Does Valeria have it rather easy on the Moon? She lands on the demon-infested Moon but:
she lands among the exiled Fair Folk;
they tell her that there are less than a hundred demons;
the demons are scattered because, although they were expecting Valeria, they did not know where she would land;
three attack;
she kills them, following her sentient sword's good advice ("...no silly overhead cuts leaving your belly wide open..." (p. 420);
a fairy enters her broomstick to help it back to Earth;
she takes off just as more demons swarm over the horizon.
12 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I recall you making similar comments wondering if Poul Anderson sometimes made it too easy for his heroes to get out of tight corners. I don't think that was necessarily so if they were also EXPERIENCED military men capable of acting and moving SPEEDILY and decisively (such as Dominic Flandry and Steven Matuchek himself). But, it might be just a little implausible for Valeria to have dispatched THREE demons. Two or even one might have been more likely.
Sean
Paul and Sean:
If there're less than a hundred demons on the moon, the EPA will get after Val for killing three members of an endangered species.
Hi, David!
Ha, ha!!! Amusingly put! Alas, given our whacked out times, there would all too likely be idiots who would do precisely that!
And I remembered to address the right person THIS time!
Sean
I recall seeing a webpage deploring the imminent extinction of the Guinea Worm. It took careful reading to be *sure* it was tongue in cheek.
(Note: the Guinea Worm is a nasty parasite. The Gates Foundation among those funding the information campaign, where it has been endemic, about how to stop its transmission & so drive it extinct.)
Similarly I saw a video making fun of the Noah Flood story, in which one of the sons of Noah complains "Do I have to be the one who keeps the breeding pair of fleas alive?".
Jim,
Brian Aldiss has a brilliant story set on the deck of Noah's Ark. We read about rain, the deck, animals in cages and the human characters and then realize where they are. Then they see another, bigger Ark. One deck has what we recognize as dinosaurs. Another has mythical beasts. Did the wrong Ark survive the Flood?
Paul.
Kaor, Jim and Paul!
Both: The Flood story is one of those parts of the OT subject to derision and mockery by some and uncritically accepted as literally true by others, esp. evangelical Protestants. I believe the Catholic view is far more nuanced and sensible: what was God teaching mankind under the form of an allegory, by inspired authors using an originally Mesopotamian flood story?
Ad astra! Sean
The Flood also represents a real catastrophe that did happen and is in Greek, Norse and other mythologies.
Paul:
Is the real catastrophe you mention the filling of the Black Sea?
There was a lot of good land flooded at the end of the last glacial period, some of it by gradual sea rise & some in swift changes like the Black Sea. That is recent enough that those are plausible real sources for flood myths, though of course those weren't world wide floods, just flooding everything some Neolithic farmer would have known by personal experience.
Jim,
I don't know! I think it is clear that there was a big catastrophe of some sort.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul and Jim!
Paul: I agree, at various times in the past localized but disastrous floods would be remembered via legends and myths. We are most familiar with the Mesopotamian/Biblical stories.
Jim: That I had not known, that the basin of what became the Black Sea filled in "recently" enough to be remembered thru flood legends.
Ad astra! Sean
See this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis
Note that it *is* hypothetical & also that IF it happened it would be c 6800 BC, so recent enough for legends to survive to be written down after a few millennia of oral tradition. I wouldn't expect accuracy over such a period, but the gist of a *big* flood would get through.
Kaor, Jim!
Thanks! Even if hypothetical, it was interesting to find out something as big as the Black Sea is so "young" a sea.
Ad astra! Sean
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