Earlier this year I started looking at what I’ve called for lack of a better term, the ebb and flow of empire. The last installment of this series was a while back and looked at the first half of The Van Rijn Method, an omnibus of the beginning of Poul Anderson’s future history.

We’ll look at the second half of the book here.

“A Sun Invisible” is a David Falkayn story. In this one he has to deal with an upstart group of invaders.

“The Season of Forgiveness” is a Christmas story. I’ve discussed it elsewhere.

The centerpiece of this half of the collection is the novel The Man Who Counts. In this one, Nicholas Van Rijn and two companions are on the far side of a planet when their flyer goes down. All of the food sources on the planet cause violent allergic reactions in humans. The locals are in the middle of a war, and neither side is interested in helping them get back to their outpost.

This tale is told from the perspective of one of Van Rijn’s employees, and employee who is not exactly thrilled with his boss. Van Rijn, from the employee’s perspective bullies and manipulates those around him into doing all the work. He’s not exactly wrong on that count, but Van Rijn’s methods do get results. I don’t buy one of the things Van Rihn does near the end to get himself out of a tight spot, but overall, this was a good novel.

Nest is “Esau”, also published under the title of “Birthright”. Here one of Van Rijn’s employees is explaining in person to his boss what happened on an outpost he was in charge of when a group of aliens arrived and tried to cut into Van Rijn’s operations.

The final story in this omnibus is “Hiding Place”. This is one of Anderson’s best stories. Van Rijn and his crew accidentally discover the secret base of some pirates who have been terrorizing the quadrant. Their ship isn’t a warship, so they try to make it back to a safe planet. The ship sustains damage. Their only option other than capture and death is to get help from a ship of an unknown alien race. Only this race has had run-ins with the pirates before. When Van Rijn and his crew enter the alien ship, they discover that it’s a zoo ship. The aliens are hiding among the animals. Van Rijn has to figure out which ones are the intelligent aliens. And they don’t have much time.

“Hiding Place” is one of my favorite science fiction stories. It’s smart, clever, and has an entertaining protagonist.

There are more Van Rijn and Falkayn stories, and I’ll post about them as I read the next omnibus in the series.