Coya's nickname for van Rijn, "Gunung Tuan," (p. 647) is a geographical term. See here.
"The League self-regulation was breaking down, competition grew ever more literally cutthroat, and governments snarled not only at the capitalists but at each other. The Pax Mercatorica was drawing to an end and, while [Coya] had never wholly approved of it, she sometimes dreaded the future." (p. 652)
Thus, a time of transition and a slightly different perspective from that of the series character, van Rijn.
The omniscient narrator, summarizing the cosmic role of supernovae, says that they:
"...have given us all the heavier elements, some of them vital, in our worlds and our bodies." (ibid.)
Two observations here:
the words "us" and "our" imply a later historical narrator;
the evolution of stars and life is a long process of change transcending the historical transition that is the main focus of this story.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And "Gunung Tuan" immediately reminded me of how Old Nick was of Dutch/Indonesian ancestry AND of the planet Unan Besar. The latter was colonized by people of largely Malay origin. Basically the same ethnicity van Rijn partly descended from. And we even see mention of Old Nick on Unan Besar in the much later "The Plague of Masters."
Sean
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