Gold And Blue

Poul Anderson has taught us to look out for appeals to at least three of the senses in any descriptive passage. Sometimes finding such a passage feels like rereading part of a work by Anderson, e.g.:

"Dawn was a beautiful haze of gold and blue. Bond went outside and ate his bean curd and rice and drank his tea sitting on the spotless doorstep of the little cut-stone and timbered house, while indoors the family chattered like happy sparrows as the women went about their housework."
-Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice (London, 1966), p. 126.

The women are compared to happy sparrows but, on the last page, Bond will think that his love for Kissy Suzuki is "...of as little account as sparrow's tears." (p. 190) Anderson fans might remember Dominic Flandry leaving Kit at the end of "Hunters of the Sky Cave." In both cases, the heroine of this episode of the series has helped the hero to defeat his enemies but now the episode ends and the hero leaves.