On the goetic Earth -
NASA: National Astral Spellcraft Administration;
IRS: Inquisition for Revenue Securement;
CIA: Centrum for Illicit Arcana;
FBI: Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Every FBI agent has a degree in accountancy or sorcery and Agent Bob Shining Knife is a Native American medicine man who sometimes dresses accordingly.
In Robert Heinlein's Magic, Inc:
"...all G-men are either lawyers, magicians, or accountants..."
-Robert Heinlein, Waldo And Magic, Inc (London, 1975), p. 202.
When our hero fights a demon in Hell, another demon joins in on his side and turns out to be:
"'...Federal Agent William Kane, Bureau of Investigation.'" (p. 201)
Following a suspect into Hell, Kane had been unable to get out and:
"'...had about resigned myself to an eternity as a fake demon.'" (p. 202)
Satan says that he had hoped that his nephew Nebiros would be destroyed. Thus, as in some other works of fantasy, we find these two demonological oddities:
family relationships between demons;
demons that are not immortal but can be destroyed.
Anderson followed Heinlein in his treatments of Hell and of the FBI.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And the satirical names Poul Anderson gives to some well known US bureaucracies indicates his distaste for the top heavy bureaucratic state we have today in both the US and the UK. So MUCH of what government does today is badly, incompetently, wastefully, or oppressively carried out.
Sean
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