A Little History

In Poul Anderson and Gordon R Dickson's Earthman's Burden (New York, 1979), the Hokas do not become entirely immersed in their roles because, for example, they can remember sharing out the roles and can criticize each others' dialects.

Jones has learned to negotiate with the Hokas by accepting the terms of whatever is their current role instead of by trying to override it. At the end of the pirates story, he prevents what might have become a bloodbath by, just out of sight of the Hokas, as if in a radio drama, enacting a sword fight between two of his own personae, the plenipotentiary and a pirate admiral. This is appropriate since the entire pirates scenario is a drama in any case.

I had enjoyed the Holmesian London and was none too pleased to be yanked away from it into a fantastic piratical milieu but it became possible to learn a little history from the latter. The Hokas' "pirates" are either fictional, like Long John Silver, or historical, like Henry Morgan and Anne Bonney. I had not heard of Bonney but google confirms her historicity and I wondered whether she was related to William Bonney of whom we knew through "Western" fiction in the fifties. (Addendum: Or is she Anne Bonny?)

In the concluding story, Jones must rescue his wife from the natives of the next planet. This need not have been a Hoka episode but, of course, the story stays on message as Jones rounds up Hoka mercenaries from the desert where Arabs and Legionnaires are to be found. (His job has previously involved ensuring that they are not killing each other.) The story's title, "The Tiddlywink Warriors," the significance of which as yet eludes me (I am still reading), had not clarified what kind of Hoka sub-culture would be highlighted.

The natives of the second planet, treating Mrs Jones, as she thinks, like a goddess, are force feeding her with native food which is making her FAT, which is why she urgently requests rescue over the subspace radio. Surely there is an obvious alternative possibility, that they are fattening her up as a sacrificial victim...