We commend Poul Anderson, SM Stirling and others for the internal consistency of their alternative histories. Any premise has implications but not everyone can see them without the help of an imaginative author. Anderson wrote Operation Chaos because he deduced more implications from the premise of Robert Heinlein's Magic, Inc.
This post has been prompted by a single comparison. In our timeline, the Catholic Cardinals are the electoral college for the Papacy. In Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, the Papacy has been abolished but there are still Cardinals. Of course, maybe the college of Cardinals has remained in being as a collective leadership of the Magisterium but, if so, then Pullman needs to tell us this in order to show that he does know the relationship between Cardinals and Pope in our timeline.
That's it. I am out of here.
20 comments:
Swift recovery! I’m just coming off a flu, myself.
Kaor, Paul!
Get well fast! Colds are no fun.
I've also been wondering what was that booklet the second cardinal from the right in the first row was reading.
Ad astra! Sean
Correction, it was the FIRST cardinal from the right in the first row.
Sean
Sean,
The liturgy for whatever event they were attending?
Paul.
Thank two of you for good wishes, BTW.
Kaor, Paul!
That has to be it, I agree.
Ad astra! Sean
Pullman illustrates that it's very difficult to be rational when your emotions are deeply engaged. Eg., it's difficult to really believe that someone really believes in something you think is obviously false and repugnant.
I think I have less problem with that than most people -- I don't have much problem doing characters who are religious believers, for example.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I have noticed that in many of your books. That is, like Anderson, you treat honest religious believers with respect and take them seriously. Fr. Ignatius, a major character in your Emberverse series, is one example.
Even when he was still an atheist, John Wright was not pleased with how Pullman treated religion and religious believers. Precisely because Pullman refused to believe a Catholic or Jew could sincerely believed in their faiths. Wright's view was that even an atheist writer should take religious believers seriously. And he loathed Pullman's dishonest parodies of Christianity.
Ad astra! Sean
Does Pullman think that Catholics or Jews cannot be sincere?
Religious institutions have sometimes acted badly and there could be a timeline where they continued to hold and to misuse secular power.
Kaor, Paul!
That was the impression or conclusion I got from Wright's scathing review of Pullman's Dark Materials books.
Of course religious believers and the institutions they run can behave badly. No one in his right mind should deny that.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I am rereading Pullman's first trilogy. The Church is a collective villain but then it can act in ways that make it that. Pullman doesn't show any good sincere Christians - at least, I don't think he does - but then Ian Fleming does not show any sincere, well-intentioned Communists whereas Poul Anderson does.
Paul.
Sean,
Wright scathes everyone that he disagrees with.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But I'm more interested in whether his criticisms of Pullman's Dark Materials books were justified.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
Just saw your comment about Fleming's James Bond books. After so many years of the fanaticism, cruelty, tyranny, and corruption from the rule of Lenin and Stalin, could there be still any decent man in the Soviet hierarchy? Could anyone be "decent" in the middle and higher ranks of the Party and gov't during the terror, purges, and terrified intrigues of those dreadful years?
After the death of Stalin and the execution of Beria, the ruling nomenklatura were less brutal, but still plenty repressive. So, it was merely realistic of Fleming to show no one as being a good and decent man in the Soviet hierarchy.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
The only way to find out about Pullman's books is to read them.
Unfortunately, many people in Western countries had illusions in the USSR for a very long (ridiculously long) time.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
True, what you said about Pullman. Some reviews of books have impressed me enough that I either did or did not purchase copies of them. What then is the proper place or role of book reviews?
Too many in the West had stubbornly held illusions (or delusions) about the USSR for far too long! I would put that down, at least in part, to treating Marxism like a religion.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
For quite a while, I would not read the SWAMP THING comic. A fan of it told me, "Don't judge something without reading it." I replied, "I am not judging it. I am deciding whether to read it." I do not choose to read Mills & Boon romantic novels. It turned out that SWAMP THING was well worth reading but only because it went way beyond the limitations implied by its title.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
It's probably a serious limitation on my part, but I'm simply not "into" graphic novels or mangas. Oddly, the closest I have to one of those is the heavily illustrated Ace Books edition of A STONE IN HEAVEN.
And the illustrated edition of THE DEMON OF SCATTERY (by Anderson and Broxon). Perhaps I should include the illustrated collections of Anderson/Dickson's Hoka stories as well.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But those illustrations that you appreciate could so easily be animated or extended into sequential art story-telling. I try to show here and on the Comics Appreciation blog that some graphic fiction is literature combined with visual art. Sometimes I quote Neil Gaiman's scripts. Cain lives in the Land of Nod, the Dreaming. Morpheus sends Cain as a messenger to Hell because he is the one messenger that Lucifer cannot destroy. Lucifer pulls back Cain's hair to show the circular Mark on his forehead. Flying over Hell, holding Cain by his hair, Lucifer alights on a (solid) cloud, lets go of Cain, tells him to look at the rather deplorable state of Hell, then suggests, "Still, better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven, eh, little brother-killer?" Cain effusively agrees, "Whatever you say, Lord Lucifer!" Lucifer, speaking in the royal plural, responds: "We didn't say! Milton said it. And he was blind!"
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Hmmm, graphic fiction is or can be literature combined with visual art. That does make graphic novels and mangas something that is worthy of being regarded with respect.
Ad astra! Sean
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