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Flandry #6
Flandry of Terra
A collection of three Flandry The Game Of Captain Flandry follows a dying man's clue to the watery provincial world of Nyanza, where a rebellion against the Empire may be brewing. A Message In Flandry ventures to the remote colonial world of Altai, whose human inhabitants haven't been in contact with the Terran Empire for centuries, and discovers that they are cutting a Faustian deal with the Merseians. The Plague Of Flandry, of his own volition, decides to investigate the remote and isolated world of Unan Besar, to see exactly why it is they have had no contact with the Empire in over 300 years.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
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About the author
Poul Anderson
1,627 books1,115 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 - 21 of 21 reviews
September 21, 2025
Flandry of Terra is a collection of three novellas that feature Anderson's James Bond-in-space hero. He's a bit like Laumer's Retief with less humor but better scientific background and more interesting plots. The book was published by Chilton in 1965 and wasn't released in mass market format until 1979 from Ace with a nice Michael Whelan cover. The first story, The Game of Glory, was first printed in Venture magazine in 1958, and the other two, A Message in Secret and A Plague of Masters are from Cele Goldsmith's Fantastic Stories, 1959 & 1960. A Message in Secret was issued by Ace as half of one of their Doubles with Kenneth Bulmer's No Man's World with the title Mayday Orbit in 1961, and A Plague of Masters was also released by Ace as half of another Double as Earthman, Go Home! in 1960, bound with Wilson Tucker's To the Tombaugh Station. They're good, entertaining stories.
May 18, 2018
Collection of stories about a guy who goes to distant planets to do unsavory things in the name of civilization. It's not too bad, like a low octane Flashman, only without the hypocrisy.
April 27, 2023
(Book 5 in the series)
1978 Grade A
2023 Grade B+
Another SciFi Spy book, but rather different. Anderson's prose is so beautiful that it is almost poetic. No wonder he has so many awards. This book is 3 stories of 56, 88, and 145 pages. The first and second are grade A. But last one drags on too long. It never gets boring but the story, style, and end do not really support that much length. Other than that, there were no problems.
Fun book.
1978 Grade A
2023 Grade B+
Another SciFi Spy book, but rather different. Anderson's prose is so beautiful that it is almost poetic. No wonder he has so many awards. This book is 3 stories of 56, 88, and 145 pages. The first and second are grade A. But last one drags on too long. It never gets boring but the story, style, and end do not really support that much length. Other than that, there were no problems.
Fun book.
January 28, 2026
Lately I've been getting into Marc Miller's Traveller and its setting, and I felt obligated to read a few Flandry stories, Tubb's The Winds of Gath, and Piper's Space Viking. Of those three books, Anderson's was my favorite. That's not to say it was particularly good; Flandry himself is an altogether unlikable character, a machismo womanizer who takes matters into his own hands because he's cool or whatever. He's clearly coming out of the same fantasy as James Bond did: that is, the badass Cold War spy. In Anderson's own universe, the Terran empire is in a cold war with the alien Meresian empire, both fighting proxy wars at the scale of worlds. Flandry, despite being a Naval officer, works alone to gather intel and topple planetary governments. Cold War stuff. And the "badass Cold War spy" archetype can work. I do enjoy the Bond movies. But there's something to be said about how their characters represent the governments. Which is to say that the governments in Cold War media are faceless and impersonal, and so should the leading characters be. "Faceless and impersonal" meaning "I don't care what the lead thinks about the Cold War because I'm just here to watch them get into a situation and do violence and/or deception." This is surprisingly a flaw with Flandry, but it shows up in the first story in this lot, "The Game of Glory," and ended up souring the rest. Flandry, for some reason or another, has this prior personal vendetta against the antagonist of the story. And it's like, you aren't all that, hon. In this small effort to exposit Flandry's backstory, I think Anderson actually makes Flandry worse; it creates this sense that Anderson wants his readers to identify with Flandry, who is, as I've said, a machismo womanizer. I just don't care what Flandry thinks about the space Cold War.
At any rate, the best story of this lot is "A Message in Secret." It's also what's depicted on the cover of the book, so it's a little more memorable for that. If I remember correctly, Flandry gets on the ice planet, learns things he's not supposed to, is essentially detained in the capital under the guise of civility, gets out alongside a woman, goes to a group of people who live off the land, gets their help, and escapes while wanting toppling a planetary government. Notably also the plot of "The Plague of Masters," but that story drags on way too long. "A Message in Secret" strikes a nice middle ground for how SF an SF Cold War story should be. All of the characters are humans, and there's this one species of big flying jellyfish that are plot-relevant. It stays fairly familiar to the archetypal story. I mention all that because I thought "The Game of Glory" wasn't SF enough, and "The Plague of Masters" was too SF. "The Game of Glory" has the water planet and the one alien antagonist who's basically a human I think? Besides being like bigger and stronger and having gills or something. "The Game of Glory" didn't make it's setting matter. In contrast, "The Plague of Masters" made it's setting matter too much. The planet has this deadly disease that's everywhere in the atmosphere; there's a cure for it that lasts a month or so, but the planetary government keeps itself purposefully isolated so that the people can't import the cure for cheap from off-planet. That's the problem that Flandry has to deal with. I suppose you could easily point to a real-world analogue to this, but that doesn't change my point. The story goes into detail on the specifics of the few major governments of the planet and how they operate with respect to the disease, but I really don't care. Like I said, I care only about Flandry getting in and getting out because that's what's exciting and that's his entire schtick. "The Plague of Masters" just ends up dragging on way longer than it really needed to. So I only liked "A Message in Secret." Anderson's writing is fairly straightforward, and that's is the story that consistently gets to the point the quickest.
At any rate, the best story of this lot is "A Message in Secret." It's also what's depicted on the cover of the book, so it's a little more memorable for that. If I remember correctly, Flandry gets on the ice planet, learns things he's not supposed to, is essentially detained in the capital under the guise of civility, gets out alongside a woman, goes to a group of people who live off the land, gets their help, and escapes while wanting toppling a planetary government. Notably also the plot of "The Plague of Masters," but that story drags on way too long. "A Message in Secret" strikes a nice middle ground for how SF an SF Cold War story should be. All of the characters are humans, and there's this one species of big flying jellyfish that are plot-relevant. It stays fairly familiar to the archetypal story. I mention all that because I thought "The Game of Glory" wasn't SF enough, and "The Plague of Masters" was too SF. "The Game of Glory" has the water planet and the one alien antagonist who's basically a human I think? Besides being like bigger and stronger and having gills or something. "The Game of Glory" didn't make it's setting matter. In contrast, "The Plague of Masters" made it's setting matter too much. The planet has this deadly disease that's everywhere in the atmosphere; there's a cure for it that lasts a month or so, but the planetary government keeps itself purposefully isolated so that the people can't import the cure for cheap from off-planet. That's the problem that Flandry has to deal with. I suppose you could easily point to a real-world analogue to this, but that doesn't change my point. The story goes into detail on the specifics of the few major governments of the planet and how they operate with respect to the disease, but I really don't care. Like I said, I care only about Flandry getting in and getting out because that's what's exciting and that's his entire schtick. "The Plague of Masters" just ends up dragging on way longer than it really needed to. So I only liked "A Message in Secret." Anderson's writing is fairly straightforward, and that's is the story that consistently gets to the point the quickest.
November 22, 2022
Reading for a couple of weeks some Poul Anderson novels, I am struck a bit by his inconsistent output.
"Flandry of Terra" reads swiftly, is well written and Anderson succeeds in writing the story without unneeded details. Something that is missing in some of his other work from the same time. One can't say that it was an evolution in his writing, because these stories were written between 1957 and 1961. Some of his other stories of the Polesotechnic League which were written later, sometimes seem written with less discipline.
Anyway, despite the SF setting, this is more or less James Bond in space, or on exotic planets. But I like the James Bond stories, and Sherlock Holmes too, and Dominic Flandry fits that kind of genre.
"Flandry of Terra" reads swiftly, is well written and Anderson succeeds in writing the story without unneeded details. Something that is missing in some of his other work from the same time. One can't say that it was an evolution in his writing, because these stories were written between 1957 and 1961. Some of his other stories of the Polesotechnic League which were written later, sometimes seem written with less discipline.
Anyway, despite the SF setting, this is more or less James Bond in space, or on exotic planets. But I like the James Bond stories, and Sherlock Holmes too, and Dominic Flandry fits that kind of genre.
December 17, 2023
More Cold War adventures in space. Flandry acts as an agent of the Terran Imperial Navy attempting to win hearts and minds in an ongoing series of proxy wars on a variety of colony worlds. Mostly, this hearts and minds routine takes the form of your typical dose of stalwart machismo - standard practice for the genre. The problem I have with these stories is the lack of a solid hook. In particular, the first story could just as easily be Shakespeare as merfolk courtly intrigue. I guess comparing something to Shakespeare is not typically derogatory, but where is the science fiction aspect? While the second and third stories both have sci-fi concepts on display, this is still much more a case of genre-as-setting rather than genuine, exploratory, speculative fiction.
April 3, 2019
I decided to read the Flandry series in order of publication rather than internal chronology hoping that Anderson's writing would improve. So far, that seems to be the case. The one story and two short novels in this collection are a bit of an improvement over Agent of the Terran Empire, but not dramatically so. The short novel Mayday Orbit is nearly bare bones adventure with a mildly interesting setting that is only sketched in. The last novel, Plague of the Masters approaches Jack Vance in terms of world building. Probably the best Flandry story that I have read so far. Looking forward to Ensign Flandry.
December 5, 2017
These are the tales of Captain (Naval not Air Force) Flandry much farther along in his career and realizing that retirement will never be his. Even his desire for it is waning.
It is a bit dated, but swashes are still buckled and beautiful women are swiftly seduced and then turned over to the local man pining for them (well usually, one suitor does not get the girl).
Anderson's Flandry is still a series Sci-Fi fans need to read. Each short-story is a primer on how to create a world and people that you grow to care about in less time than it takes to wash your car.
Read It!
It is a bit dated, but swashes are still buckled and beautiful women are swiftly seduced and then turned over to the local man pining for them (well usually, one suitor does not get the girl).
Anderson's Flandry is still a series Sci-Fi fans need to read. Each short-story is a primer on how to create a world and people that you grow to care about in less time than it takes to wash your car.
Read It!
September 19, 2017
Pretty entertaining, even if in every story Flandry's first move upon landing on a new world and meeting with the local authorities, is to shoot out a window and run for it. You'd think his visits were being sponsored by the local glaziers.
March 24, 2021
Luke warm. Anderson manages to keep his hero in trouble, but for some reason it didn't rock my world. Maybe because Flandry, although a good agent, is a bit of a self-centered womanizer who uses others to further his plots.
October 30, 2018
Definitely among the most interesting and engaging Flandry stories I've encountered in my reading thus far.
December 24, 2021
-Gregory Kerkman
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October 23, 2025Flandry Of Terra, by Anderson, Poul
November 12, 2014
Good old-fashioned rollicking science fiction from areound 1960--three novellas reprinted from sci-fi magazines. Captain Sir Dominic Flandry of the Imperial Terran Navy is a kind of interstellar James Bond--though in (sumptuous and colorful) uniform, not under cover. He roams the outer reaches of the Galaxy, undoing the schemes of evildoers in order to delay the collapse of civilization and its pleasures. Sign of its times: Dominic always has a fag in his mouth. The women he meets are athletic, self-confident, and scantily clad, but the hanky-panky is strictly off-screen.
April 10, 2016
Aside from the dated love-em-and-leave-em attitude towards the, um, girls, the stories are well-written, fun, and amazingly timely. A bloated bureaucracy with an economic stranglehold on the rest of the population. An alien being out to rule the universe. A conspiracy to treason, and government agent who manages to get a message off-planet without any obvious means of communication. I particularly enjoyed the obviously Mongol-descended nomadic people -- and this was written long before the Horde, or even the SCA, was even thought of.
July 17, 2019
Three novellas The Game of Glory, A Message in Secret and A Plague of Masters. Captain Sir. Domenic Flandry. Interplanetary James Bond. (created a full two years before the first James Bond was written). A Plague of Masters is Earthman, Go Home printed by Ace in 1960.
June 17, 2007
The original interstellar James Bond.
December 28, 2007
read 08.18.85
July 26, 2010
The Flandry series is one of my favorite SF series. Anderson really came up with something when he created Flandry. All the books in the series are good. This one is great.
February 12, 2012
Actually three stories featuring Dominic Landry, Agent of Imperial Terra: The Game of Glory, A Message in Secret, and The Plague of Masters.
December 15, 2013
Not so bad. I'll read more about Dominic Flandry series.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews