"'We're entering the home of all lawlessness,' said Donovan. 'The realm of magic, the outlaw world of werebeasts and nightgangers. Can't you hear the wings outside? These ghosts are only the first sign. We'll have a plague of witches soon.'" (p. 392)
Donovan exaggerates. The "ghosts" are telekinetic and will not be followed by werebeasts, nightgangers or witches. But this is clearly the premise for an sf-fantasy synthesis: scientific laws in known space but magical lawlessness in the Black Nebula; spacemen learning to adjust from science and aliens to magic and ghosts. CS Lewis' Ransom Trilogy suggests that this is a false distinction. Ransom encounters beings that are equally extra-terrestrial and supernatural.
"Ghost world, ghost army, marching through an echoing windy solitude to its own weird " (p. 408)
The rest of this paragraph makes clear that this description is metaphorical. The marching army comprises:
"The men of the Imperial Solar Navy..." (ibid.)
- but Anderson will later write heroic fantasies about men in long ships and their weirds.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
The illustration you chose reminded me of how I was dissatisfied the first time I read WAR OF THE GODS, because I thought it was too closely derived from Scandinavian mythology. But I changed my mind after I read WAR a second time, coming to a much higher opinion of the book.
WAR OF THE GODS, along with THE AVATAR, belongs to a subset of Anderson's works I needed to read more than once to properly appreciate.
Ad astra! Sean
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