Traveller is based in part in the works of Poul Anderson

[kafka47]

Flandry is an inspiration for Traveller, right?...can't see Marc approving...
http://aidanmoher.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/young-flandry-by-poul-anderson.jpg
(not work safe)

 

[Blue Ghost]

I shrug at it. I need to turn a few pages before hand, though it does give a Traveller fan a pause for thought.

 

[Rover]

There are many literary influences to traveller. I have never read and of the Flandry books, and it is had to judge what kind of influence they might have had based on a racey cover.

The wikipedia page for the series is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_Flandry

The illegitimate son of a minor nobleman, Flandry rises to considerable power within the decadent Empire by his own wits, and enjoys all the pleasures his position society gives him. Still he is painfully conscious of the impending fall of the Terran Empire and the subsequent "Long Night" of a galactic Dark Age. His career is dedicated to holding it off for as long as possible. In time, he passes the mantle to his daughter Diana, who is also illegitimate.

Sure sounds like it could be an influence.

R

 

[Vargr]

Flandry is an inspiration for Traveller, right?...can't see Marc approving...
http://aidanmoher.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/young-flandry-by-poul-anderson.jpg
(not work safe)

What? Traveller lacks cool guns, hot women and alpha males?

 

[fiat_knox]

It definitely lacks the women. The number of times in my game that an all-male party of PCs has bypassed the strip clubs, brothels and seedy pickup joints and gone straight for the male Patron for a series of all - male firefights in dark alleys ... that is disturbing.

I wouldn't mind, but the players are all straight males.

 

[Whipsnade]

Gents,

The Flandry character changed almost out of recognition over the decades Anderson wrote about him.

The first Flandry story is quite frankly a silly "Swords and Spaceships" pastiche complete with fainting maidens.

In a much later story, Flandry tortures and kills his own son in order to gain the information he needs to complete his mission.

Flandry got much darker as Anderson matured as a writer.


Regards,
Bill

 

[JAFARR]

Gents,

The Flandry character changed almost out of recognition over the decades Anderson wrote about him.

The first Flandry story is quite frankly a silly "Swords and Spaceships" pastiche complete with fainting maidens.

In a much later story, Flandry tortures and kills his own son in order to gain the information he needs to complete his mission.

Flandry got much darker as Anderson matured as a writer.


Regards,
Bill

Matured? Sounds like he regressed to me. I have not read all the Flandry stores, but those I did read seemed to be a satire on bureaucracies in general and USA's in particular.

 

[aramis]

Matured? Sounds like he regressed to me. I have not read all the Flandry stores, but those I did read seemed to be a satire on bureaucracies in general and USA's in particular.

I've heard it said often that Poul Anderson's writing style matured and his subject matter became more lurid at the same time. The only things of his I've read have been in anthologies and SCA Songbooks... (The latter credited under Sir Bella of Eastmarch, KSCA, etc...)

What I have read was pretty darned good, but I avoided the Flandry series for some reason.

 

[Appelcline]

That Flandry book noted at the head of the thread is one of the books in a nice collection of Anderson's entire Technic Civilization Saga. The first one is called The Van Rijn Method and is out in a nice cheap paperback. Miller has noted the whole series as an influence, though Flandry in particular.

It's on my pile to review in my Traveller Fiction series ( http://www.rpg.net/reviews/search-review.phtml?productLine=Traveller: Fiction ), probably following vol. 1 of Hammer's Slammers and the 7th and last Swycaffer book.

 

[Icosahedron]

Utterly harmless, Disney-grade cover IMO. Each to their own.

It definitely lacks the women. The number of times in my game that an all-male party of PCs has bypassed the strip clubs, brothels and seedy pickup joints and gone straight for the male Patron for a series of all - male firefights in dark alleys ... that is disturbing.

I wouldn't mind, but the players are all straight males.

Yeah, I've been toying for years with some rules to give Mother Nature some realistic control over PCs' actions, but with both 'Charisma' and 'Willpower' being absent from the Traveller UPP, it ain't easy.

That Flandry book noted at the head of the thread is one of the books in a nice collection of Anderson's entire Technic Civilization Saga. The first one is called The Van Rijn Method and is out in a nice cheap paperback. Miller has noted the whole series as an influence, though Flandry in particular.

Wow, I just created a character named Van Rijn, I had no idea of its Traveller pedigree!

 

[rancke]

Yeah, I've been toying for years with some rules to give Mother Nature some realistic control over PCs' actions, but with both 'Charisma' and 'Willpower' being absent from the Traveller UPP, it ain't easy.

Well, you know, if the rules don't reflect it, it doesn't exist.


Hans

 

[BillDowns]

I am a great Flandry fan, having all of those books. I like the Van Rijn character very much as well. And definitely the Flandry character changed over time, just as Anderson did himself, as Whipsnade said.

However, I cannot agree with the observation that the writing became more "lurid", but rather less lurid. Early Flandry was more like the movie James Bond than the later Flandry.

Going back to the influence on Traveller, I don't see much of it, myself. Traveller doesn't have a Terran-centered empire in the decadent, falling stages of existence; it doesn't have the same FTL mechanism, nor "blasters" which can flame a person, or be "dialed down" slice up a door lock; it has very few cyborgs, and so on.

 

[leo knight]

Having just read "Ensign Flandry" and "Flandry of Terra", it seems to me that the main influences were isolated, idosyncratic planets at various tech levels, and a distant, indifferent empire.

"Flandry of Terra" was a collection of three short stories. The first was set on a watery world, where ships and scuba gear are a common part of daily life. The second was on a cold planet, mostly frozen tundra, with strange indigenous species. In the third, Flandry is greeted by a local official who informs him, "The atmosphere has a virulent pathogen in it, here's your first dose of the antidote, don't make trouble, or else, have a nice day." Talk about 'tainted atmosphere'!

At least one of these worlds had been settled centuries ago, then forgotten, lost in the vast Imperial bureaucracy. The best information came from non-human Betelgeugian traders, imune to the pathogen, who sometimes stopped there. This seems like a good setup for Traveller.

"Trader P'sthpok says the natives there are hostile."
"It says here the naitives are friendly."
"When was that report filed?"
"Uh... 961 Imperial."
"That's almost 140 years ago!"
"That's what happens when you cut the Scouts' budget..."

 

[kafka47]

It definitely lacks the women. The number of times in my game that an all-male party of PCs has bypassed the strip clubs, brothels and seedy pickup joints and gone straight for the male Patron for a series of all - male firefights in dark alleys ... that is disturbing.

I wouldn't mind, but the players are all straight males.

What I have done in the past (as I am influenced by 70s SF) is to have the patron meet them in the brothel, strip club, etc. This way it is more realistic. Think of how business is done in Japan. Nothing like a psionic hooker to tell the patron whether the characters intentions are indeed pure and true.

I agree the cover is tame (otherwise, Baen could not sell that kind of book) however, it gives thought that Traveller although has its roots in the Pulps it does not have a pulpish attitude. Everyone in Traveller seems rather stuck up and busy at work. Yes, realistic, but part of RPGs is wishfulfillment, ain't it? Sure, it is reflected in the actual play but I think that one of the reasons D&D keeps on creaming us on the art front. There is an element of play in the art both with the audience and artist & between player and game manufacturer.

 

[Enoff]

Been having fun reading and rereadings some Poul Anderson.

Just finished "The Rebel Worlds".

I don't have the article in front of me but an interview with Mark Miller has him quoting Poul Anderson, Arthur C. Clark and H. Beam Piper as some of his major influences.

 

[aramis]

Been having fun reading and rereadings some Poul Anderson.

Just finished "The Rebel Worlds".

I don't have the article in front of me but an interview with Mark Miller has him quoting Poul Anderson, Arthur C. Clark and H. Beam Piper as some of his major influences.

His non-Flandry stuff shows a lot more influence than the descriptions of the Flandry stuff.

 

[ShapeShifter]

A) The more sexy women on the covers of books, the better.
B) However, if it's just there for shelf-appeal and does not reflect the contents of the book/movie/etc. I am disappointed.

I yearn for the good old days of trippy, surreal Richard M. Powers covers.

SciFi is strongly sex-free, at least in TV/movies. It is relatively rare, IME, in written SciFi too. On behalf of many fans of the genre: THIS MUST CHANGE!!!

* * * * * *

I might have read some Poul Anderson in the past, but honestly, I cannot remember ever being that impressed.

I guess my tastes in the genre have changed. I'm tired of the dark, gritty stuff, and not interested in the Star Wars stuff, but instead returning to the pre-SW genre of tail-landing rocket ships and square-jawed spacemen who rescue helpless females (whose own suits are delightfully skin-tight) from evil, bug-eyed, gelatinous aliens.

I'm starting to get into rewatching 50's SciFi flicks (Destination Moon, Conquest of Space, When World Collide, Rocketship X-M, etc.), and reading the string of Heinlein juveniles for research/inspiration for a retro-Traveller campaign. I don't know how influential they were for CT, so I may have to alter ship design rules and other things (like removing jump tech, keeping things solely within the Sol system, frex).

 

[Vargr]

SciFi is strongly sex-free, at least in TV/movies. It is relatively rare, IME, in written SciFi too. On behalf of many fans of the genre: THIS MUST CHANGE!!!

You sir, have obviously never read anything by Silverberg, or the recent Brazilian Sci-Fi that is graphically ⌧ographic.:smirk:

 

[ShapeShifter]

You sir, have obviously never read anything by Silverberg, or the recent Brazilian Sci-Fi that is graphically ⌧ographic.:smirk:

*steeples fingers*

Well, my good man, let's see some proof of this salacious allegation.

 

[beowulf2044]

ShapeShifter, you and I are thinking alike (that should frighten one of us at least). I too am working on a retro-Traveller setting, Sol system/fusion engine only and strongly influenced by Tom Corbett. Or as I like to describe it; what if Traveller was written in 1959 instead of 1979?