Conversation In The Baltica

(Thursday-Sunday this week: Trip to London. No blogging. But I hope that there are enough posts to satisfy blog readers until Monday.)

For Love And Glory, XXXIII.

Novelistic characters interact. Specifically, in the Baltica, Hebo meets two men who had conversed with Lissa in earlier chapters. Plot strands intersect as they discuss the newly merged black hole and the proposed Susaian colony on Asborg's sister planet, Freydis. (These plot strands already interconnect because a Susaian group had bought an island on Freydis in exchange for information that had led to the discovery of the black hole.)

In their restaurant alcove, the three men are not interrupted or disturbed by waiters because their orders of beer, martini and whiskey slide up from the table port. This post does not join our Food Thread because the men do not screen the menu until the end of the chapter.

Like XXXI, XXXIII ends as the omniscient narrator informs the reader of what is to come:

"She didn't know that they would begin with a new rescue mission." (XXXI, p. 167)

"And then the next five years were amply eventful. And then Lissa returned." (XXXIII, p. 177)

Lissa and Hebo are our only two viewpoint characters. XXXI is narrated from Lissa's pov but, by telling us what she did not know, the narration in the concluding sentence steps right outside of that pov and also remotivates the reader to continue reading.