a “find the treasure and get the reward” plot. This soon morphs into a standard “guy-and-his-whiny-girlfriend-walking-through-the-desert” plot, and it isn't Anderson's fault, to be fair, that these scenes reminded me of the movie Spaceballs. In any case, Flandry and his prostitute eventually arrive at an automated city where some robotic bugs are playing a massive game of chess. Okay, one thinks, the mystery deepens...is this novel about an artificial intelligence? Or an enemy machine? No and no, because on the next page, our heroes are whisked off this planet and captured by the Merseians, and those bugs, and that planet, and indeed the entire mission that began the book and sent them there in the first place are quite literally never mentioned again. Never. Not once. The first half of the book is abandoned, like an unwanted baby left on a doorstep. Suddenly, we’re in a different story, this one about a joint human/Merseian expedition to explore some alien natives. At this juncture, the book, with a straight face, jarringly takes on an anthropological and scientific tone, as if, despite the offensive and lightweight stupidity of the earlier pages, Anderson secretly wished all along this were a hard sf novel. It begins to expound, for pages and pages on end, on planetary fauna and flora, on geological activity, on weather patterns, on native cultural practices. These descriptions, long and tedious as you can imagine, couldn’t be of less interest to the reader. Flandry is a prisoner during all this, threatened with mindwipe, or possibly death – why should the lives of these natives mean anything to him, or to us? Why is Flandry actually exploring them? Is it because, for a few pages there, Anderson tries his hand at a “white-guy-saves-the-natives” plot? Anyway, no matter, because soon enough, these natives are left behind just as quickly as the chess-playing bugs were, and we’re off like a flash to the next whim of Anderson’s aimless narrative.
And that whim is a doozy: Flandry’s prostitute, it turns out, is some kind of Jedi. So says the wizened old Merseian who becomes her new father figure. (She goes from an oppressive boyfriend/client to a kindly father figure – how nice.) She has some kind of power within her, like Rey from The Force Awakens, and for a couple of chapters, she spends time being trained in the ways of the psychic prostitute. Again jarringly, these pages are filled with experimental narrative devices, ellipses, short paragraphs, dream imagery, streams-of-consciousness. It's all very serious and artistic. I wondered if someone had glued a few pages from another novel into the middle of this one, as a joke. Anyway, very soon we beam to the next plot, the prostitute’s power utterly forgotten, and there’s an escape, and some heroics, and I think there’s an attempt to make some kind of political story out of all this, but I don’t know. Whatever. Near the end, the prostitute begs Flandry to stay with her, because she loves him. He refuses, because he has too many other women to fuck, and she wanders out of the book and, hopefully, out of Anderson’s canon entirely. What are we supposed to think of all this? Is Flandry a loveable rogue? Is he a tragic lonely figure? Is he a stereotypical and clichéd plot mechanism? Take your pick.
Offensive attitudes aside, these jagged and clunky shifts in tone and plot are devastating to the novel’s functioning. None of it works. We’re in a space ship listening to some asshole berate his prostitute as she cries in his arms, and then we’re suddenly in a hard sf novel that describes, for three pages, the hydrogen dissipation in a supernova. Then, we’re on an anthropological expedition to learn from the natives, and then we’re in something like a Zelazny novel, with symbolic dream imagery and temporal dislocation, as our Jedi prostitute gets her training. Then it's an action plot. Anderson clearly has no idea what story he wants to tell, and the only thing that holds any of it together are a pair of characters that are completely unsympathetic, implausible, and unworkable.
I will continue to the read the Technic Civilization saga, because it has given me many hours of pleasure. But for those only interested in the peaks of Anderson’s storytelling career, I strongly encourage you to skip this one. It was very difficult to get through.
June 9, 2024
A Circus of Hells is the 2nd book in the Flandry Sci Fi series by Poul Anderson. Like Horatio Hornblower, Flandry seems to gain higher rank throughout the series. (Well, at least from the 1st to the 2nd when he goes from Ensign to Lt. 😃😎). I can't say it's my favorite Sci Fi series but the books are short and there is something entertaining about them.
In this story, Flandry is assigned to a planet on the outskirts where he works as an Intelligence officer. Yes, he's bored and when he's assigned to scout around the fringe planets for possible intrusion by the enemy Merseians. He is persuaded, for a 'small' fee, to take a side trip to investigate another planet, which may possess mineral riches. He agrees but also has to take along a representative of the man who hired him, a beautiful woman named Djana. Unfortunately for Flandry, she's working for another group.
The planet is filled with dangerous robots but Flandry and Djana manage to escape, only to tumble into another predicament. The folks for whom Djana work, also work for the Merseians. Yup, from the kettle into the fire, so to speak. Thus further adventures ensue on the planet Talwin, where the Merseians have established a base of their own; partly to study the planet's inhabitants and partly a Navy base.
So lots going on. Flandry tries to find ways to escape. Djana falls under the sway of the lead Merseian, Ydwyr. Flandry works with the indigenous folks to help his escape. As I say, lots going on. Lots of moving back and forth between Flandry and Djana and side trips to see how the aliens' minds and lives work. There is almost too much going on that distracts from the adventure portion. It's a combination of pulp Sci Fi, like those old serials you used to get at the movies, and an exploration of other worlds. I found that sometimes irritating as I didn't want distractions from the fun and games. But it was ok, to say the least and I'll still continue with the adventure. 2.0 stars
In this story, Flandry is assigned to a planet on the outskirts where he works as an Intelligence officer. Yes, he's bored and when he's assigned to scout around the fringe planets for possible intrusion by the enemy Merseians. He is persuaded, for a 'small' fee, to take a side trip to investigate another planet, which may possess mineral riches. He agrees but also has to take along a representative of the man who hired him, a beautiful woman named Djana. Unfortunately for Flandry, she's working for another group.
The planet is filled with dangerous robots but Flandry and Djana manage to escape, only to tumble into another predicament. The folks for whom Djana work, also work for the Merseians. Yup, from the kettle into the fire, so to speak. Thus further adventures ensue on the planet Talwin, where the Merseians have established a base of their own; partly to study the planet's inhabitants and partly a Navy base.
So lots going on. Flandry tries to find ways to escape. Djana falls under the sway of the lead Merseian, Ydwyr. Flandry works with the indigenous folks to help his escape. As I say, lots going on. Lots of moving back and forth between Flandry and Djana and side trips to see how the aliens' minds and lives work. There is almost too much going on that distracts from the adventure portion. It's a combination of pulp Sci Fi, like those old serials you used to get at the movies, and an exploration of other worlds. I found that sometimes irritating as I didn't want distractions from the fun and games. But it was ok, to say the least and I'll still continue with the adventure. 2.0 stars
September 4, 2024
Finished this quickly after being back from vacation.
The story was okayish, with an apparent cold war theme, but the way the male main character and the female counterpart were written and the way he behaved towards her was urgh. Worse than James & his Bond Girls.
Tho he is young in this book, and maybe that is how young men were supposed to be cool or maybe the author wanted us to not entirely like Dominik and maybe the older version of him learned a thing or two during his life. It is hinted at such a thing in the very last paragraph. Who knows.
If not for that, it could have been an easy read breeze through adventure tale to be taken for what it is, but that callous macho bravado stuff was too much
The story was okayish, with an apparent cold war theme, but the way the male main character and the female counterpart were written and the way he behaved towards her was urgh. Worse than James & his Bond Girls.
Tho he is young in this book, and maybe that is how young men were supposed to be cool or maybe the author wanted us to not entirely like Dominik and maybe the older version of him learned a thing or two during his life. It is hinted at such a thing in the very last paragraph. Who knows.
If not for that, it could have been an easy read breeze through adventure tale to be taken for what it is, but that callous macho bravado stuff was too much
October 31, 2023
I think I'll go with the consensus that A Circus of Hells is a weaker entry in the Flandry series. After the Starkand intrigue and a successful stint through intelligence school, which is elided, Flandry is back on the frontier as a scout pilot and junior intelligence officer.
A local gangster suborns him into checking out a rumored lost automated mining station, with the catch that one of the gangster's agents will be aboard. Flandry insists on a pleasant and willing female companion (ugh), but the beautiful and sexy Djana has been suborned by yet another faction.
The criminal intrigues are dropped for a straightforward survival story, when the automated mining station is revealed to have gone rogue and created an ecosystem of hostile robotic creatures, which down and damage Flandry's scout. He and Djana cross a deadly moon with a chess theme to the central hub, which is repaired in a few sentences. But then Djana betrays him, and it turns out the other faction are the expansionist Mersian empire. Gasp, shock.
Flandry and Djana are captured and taken to yet another remote planet, home to a combination Mersian military outpost and xenological research base. The planet has an extreme orbital eccentricity, with annual variation between boiling jungle and glacier covered ice ball, and an ecosystem to match. Djana is suborned by the local Mersian commander, who trains her in unspecified psychic powers, while Flandry joins the scientific mission and plots a daring escape.
Any of the stories is fine on it's own, but there's really too many, and the rogue robotic ecosystem is both the most interesting part and underbaked. Djana's characterization is painfully retrogradedly sexist, and Flandry as one of a few active and decent men in a decay empire is reduced to a tactically clever but strategically void blockhead.
A local gangster suborns him into checking out a rumored lost automated mining station, with the catch that one of the gangster's agents will be aboard. Flandry insists on a pleasant and willing female companion (ugh), but the beautiful and sexy Djana has been suborned by yet another faction.
The criminal intrigues are dropped for a straightforward survival story, when the automated mining station is revealed to have gone rogue and created an ecosystem of hostile robotic creatures, which down and damage Flandry's scout. He and Djana cross a deadly moon with a chess theme to the central hub, which is repaired in a few sentences. But then Djana betrays him, and it turns out the other faction are the expansionist Mersian empire. Gasp, shock.
Flandry and Djana are captured and taken to yet another remote planet, home to a combination Mersian military outpost and xenological research base. The planet has an extreme orbital eccentricity, with annual variation between boiling jungle and glacier covered ice ball, and an ecosystem to match. Djana is suborned by the local Mersian commander, who trains her in unspecified psychic powers, while Flandry joins the scientific mission and plots a daring escape.
Any of the stories is fine on it's own, but there's really too many, and the rogue robotic ecosystem is both the most interesting part and underbaked. Djana's characterization is painfully retrogradedly sexist, and Flandry as one of a few active and decent men in a decay empire is reduced to a tactically clever but strategically void blockhead.
November 2, 2021
This is the first Poul Anderson book I've read that I felt was just weak sauce. This is essentially 2 Flandry adventures spliced into a single novel. The first adventure, devising a way off a lost robot planet is decent. The second adventure, escaping an honorable opponent, a race of reptiles not too distant from Man with regard to motivation and social organization. This second adventure drags.
I did not care for the narrator, which probably cost a half-star. He's melodic but anti-drama; at times of tension or action, he reads more slowly and more flatly, as though he's delivering a witty punchline to an intellectual joke. This method just does not work.
I did not care for the narrator, which probably cost a half-star. He's melodic but anti-drama; at times of tension or action, he reads more slowly and more flatly, as though he's delivering a witty punchline to an intellectual joke. This method just does not work.
March 10, 2010
This is a story about two empires in microcosm, seen through the eyes of Lieutenant Dominic Flandry as the empire of Man wanes and that of Merseia waxes. Flandry is on a routine survey mission (with a bit of "unofficial" work on the side for a local crime boss) when he is captured by a Merseian vessel.
The book had an odd feel to it. None of the characters were hugely sympathetic and the dry tone of the writing didn't help make me warm to any of them. I was slightly disappointed by this, since I've really enjoyed Anderson's other work.
The book had an odd feel to it. None of the characters were hugely sympathetic and the dry tone of the writing didn't help make me warm to any of them. I was slightly disappointed by this, since I've really enjoyed Anderson's other work.
July 9, 2019
Djana uncovers a gift/ability ...her wishes come true. Lieutenant Flandry rescues her and takes Mersian noble hostage and escapes captivity. She wants to remain together, he suggest she become a spy, she feels as an ex-prostitute that he is another user and makes a wish at their parting that he will have every woman he comes across except the one he really wants. He does not understand at the time.
July 23, 2011
The plot falls apart about halfway through, and Flandry's character takes a weird turn for the worse. A lot of the idealism seems to be missing in this book. It wasn't nearly as tightly paced as the first, and overall just plain not as fun.
November 27, 2017
Giving up on this one... part boring nature documentary, part boring narrative about nothing happening.
May 6, 2019
A typical pot boiler from Anderson. I've been reading the Ensign Flandry books in order of publication rather than internal chronology. Each book improved a bit, but that is not true for this one. The previous book, Ensign Flandy, was a solid space opera, and pretty well constructed. This book is a "fix-up" novel with the story "White King's War" grafted onto an nearly unrelated short novel. The first story is actually quite entertaining, and I don't understand why Anderson did not elaborate on the idea of a planet dominated by robotic warfare. The remainder of this book is a typical encounter between Flandry and the Mersians on a hastily sketched planet, including a typical "Flandry girl". OK, but I can't imagine that I will ever reread it.
February 15, 2023
Lt. Dominic Flandry explores a moon for a local gangster. A very beautiful woman named Djana comes with him. Can Flandry solve the mystery this moon holds? Can he deal with Earth's enemies, the Merisians? Another adventure with one SFs best super agents is fun as always. Again I like how it has a Cold War fee but it is not exactly like the Cold War (the Mersians do not have any communistic traits). Slowly but surely I will accumulate this series.
December 8, 2023
I enjoyed the opening chapters. They had a sort-of James-Bond-in-space vibe. I felt the same way about the closing chapters.
The middle chapters, however, sagged. They were marred by impromptu lectures on alien ecology and some deus ex mechina tactics.
I’ll try the next book in the series, because I like Poul Anderson at his best. This one, however, did not wow me.
The middle chapters, however, sagged. They were marred by impromptu lectures on alien ecology and some deus ex mechina tactics.
I’ll try the next book in the series, because I like Poul Anderson at his best. This one, however, did not wow me.
June 11, 2022
Brilliant. It just keeps getting better with every twist of the plot. Very memorable characters, including aliens. You know you want to read it!
June 12, 2024
Underrated. If you enjoy this series and Anderson in general, I don’t see much not to like here. Feels a bit like a fix-up, but that’s ok with me. Great ending.
September 12, 2023
I’ve tried to get into Poul Anderson’s writing a couple of times now, and I have a feeling it’s just not my bag. This one feels really dated, and it’s hard to get past the blatant misogyny. Anderson puts a lot of thought and effort into the creation of his environments and their inhabitants, but the lack of character development leaves much to be desired. I like reading pulp SF novels from the 60s and 70s as palate cleansers between newer books, some of which are better than others, but this one unfortunately didn’t work for me.
November 2, 2021
I like Poul Anderson and his Dominic Flandry series, but not this one. It wasn't quit a one-star but, compared to his other work, perhaps it should be. If you haven't read Poul Anderson before, I'd advise that you not start here.
September 1, 2011
A interstellar soldier/spy/adventurer at a remote outpost of the Terran (human) empire seeks personal fortune and military advantage over the alien Merseian empire. The main character Dominic Flandry embarks on a excursion to scout out a planet for mining resources for a local gangster. Along with him, in the role of sidekick, goes the prostitute Djana.
This could have turned out to be a terrible book, in particular its plot is abysmal and makes almost no sense. But unusual aspects improve the book. First, it is interesting to find out that the Merseians, although very similar to humans in many ways, are actually culturally superior to the human empire. It seems that the human empire is declining and the Merseian rising, and for all the right reasons. Second, Djana turns out to be an interesting character. She is ostensibly cast in the dual roles of "helpless female" and "experienced sex object", but turns out to have surprising strengths, including eventually latent mental powers. She unlike most of the other characters seems to be nice person. On the other hand, the protagonist, Dominic, turns out to be a amoral, greedy, and self-centered.
Also interesting was the discussion of various alien races, the Merseians and others. The descriptions of aliens and their cultures tended to drag out too long, but certainly they were interesting in their own right.
After reading the book, I learned (from Library Thing comments) that this is the second of ten books on Dominic Flandry. Not sure if I want to read more or not. Certainly not all at once.
This could have turned out to be a terrible book, in particular its plot is abysmal and makes almost no sense. But unusual aspects improve the book. First, it is interesting to find out that the Merseians, although very similar to humans in many ways, are actually culturally superior to the human empire. It seems that the human empire is declining and the Merseian rising, and for all the right reasons. Second, Djana turns out to be an interesting character. She is ostensibly cast in the dual roles of "helpless female" and "experienced sex object", but turns out to have surprising strengths, including eventually latent mental powers. She unlike most of the other characters seems to be nice person. On the other hand, the protagonist, Dominic, turns out to be a amoral, greedy, and self-centered.
Also interesting was the discussion of various alien races, the Merseians and others. The descriptions of aliens and their cultures tended to drag out too long, but certainly they were interesting in their own right.
After reading the book, I learned (from Library Thing comments) that this is the second of ten books on Dominic Flandry. Not sure if I want to read more or not. Certainly not all at once.
December 2, 2015
First half was interesting, and then a second half, almost another book kicked in. The chap, Flandry, who had started off as a whizz kid turned into an utter toad at the end, whereas Djana, who started as a bit of fluff, evolved into a sophisticated diplomat unwilling to act as a tool.
Only three stars because although the second planet Talwin has an eccentric orbit resulting in the evolution of two different top species, the story is more James Bond with occasional clever bits. A shame, because most of the book dealt with a building of a relationship which transpired to be as substantial as balsa wood.
Only three stars because although the second planet Talwin has an eccentric orbit resulting in the evolution of two different top species, the story is more James Bond with occasional clever bits. A shame, because most of the book dealt with a building of a relationship which transpired to be as substantial as balsa wood.
January 25, 2010
This is the second in the Flandry series. I wish I liked it more. The concepts are intriguing, the set-up decent... the characters fairly flat and unlikable. Flandry -- our hero -- is vain, self-absorbed, chauvinistic. This wouldn't be so bad is he had any charisma at all. Oh well. And having the hero wording out his calculations in his head... about as exciting as, well, calculations.
August 8, 2009
I've already reviewed most of the Dominic Flandry books. Flandry is a kind of James Bond of space but the books have lots of action and intrigue and Anderson's patented exotic worlds and species. Very good stuff. One of my favorite SF series.
October 31, 2014
Frivolous, discursive, and lacking the pull and cohesion of the first book. The brusque wit, thoughtful plotting, and classic 60s cosmophilia remain thankfully intact, pushing the book slightly above average.
July 1, 2015
Grade B+. Book A4.
September 18, 2013
This is a good space opera, with some very interesting aliens but while the deus ex machina that saves our hero at the end is set up earlier in the story it's still poor story-telling.
August 5, 2013
Fun, easy to read science fiction adventure story.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews