The characters devise an elaborate plan to smuggle the authentic download Guthrie off Earth despite all the heightened surveillance aimed specifically at apprehending him. I hope that the narrative moves on soon. A confrontation in space between Guthrie and anti-Guthrie will be of interest.
Familiar names, Winston P. Sanders and A.A. Craig, show up.
Valencia inputs a false message:
"How deftly Valencia stroked the keys. His head might have been a young Hermes' - no, a Pan's, or a Lucifer's - leaning intent above a mischief from which would be born music." (p. 211)
Gods remain important in imagination and art. Three appear here. Hermes is the viewpoint character of Poul and Karen Anderson's "A Feast for the Gods." Lucretius invokes Venus at the beginning of a philosophical poem which argues that the gods do not intervene in human affairs. The Lusiads involves the Olympians in its epic narrative. Poul Anderson's Hugh Valland helps a child to imagine and invoke Thor in a high tech future.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
IIRC, all that Hugh Valland did was to amuse a child sick with the common cold, to take her mind off the discomfort. I don't think he was telling her Thor was a real god. Just telling her a story, IOW.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Oh yes but my point is that gods are important even when only imagined.
Paul.
Paul: I agree. Human minds think in metaphors, and Gods are very effective ones.
Kaor, Paul!
The point I had in mind was thinking you were reading too much into what Hugh Valland did, simply being kind and amusing a child. Sometimes the simplest, most straightforward interpretation is best.
Ad astra! Sean
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