Thursday 23 November 2017

Jehovah And The Storm Goddess

In Poul Anderson's Three Worlds To Conquer, when an Admiral addresses Ganymedean insurrectionists through the main transmitter at full amplitude, his dialogue is capitalized:

"'ATTENTION, INSURRECTIONISTS!'"
-Poul Anderson, Three Worlds To Conquer (London, 1966), Chapter 7, p. 54.

He goes on like that. This is described as "...the Jehovah voice..." (op. cit., p. 55)

In Anderson's Starfarers, when Nivala speaks through an amplifier:

"Her voice rang as loud as the voice of some ancient storm goddess."
-Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999), Chapter 21, p. 199.

I am certainly alone in being reminded of the Jehovah voice by the voice of the storm goddess but this coincidence has refocused my attention on Three Worlds To Conquer which might be a good book to reread. I said here that I had not found the cover of my edition on google but now I have. See image. A search of the blog shows how often I have posted about this novel before, e.g., Hardware and Echoes Of Heinlein. Or: search for the name of the Jovian character, Theor. However, there is always more to be said.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And this comment about thundering "Jehovah" voices reminded me, by contrast, of 3 Kings 19.12: "And after the earthquake a fire: the Lord is not in the fire, and after the fire a whistling of a gentle air." And after hearing this gentle whisper of a wind Elijah covered his face before God. The point being that God is not to be TRULY found in flashy, dramatic, noisy, ostentatious signs and wonders, but in His gentle, quiet promptings.

Sean