Here is another logical consequence of the Hoka premise:
"...his anachronistic charges had recently led Alex to develop skill with sword, bow and lance..." (p. 174)
Of course! Not skills that a plenipotentiary would normally need or acquire but the circumstances on Toka are such that Alex must often defend himself with primitive weapons while thinking how to resolve a new impasse.
He reflects on his recently acquired military prowess because he is about to deal with the Telks who are neither tall nor tusked but nevertheless broad, hairless, muscular, green, four-armed, war-like and naked except for weapons. In other words, Telks sound like smaller T---ks (fill in the blanks), another sword-wielding race in an sf series.
OK. I must try to stop posting and finish reading.
11 comments:
Hi, Paul!
The tall, green, tusked, four armed "tarks" in Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom tales?
Sean
Tharks.
Also, a capital "T." Thark and Warhoon were two cities on the coasts of ancient Barsoomian (Martian) seas. The seas dried up and the city-dwellers died or evolved into later Martian races. Now, green hordes camp in the dead cities and have stolen even their names. Thus, "Thark" and "Warhoon" have become the names of the two largest hordes, always at war with each other. John Carter alone temporarily united Thark, Warhoon and lesser hordes to attack Zodanga, a city of the red men and the main opponent of Helium (also red men).
The hordes sacked Zodanga. Carter married Dejah Thoris, daughter of the Jed of Lesser Helium and granddaughter of the Jeddak of Helium. Carter, friend of Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, forged an otherwise impossible alliance between green Thark and red Helium.
Helium, Thark and their allies later deprived Carter of his title Prince of Helium and instead proclaimed him Jeddak of Jeddaks, Warlord of Barsoom!
Hi, Paul!
I sit corrected, it's "Thark," for the four armed green Martians. Yes, the Barsoom tales written by ERB were fun to read. And when read carefully, you will find a surprising amount of material in it which justifies serious thought. And, of course, Burroughs may have been inspired in part by Kipling's JUNGLE BOOKS (if he read them). Some critics classify the Barsoom books as "scientifantasy."
I enjoyed the Barsoom tales more than I had the Tarzan stories I read as a boy. But I've thought of rereading the earliest Tarzan books. The Tarzan stories seem to belong to both the lost/feral child and lost civilization/races yarns. Similar in some ways to the books of Sir Henry Rider Haggard (e.g., KING SOLOMON'S MINES).
Sean
Sean,
Tarzan taught himself to read English from a children's picture book. Impossible.
And he knew how to write his name in Roman letters. Also impossible.
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
THAT I don't recall. I agree, impossible for a single person, alone by himself, to teach himself how to read any language or alphabet. Kipling's Mowgli was far more realistic!
Sean
Sean,
It happened in TARZAN OF THE APES. This is one of several things that I dislike about the series, the little of it that I have read. (We have developed an ERBian sub-discussion here.)
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
All the same, the Tarzan mythos has strucked an unexpectedly deep chord with many fans of Burroughs. Maybe I should get an annotated edition of TARZAN OF THE APES, where the editor points out interesting, peculiar, or puzzling points in the story.
Also, I think feral children who have been raised among animals may become so warped that it's impossible to "humanize" them after age or amount of time has passed. For Burroughs to ignore this would be another bit of unrealism in his Tarzan stories.
Poul Anderson touched on this theme of feral children in one of his stories, where a child from a far more advanced alien race was stranded on Earth and raised by the humans of our world. And when he was able to eventually make contact with his own race, the cast away was told it was too late, he had become too warped to fit in with his own people.
Sean
Sean,
If the linguistic capacity of the human brain is not activated very early, then the brain gets stuck in a pre-linguistic stage.
Yes, we discussed that Anderson story a while back, not that I can remember its title right now.
Paul.
This might be better posted where you discuss "High Crusade", but as long as you are talking about sword use in a fiction that includes spaceships, I will point you to this:
http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/2007/09/spaceship-and-sword.html
"Spaceship and Sword
These two tropes combine, above all others, to signify space opera - the real thing; statuesque, full throated, with a bronze bra and a spear."
;)
Kaor, Jim!
IOW, rather like some of the stories Anderson wrote for PLANET STORIES, complete with the wonderfully weird and exuberantly garish covers that magazine was fond of! Anderson was able to rationalize the use of swords in futuristic, high tech setting in stories such as "Tiger Bu The Tail" and "Honorable Enemies."
Ad astra! Sean
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