Readers of military fiction need to realize that, in addition to directing combat, generals do a lot of organizing and managing. That is the point of the several non-combat chapters in this novel.
"A gong was ringing from the little church of the Spirit of Man of This Earth; by far the minority congregation in the village, but by law the only one allowed to have bell or signal." (p. 425)
We had those kinds of laws in these islands until comparatively recently. In my childhood, in the 1950s, Catholics in England and Scotland were still conscious of being social outsiders and there were particular problems in Northern Ireland. Will mankind reproduce all such conflicts on extra-solar planets in future millennia? I would like to be confident that our descendants will at least be there even if they are repeating all our mistakes.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And I thought that planning, organizing, and managing by Raj to be just as interesting as the action scenes.
I fear I have complete confidence in mankind reproducing the kinds of conflicts we have now on other worlds colonized by future generations. That does NOT mean I agree with those who say that since we are so horrible we should never leave Earth!
Sean
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