As I did with several of Poul Anderson's works, I will post about Eon while reading it. This means that I get much more out of the text and also maybe that I share my reading experience. Some points will seem, or even be, trivial but hopefully the total effect will be more substantial.
POV wanders again. On p. 39:
"She was exhilarated..." (This is Patricia on her own.)
But six lines later:
"...she looked more practical, he thought." (This is Lanier arriving and appraising Patricia.)
This phrase:
"They...hauled him higher, higher, to his grandmother's archaic and welcome heaven." (p. 8)
- echoed:
"To Yuri Alexeievitch Garshin, the captain appeared as an angel from his grandmother's Heaven."
-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), p. 11.
Two young men who have been brought up in Communist regimes remember that their grandmothers believed in Heaven.
The Stone is a two hundred and twenty kilometer long cylinder divided into seven chambers, spun for centrifugal force and lit by a plasma tube extending along the axis but I do not understand all the technicalities, e.g.:
"...on a non-curved surface as the cylinders were, viewed parallel to the axis - the horizon was much higher." (p. 70)
Why are the cylinders non-curved when viewed parallel to the axis?
2 comments:
Cylinders are straight in one direction, along the axis, and curve in the other direction. If you're inside a large cylinder, and look in the. Axial direction, the cylinder won't curve in that direction, although you will notice some curvature with your peripheral vision.
Best Regards,
Nicholas
Nicholas,
Thank you. I did think of that explanation but then I wondered what its relevance would be. I will have to reread that part of the text.
Paul.
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