Rogatien Remillard is the historian of the Intervention and the Galactic Milieu as Hloch is of the Polesotechnic League and its influence on his species, the Ythrians. In both cases, fictional history is filtered through a single, unifying character although, of course, there are also major differences. Hloch comes on stage only in the interstitial passages of
The Earth Book Of Stormgate whereas Rogi is sometimes the first person narrator and, at other times, only one of the many third person characters in Julian May's future historical narrative.
The later part of the Technic History lacks a comparable narrator although, despite this, Dominic Flandry and, in just one passage, Chunderban Desai
do articulate their commentaries on historical processes. Their civilization moves towards not greater unification but an almost inevitable collapse. Aesthetically, we appreciate either optimism or pessimism in speculative fiction.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
As I recall, the Family Ghost not only used Rogatien Remillard as an agent in the events recorded in the INTERVENTION and MILIEU books, but also had Uncle Rogi writing his Memoirs, to give the true, secret history behind public events.
And I would have loved to have read Dominic Flandry's memoirs, if he wrote an autobiography in his old age. Altho the Terran equivalent of the Official Secrets Act might have forced Flandry be sometimes vague in his memoirs.
Sean
Sean,
The omniscient narrator and the reader can have privileged access to unpublished memoirs.
Paul.
OPERATION LUNA is not for publication. See the post, "Not For Publication," Tuesday 23 August 2016.
Paul and Sean:
The Commissar Ciaphas Cain* stories, set in the grimly dark universe of the game Warhammer 40,000, are supposed to be not-for-publication unofficial memoirs of a great military hero, edited by a member of His Divine Majesty's Most Holy Inquisition and shared only with her fellow inquisitors on the theory that they might provide useful insights. This means that any ordinary person (such as we 21st-century heretics who don't believe the Emperor is Almighty God) who got caught having read Cain's accounts would be executed for that security breach.
Many in-story historical accounts are quoted by that editor to add details that Cain left out.
The actual author of the stories has described Cain as something of a cross between Harry Flashman and Edmund Blackadder. But he also says Cain probably doesn't give himself quite enough credit for genuine courage and compassion, not to mention resourceful ingenuity.
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* HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!
Kaor, Paul and DAVID!
Paul: I looked up the blog piece you cited and, yes, Steven Matuchek's account of the events in OPERATION LUNA was to remain unpublished for at least 100 years.
David: yet again you show how much more widely read you are in SF than I am! I've not read, alas, the Commissar Cain stories. And your comment about "in-story historical accounts" reminded me of how S.M. Stirling prefaced the chapters of his Draka and Lords of Creation books with fictional quotes from "non-fictional" sources. As Asimov with the extracts from the ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA in the Foundation books.
Sean
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