Saturday, 13 October 2018

Imported Weather

Poul Anderson, The Stars Are Also Fire, 26, pp. 353-354.

When Dagny Beynac hears that her son, Kaino, has died, she sets the large viewscreen in her living room to a scene that fits her mood, then plays it from Lunar dawnwatch. I think we are to understand that the scene is multi-sensory. It is as if Dagny's room is alone in extreme Terrestrial weather:

surf crashes on a winter shore;
waves and sky are gray;
water hisses up the sand;
bleached, skeletal driftwood lies beneath cliffs;
low wrack flies like smoke;
spray and rain mingle;
skirl and rumble shake the air;
there is a tang of salt and a breath of chill.

If this is indeed multi-sensory, then all five senses are addressed. Would you like that in your living room?

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I don't think Dagny Beynac LIKED or enjoyed this, it simply FITTED her bleak, grim mood as she mourned her son's death.

Sean