The Star Fox
First edition | |
Author | Poul Anderson |
---|---|
Cover artist | Johannes Regn |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre | Science fiction |
Publisher | Doubleday |
Publication date | 1965 |
Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
Pages | 274 |
OCLC | 1801279 |
The Star Fox is a science fiction novel by Poul Anderson, first published in 1965. It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1965. [1]
Fixup status
The novel is a fixup of the stories "Marque and Reprisal", "Arsenal Port" and "Admiralty", originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction from February to June 1965.
Plot summary
The Star Fox is set during a period of conflict between humanity and an alien race named the Aleriona, specifically, the conflict between the wily Gunnar Heim and his Alerionian adversary, Cynbe ru Taren, the Aleriona "Intellect Master of the Garden of War" who has been trained in the ways of human thought to the extent that he is alienated from his own race. Heim begins as a privateer in his illegally outfitted ship the Fox II (named after his old military ship, the Star Fox), waging a one-man war on the Aleriona who ultimately forces Earth into conflict, as he realises that the Alerionan desire to rule all other species is almost impossible to defeat. Throughout the novel, Heim and Cynbe develop a grudging respect for each other's skills, culminating in a tragic final conflict.
Themes
It is typical of Anderson's work that both Gunnar Heim and Cynbe are depicted sympathetically and honourably, in a manner not dissimilar to the depiction of Dominic Flandry and his Chereionite adversary Aycharaych in his "Terran Empire" stories. Anderson also makes a scathing comment on the anti-Vietnam War movement in his introduction of a pacifist group named "World Militants for Peace". Freedom, as Anderson sees it, may come from the expansion of humanity into space, particularly with regard to the planet of New Europe. Unlike Anderson's Mirkheim, which is inhabited by intelligent life, or the barely tolerable Rustum from Orbit Unlimited, New Europe is Earth-like and filled with native life-forms, albeit non-sentient.
The Libertarian Futurist Society says the novel espouses libertarian themes and the book was inducted into the Prometheus Award Hall of Fame by the Society in 1995. In the same year, Anderson won the main Prometheus award for his novel The Stars Are Also Fire.[2]
Continuity
Gunnar Heim also appears in Anderson's 1974 novel Fire Time.
References
External links
- The Star Fox title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- v
- t
- e
- Earthman's Burden
- Star Prince Charlie
- Hoka!
- Star Ways
- The Snows of Ganymede
- Virgin Planet
- The Psychotechnic League
- Cold Victory
- Starship
Polesotechnic League period of Nicholas van Rijn |
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Terran Empire period of Dominic Flandry |
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- Orbit Unlimited
- New America
- Maurai and Kith
- Orion Shall Rise
- Flight to Forever
- Vault of the Ages
- Brain Wave
- Question and Answer
- No World of Their Own
- The Long Way Home
- Perish by the Sword
- War of Two Worlds
- The Enemy Stars
- The High Crusade
- Murder in Black Letter
- Twilight World
- After Doomsday
- The Makeshift Rocket
- Murder Bound
- Shield
- Three Worlds to Conquer
- The Corridors of Time
- The Star Fox
- The Fox, the Dog and the Griffin: A Folk Tale Adapted from the Danish of C. Molbeck
- World Without Stars
- Tau Zero
- The Byworlder
- The Dancer from Atlantis
- There Will Be Time
- Fire Time
- Inheritors of Earth
- The Winter of the World
- The Avatar
- The Demnon of Scattery
- The Devil's Game
- The Boat of a Million Years
- The Saturn Game
- The Longest Voyage
- War of the Gods
- Starfarers
- Genesis
- Mother of Kings
- For Love and Glory
- Strangers from Earth
- Un-Man and Other Novellas
- Time and Stars
- The Horn of Time
- Beyond the Beyond
- Seven Conquest
- Tales of the Flying Mountains
- The Queen of Air and Darkness and Other Stories
- The Worlds of Poul Anderson
- The Many Worlds of Poul Anderson
- Homeward and Beyond
- The Best of Poul Anderson
- Homebrew
- Winners
- The Night Face & Other Stories
- The Dark Between the Stars
- Explorations
- Fantasy
- Winners
- Cold Victory
- The Gods Laughed
- Starship
- The Winter of the World / The Queen of Air and Darkness
- Conflict
- The Long Night
- Past Times
- The Unicorn Trade
- Dialogue With Darkness
- Space Folk
- Alight in the Void
- The Armies of Elfland
- Inconstant Star
- Kinship With the Stars
- All One Universe
- Going for Infinity
- Swordsmen from the Stars
- Operation Chaos
- Operation Luna
- Three Hearts and Three Lions
- The Broken Sword
- Hrolf Kraki's Saga
- A Midsummer Tempest
- The Merman's Children
- Conan the Rebel
- War of the Gods
- The Golden Slave
- Rogue Sword
- Mother of Kings
- "Brake"
- "Call Me Joe"
- "Delenda Est"
- "Entity"
- "Eutopia"
- "Goat Song"
- "The Light"
- "The Longest Voyage"
- "The Man Who Came Early"
- "Marius"
- "Memory"
- "Night Piece"
- "No Truce with Kings"
- "The Pirate"
- "The Queen of Air and Darkness"
- "Quest"
- "Sam Hall"
- "The Saturn Game"
- "The Sensitive Man"
- "The Sharing of Flesh"
- "Un-Man"