The first two stories are entirely skippable, and in fact probably should be skipped (the first one particularly is mediocre at best), but the last three are very good – they actually engage with questions of ethics and Empire in interesting ways, and have some passages of very beautiful prose. ( )

This is another excellent collection of short fiction by Poul Anderson - one of the most prolific and imaginative writers of science fiction and fantasy. If Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein are the "Big Three" of science fiction, Anderson is clearly in the next set, a half notch behind them at most.

This set of short stories details the fall and aftermath of the Terran Empire featured in the Dominic Flandry series of stories. The book cover says "van Rijn saw it coming, Flandry lived through it", which makes limited sense, as by the time the various stories in this book take place, Flandry would have likely been long dead. That's not really a problem for the book itself though, as the stories are uniformly good to excellent. My favorites are The Star Plunderer (which also appears in the Galactic Empires anthology), and Starfog, but every story here is worth reading. ( )

These tales tell of the time after the good times have come crashing to a halt. Those times between the relative islands of calm and civilisation that lay between. These are tales of hope (mostly) and bravery of the individuals and worlds that had made up the huge mega civilisations of the Polesotechnic League and the Terran Empire that replaced it as they come to terms with the disappearance of order in their back yards.

Thesde stories show Poul Anderson's brilliant ability to imagine various alien civilisations and alien species and how they might interact with humanity ( )