Tuesday 16 June 2015

Admiralty

NESFA Collections Vol 4 arrived by post the day after it was ordered from Amazon. Any faster would have been time travel. Initial observations:

there seem to be only two stories that I have not already read, the lowest proportion yet;

one of those is about time travel, thus potentially although not necessarily, an interesting story;

this original version of "Admiralty" differs textually from the version in The Star Fox so it will be read;

some other stories may be reread;

the introductory essay on Poul Anderson by David G Hartwell is clearly of interest.

There are at least two NESFA volumes after this. Vol 5 is called Door To Anywhere. Is that, like the other five volumes, named after one of the stories collected in it?

My immediate life agenda is: lunch (eat it); Latin (attend a class in it); litter (buy it for the cat). However, posts about Admiralty will not be long delayed.

6 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I'm amazed that you, living in the UK, got your copy of NESFA Press' ADMIRALTY so fast, only one day after ordering! I live in Massachusetts, the same state of the US where NESFA is located, but it took MORE than one day for the books I ordered from them to come to my house.

Yes, I recall how most of the stories in ADMIRALTY had already been read by me in other editions of Poul Anderson's works. But I still wanted the book!

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

Sean,
My copy must surely have been dispatched within the UK.
Paul.

Paul Shackley said...

It came via Amazon, not from NESFA.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Dang! Your copy was mailed in the UK? It would have been so much more interesting if it had come to you with MIRACULOUS speed from the US! (Smiles)

Sean

David Birr said...

"Mail Supremacy" by Hayford Pierce, first published 1975. Synopsis: A clever businessman draws conclusions, and confirms them by experiment, after noticing that the greater the distance, the quicker a letter arrives....

Sean M. Brooks said...

Dear Mr. Birr:

Darn!!! Why didn't I think of "Mail Supremacy"? I've actually read that story and still have the book it was in somewhere in my heaps of SF books. And, of course, Hayford Pierce's title for the story was a pun on "Male Supremacy"! (Smiles)

Sean