"Hours built into days while the fleets, in their widely scattered divisions, felt for and sought each others throats."
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 519.
But then he directly, conversationally, addresses the reader:
"Consider: at a linear acceleration of one Terran gravity, a vessel can, from a 'standing start,' cover one astronomical unit..." (ibid.)
I think that "Consider:..." is inappropriate. It introduces a paragraph about velocity and distance. This is information that Anderson wanted to convey to the reader but which should have been put into the mouth of a protagonist or fictional observer rather than inserted into the flow of the narrative in a way that makes us aware of being directly addressed. Stylistically, this distracts us from the content of the passage. We ask: "Who is addressing us?" etc.
There is a more effective interaction between dialogue and narration a few pages later, when:
"[The Admiral's] glance traveled from screen to screen on the comboard. Faces looked out, some human, some nonhuman, but each belonging to an officer of Imperial Terra. He found it hard to meet those eyes." (p. 543)
(We wonder about the species of the nonhuman officers and what their eyes looked like.)
Admiral Cajal says:
"'We had no idea what fortifications had been created for Avalon -'" (p. 544)
- and continues without pausing:
"'- and the defenders used our ignorance brilliantly.'" (ibid.)
Cajal's sentence is interrupted for us, although not for his hearers, because the omniscient narrator inserts three paragraphs beginning, "In orbit...," "On the surface..." and "In the air..."
In orbit
Hundreds of automated stations exclusively powering defensive screens and offensive projectors, guarding supply craft shuttling from the surface.
On the surface and on the moon
A grid of negafield-shielded detectors, launch tubes and immense energy weapons, buried, underwater, on the ground or at sea.
In the air
Patrolling pursuit craft.
The Avalonian Admiralty has constructed these fortifications in secret and Cajal goes on to explain how this must have been done...
5 comments:
One point in favor of that "Consider..." is that putting the information into the mouth of a protagonist would mean he or she had to be talking to someone who DIDN'T already know it. Anderson would need to include a person in the conversation who was unfamiliar with the capabilities of Imperial ships. If he had no other reason for including such a person than to convey the information to the reader -- well, that would be kind of clumsy writing.
Having a naval officer simply think about the data could also be somewhat flawed, as he or she is then mentally rehashing facts already well known ... and if the observer isn't a member of the Terran navy, the question again comes up of WHY he or she is present in the first place.
David,
You have made a case for the info being imparted directly by the omniscient narrator. However, I still think that the imperative verb, "Consider..." is rather clumsy, drawing our attention to the fact that someone (who?) is addressing us rather than just delivering the info as seamlessly as possible.
Paul.
Gentlemen:
David: Yes, you have made a good argument for why the remarks beginning with "Consider" were not addressed to another character in the story. An untrained and inexperienced civilian has no BUSINESS being aboard a war craft as combat was beginning. And a special and rare case such as that of Dragoika the Tigery in Chapter 17 of ENSIGN FLANDRY centuries later was simply not what see here in THE PEOPLE OF THE WIND.
Paul: Would it have been better if Poul Anderson had not used "Consider" in the sentence beginning "Consider: at a linear acceleration of one Terran gravity..."? That is, if the text here began thus: "At a linear acceleration of one Terran gravity..."?
Sean
Sean,
Yes. "Consider:" is unnecessary and distracting.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree, once you pointed it out. BUT, I fear many readers, including myself, would not have noticed it. I have read THE PEOPLE OF THE WIND at least three times and I don't think I've ever mentally "tripped" over that use of "Consider." Only goes to show I'm not an observant reader!
Sean
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