(This image is from Stockholm Archipelago, which seems doubly appropriate.)
When Tabitha told Philippe that Avalonians did not mass-produce entertainment (see here), she added that the screens would show:
"'...earnest educational programs...'" (p. 569);
classic dramas probably incomprehensible to him.
But what a gift to a spy behind enemy lines! And any navy man captured by the enemy must gather intelligence. Their education will surely reveal much about Avalonians. Classic drama is something that we can study and try to understand. And anything not understood but merely remembered by Philippe can be relayed to Terran Intelligence.
Chapter XI presents several pleasing scenes:
Liaw of The Tarns convenes the Great Khruath from before the house of David Falkayn on First Island;
the household of Lythran and Blawsa perches on tiers before an outsize screen to participate in the Khruath;
the screen shows a rancher on the North Coronan prairie reporting on food production;
Arinnian of Stormgate addresses the Khruath as the chief of the West Coronan guard;
after the Khruath, Arinnian and Eyath fly above rain clouds toward snowpeaks and glaciers beneath stars and orbital fortresses;
Tabitha and Philippe sail.
It seems a shame to leave these colorful scenes to return to the war in space:
"Week after fire-filled week, the Terran armada advanced." (XII, p. 571)
- but Anderson is on a tight schedule. The war must be concluded and the characters' personal dramas resolved in less than a hundred pages and in only seven more chapters.
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
The last paragraph reminded me of how Stirling explained that during the 1950's and 1960's SF writers usually had to write within a set range of page numbers insisted on by their publishers. That still might have been the case in the early 1970's, when Anderson was writing his Ythrian stories. And he was one of those writers capable of writing a complete story within those sometimes rigid constraints!
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I forgot to add that, yes, of course a captured Navy officer should be alert to gaining information about the enemy that would or might be useful for his side. Even rather dull educational programs should have information of interest.
Sean
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