Robert Heinlein's Second American Revolutionaries overthrow the Prophet and establish the Covenant;
Poul Anderson's Grand Jihad is later followed by an international Covenant;
in both histories, good follows bad.
"'Are you from space?'
"'You sound North American but you bear yourself...proudly.'"
-Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, 5, p. 78.
Spacefarers walk with pride also in Anderson's Technic History and in Heinlein's Double Star. See:
Commuters
Opening Pages
These works read like parallel histories.
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Heinlein's pre-STRANGER IN A STRANG LAND books, such as DOUBLE STAR and SIXTH COLUMN are far better than the works beginning with STRANGER. Heinlein's later works tended to be dreary, rambling, tedious monologues about sex and incest. They show a tragic decline in his abilities as a writer.
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I looked up your link to "Opening Pages." I would like to focus here on opening PARAGRAPHS. I wrote in one of my essays that a skillful writer should know how to get readers interested in his story from the first paragraph alone. He should use that paragraph to get the reader asking questions about the story a to be willing to read on. I quoted the opening paragraphs of THE BROKEN SWORD,
A CIRCUS OF HELLS, and WE CLAIM THESE STARS as good examples from Anderson's works.
Sean
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