"'A secret elevator in the back of the bedroom closet leading to the underground lair? Shouldn't this be in a volcano on a tropical island, or something? Either that or give onto a wilderness with a lamppost and a talking lion?'"
-SM Stirling, The Council Of Shadows (New York, 2012), CHAPTER SEVENTEEN, p. 371.
"'Definitely ought to be in a volcano. And you should have a Nehru jacket and be stroking a white Persian cat.'"
-op. cit., p. 375.
"'If you wanted James Bond, you sure were mistaken.'"
-Poul Anderson, The Corridors Of Time (Frogmore, St Albans, Herts, 1968), CHAPTER TWO, p. 18.
One reference to The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe and three to the James Bond films. Such popular cultural references can be multiplied endlessly, of course. And we are very familiar with transitions to other worlds. Poul Anderson has one character disappear from a beach during World War II and SM Stirling has another man find a Gate to a parallel Earth in his basement - a shimmering surface with an uncultivated landscape beyond it, if you stick your head through. We almost know what to expect.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I did immediately recognized these literary/cultural references! AND the reference to Anderson's THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS and Stirling's CONQUISTADOR.
I don't in the least know how I would react if I disappeared like that or discovered a shimmering, window like surface in my basement. Incompetently and badly, I suspect.
And Lady Sandra, in Stirling's Emberverse series, was fully as menacing and dangerous as Blofeld (far more so, in fact). And is often mentioned as being fond of Persian cats. A very Bondian touch!
Sean
Paul and Sean:
Philip Jose Farmer's World of Tiers series begins with the viewpoint character of the first book discovering just such a window-like gate to another universe in a house he's thinking of buying. As a result of going through the portal, he eventually discovers somewhat the same thing about himself that PA's Holger Carlsen did.
Kaor, DAVID!
An intriguing premise! Alas, Farmer is yet another SF writer with whose works I'm not familiar with. And I'm reminded again of how I've not read anything by Jack McDevitt. So many writers I've not read. Dang!
Sean
Sean:
By the way, as was mentioned in one of Paul's entries (Adrienne Rolfe's Library, 10 February 2016) on Conquistador, she has the second World of Tiers book, The Gates of Creation, on her shelf.
Three days after that post, in a comment on Beyond the Ice Wall, I gave a description of the World of Tiers' weird structure.
BTW, I very heartily recommend THE MAKER OF UNIVERSES, the first in Phil Farmer's "World of Tiers" series. This is grand-concept swashbuckling SF, pulp vigor combined with good writing.
You read it here, folks. Read Farmer!
Gentlemen,
DAVID, I looked up that blog piece of Paul's and I took special note of how two of Poul Anderson's books were listed, alongside Philip Jose Farmer's book.
Mr. Stirling, that is enough for me! I will get a copy of Farmer's THE MAKER OF UNIVERSES this summer.
Paul, I will! See above! (Smiles)
I've currently started reading Fr. Joseph Fitzmyer's RESPONSES TO 101 QUESTIONS ON THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS (Paulist: 1992).
Sean
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