"The ancestors had decided that the Lord of the Volcano must always be male..." (p. 112)
That sounds familiar but is not what we think:
"...to counterbalance the preponderance of females who took the initiative in household and clan affairs." (ibid.)
A gender role reversal is an easy one - in the Technic History, see also the planet Cynthia - but one of the tasks of sf writers is to imagine surprising social reversals, then to make them seem plausible. SM Stirling's Draka certainly surprise us.
On the desert planet, Dune, spitting at another man's feet is an expression of allegiance because it demonstrates willingness to spend precious body water on his behalf. An Ythrian of the New Faith thinks that it is right to withhold pain-killers from someone who is dying in order to enable that person to give God the Hunter a good fight. Tachwyr must ask Flandry whether he is still a bachelor in Anglic because the Eriau equivalent would be an insult. In "The Midas Plague" by Frederik Pohl, about over-production, everyone has a duty to consume so it is polite to let the other person pay for a meal in a restaurant.
Sf must be full of examples.
7 comments:
kaor, paul!
I think I recall reading somewhere of Stirling being creeped out by readers who told him of how they LIKED his monstrous Draka.
sean
Sean: yeah. I've also been surprised (but not creeped out) by people converting to various religions because of characters I wrote practicing them.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I hope you don't like the horrible religion of the Peacock Angel in THE PESHAWAR LANCERS, worshiping Satan and practicing human sacrifices and cannibalism.
Ad astra! Sean
Drat! I meant to write I hoped Stirling did not have readers who liked the ghastly cult of the Peacock Angel!
Sean
Sean: Not so far. The biggest ones have been Catholicism, Anglicanism and Wicca, oddly enough -- I've had a fair number write me saying they were inspired to look into them by characters in my books.
I take this as evidence the characterizations were successful... 8-).
I agree. If an author presents Catholics etc empathetically, then some readers will become interested in Catholicism etc.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Like Anderson you are very good at depicting characters sympathetically, including those you disagree with. Even Count Ignatieff had some good qualities!
I mean no offense to its believers, but I can't neo-paganism seriously, intellectually speaking.
Ad astra! Sean
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