Saturday 19 January 2019

Eating And Ending

(Genghis Khan, the Ancestor.)

Two authors whom we compare with Poul Anderson we now briefly compare with each other, with a guest appearance by CS Lewis.

"I just saw the Ancestor's emissaries devour a man's soul."
-SM Stirling, The Sky-Blue Wolves (New York, 2018), CHAPTER TWENTY, p. 332.

"'The thing that called itself Screwtape let slip to Lewis that demons do eat souls.'"
-James Blish, The Day After Judgement IN Blish, After Such Knowledge (London, 1991), pp. 427-522 AT p. 432.

At the end of The Sky-Blue Wolves, Orlaith says that the ending is a beginning whereas Reiko replies that both are illusions and that there is only life, unchanged by the Change.

"'Every end,' Wagoner wrote on the wall of his cell on the last day, 'is a new beginning.'"
-James Blish, They Shall Have Stars IN Blish, Cities In Flight (London, 1981), pp. 7-129 AT CODA, p. 129.

"Creation began."
-James Blish, The Triumph Of Time IN Cities In Flight, pp. 467-596 AT CHAPTER EIGHT, p. 596.

For a Lewis-Stirling comparison, see Visions Of Heaven.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

C.S. Lewis? I remember how he graphically he wrote in THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS how the demons love to feast on the agony, anguish, rage, and despair of the damned. A notion Stirling may have picked up from Lewis for the scene you mentioned from THE SKY-BLUE WOLVES.

Sean