Again Vadasz to the Aleriona:
"'Humans live mostly for their children...'" (p. 185)
Is that true? Some people do not have children. Those who do adopt very different attitudes to them and, usually, lead a life separate from parenthood in any case. My attitude to my single daughter has been the opposite of my parents' attitude to myself and my two sisters but let's not go into that!
In any case, Vadasz is feeding a line, or a lie, to the Aleriona whether or not he believes it himself.
Heim leans over a river:
"'Here's a basic human symbol,' Heim said. 'A river, bound to the sea, bound to flood a whole countryside if you dam it. Motion, power, destiny, time itself.'" (p. 186)
Now this we can wholeheartedly agree with this. We remember the Time Patrol. A river is a powerful symbol of life and history.
But Heim has a pragmatic motive. Despite the armed guards at his back, he plunges his captor, Cynbe, and himself into the river... An Andersonian escape.
3 comments:
Poul made the point several times in the Technic series that humans see aliens -- and aliens see humans -- as mildly comic stereotypes, the Bluff Warrior, the Cunning Merchant, and so forth.
This is because the genuinely alien parts are, well, -alien-.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I remember some of those occasions myself, such as Flandry's reflections on his relationship with Chives in A STONE IN HEAVEN.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I disagree with this seeming minimizing of how parents regard their children. There has been a good deal of anger in the US the last few years from parents outraged by things like the transgender insanity being pushed on them by woke leftists.
Ad astra! Sean
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