Meanwhile, I am still reading about SM Stirling's Shadowspawn for the first time. The secret rulers of Earth are arrogant enough to ride the Orient Express into the center of Vienna and to disembark in full view of the watching public.
After bodily death, a Shadowspawn may survive for many millennia in a post-corporeal form composed not of "soul" but of energy. This quantum mechanical construct will eventually succumb either to violence or to accident but, meanwhile, can incarcerate a captured human psyche in a literal Hell that will last as long as the incorporeal Shadowspawn does. It is the source of the myth of an endless Hell.
Hell is the worst idea that anyone has imagined. Imagine deliberately inflicting it on someone. Some people have believed that they had the power to do this.
The Shadowspawn are so fratricidal that they might exterminate themselves. The more of them that are dead by the end of this third volume of the trilogy, the better.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I look forward to getting both the third Psychotechnic volume by Anderson AND Stirling's BLACK CHAMBER!
The arrogance of the Shadowspawn bosses as they traveled to Vienna was based on the based on the belief that soon they would no longer need to act in secret--but they would openly declare themselves the masters of the world.
Except I don't believe Hell to be a mere myth. Our Lord, who is truth incarnate and cannot lie, warned us Hell is real. Also, I have to insist that no one goes to Hell who does not, ultimately, CHOOSE to go there. And, yes, it was HELLISH of how many of the Shadowspawn torment their victims, in post-bodily forms, in their memory palaces.
I think you need to keep in mind that one important factor limiting the fratricidal tendencies of the Shadowspawn was their dependence on their human renfields. These stooges not only took care of many of the practical details of their lives, they acted as a kind of damper or buffer for the Shadowspawn.
I agree on the need and desirability of executing practically all adult Shadowspawn (very rare exceptions being any who were like Adrian Breze). But I would spare their children, on the grounds that no one should be put to death (or the Final Death) for crimes he has not committed. What is your opinion?
And many of the worst renfields also need to be executed for their own crimes, aiding and abetting those of the Shadowspawn.
Sean
Sean,
Agreed do not kill anyone for crimes not yet committed. I am against the death penalty anyway but it is always possible to imagine horrible cases where killing a murderer would be the safest option. Frank Miller's Bruce Wayne asks, "Joker, how many people have I killed by not killing you?"
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
In principle, I am not against the death penalty, as long as it's limited to punishing the worst crimes and is also hard and difficult to impose.
And Miller's Bruce Wayne asked a good question! Executing a serial killer means that murderer is unable to kill more innocents.
Sean
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