-Poul Anderson, There Will Be Time (New York, 1973), XV, p.169.
"A false front, a reassuring story told to children, a Potemkin village, a world pulled over the world's eyes."
-SM Stirling, Shadows Of Falling Night (New York, 2014), CHAPTER SEVENTEEN, p. 333.
Stage scenery, not intended to deceive, is fiction whereas Potemkin villages, intended to deceive, are lies. The world around us comprises many legal fictions, like nations and money, and also some disinformation, propaganda and lies. How much of the public domain as it presents itself to us is false?
Anderson's Time Patrol timeline incorporates Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series. Stirling's Shadowspawn timeline incorporates John Buchan's Richard Hannay series. Stirling's Emberverse incorporates some other Conan Doyles series - this was mentioned in the combox recently. We understand and appreciate fictional adaptations of other fictions while living with facts, fictions and falsehoods in "the real world."
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And I recall how remorseful Jack Havig was at having Caleb Wallis turned into a drugged and brainwashed "apparition" after overthrowing him and taking over the Eyrie. His view of Wallis was, when all was said and done, he was still a great man who deserved a better fate than that.
Yes, since about 1914 in Stirling's Shadowspawn books, the whole WORLD had become a Potemkin village, unbeknownst to most humans.
I disagree that nations are mere legal fictions. A people sharing a common language, history, culture, traditions, religion (sometimes) laws, etc., makes a nation more REAL than a legal fiction like a corporation being a legal "person."
And I do enjoy, when I catch on to them, how Anderson and Stirling makes allusions, echoes, references, etc., to other works in their stories. It adds color and depth to their own fictions.
Sean
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