Harvest Of Stars begins with its Epilogue;
The Stars Are Also Fire begins "Long Afterward...";
the narrative present of The Stars Are Also Fire is a sequel to Harvest whereas the alternating "The Mother of the Moon" chapters are a prequel;
there are two further volumes.
We do not necessarily read past history in chronological order and this also applies to future history.
In a future history series, the viewpoint character of an earlier installment may be a historical figure in a later installment. Rereading the Harvest of Stars future history out of order, we notice that:
in Volume II, Ian Kenmuir flies Kyra Davis' ritually maintained historical spaceship;
Kyra Davis is the viewpoint character of Volume I, chapter 1;
by rereading Volume I, we will refamiliarize ourselves with Kyra's historical achievements.
Kyra's opening gambit is to approach and enter a building called the Blue Theta while engaged in some kind of cloak and dagger activity connected with Anson Guthrie. Let us hope for more of the futurology and less of the cloak and dagger.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I don't mind cloak and dagger stories when they are done well! Or stories of derring do and adventure, such as the Basoom stories of ERB, because of how well he does them, never mind the scientific bloopers he makes.
Action, adventure, derring do, conflict, etc., those are the things that makes the futurology of stories like the HARVEST OF STARS books INTERESTING, makes readers willing to keep reading them. If these stories were presented like futuristic textbooks on sociology and political science, I don't think many would bother reading them.
Sean
Sean,
But novels can be about human interactions that do not involve chases and fights.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Of course! But even stories focusing on human interactions without fights or chases usually need some kind of problem or "conflict" to make them interesting. Even Jane Austen's novels of manners and social life had plots featuring problems.
Sean
Post a Comment