Salvation

Real life is becoming somewhat intense, don't you think? At least it is for a lot of people. On this blog, we refer to current affairs when they are relevant to works of fiction. Any discussion (just about!) is acceptable in the combox. (Any racist remarks would be removed but we never get any of them, anyway.)

I have twice referred to a gaunt man who shouts of some obscure salvation in Centauri on Avalon in Poul Anderson's The People Of The Wind. That detail resonates with our current experience. An Evangelical propagandist tells me that his deity is transforming him from within. If this is so, then I judge that he himself is currently impeding that transformation by over-confidence and arrogance and by propagating divisive falsehoods, accusing some of his hearers of transgressions of which they are certainly innocent. Some of what is said comes from the Devil - to use that apocalyptic language.

"By their fruits you shall know them."

Poul Anderson conveys the sense of street life in many cities past, present, future and extraterrestrial. Walking through Lancaster, I think of Centauri. Shouted salvation is just one detail.