In The Man From UNCLE TV series, Napoleon Solo, asked what he thought of spy films, replied, "Oh, they're alright if you want a bit of light entertainment but they're a bit far-fetched!" (Laughter from the audience.)
Ydwyr tells Djana that, if she becomes a spy for the Roidhunate:
"'After training, you would be placed where it was deemed you could be most useful. I am sure you realize the spectacular escapades of fiction are simply fiction. The major part of your life would be unremarkable...'" (CHAPTER SEVENTEEN, pp. 331-332)
He says that with a straight face in a novel and a series where the central character does nothing but pull off spectacular escapades all the time. This is an opportunity for the author and his readers to reflect on what they are doing here.
A subsidiary question: Do the Merseians also read this kind of fiction?
9 comments:
I get the impression that Meresians and Terrans are similar enough that their arts have cross-species appeal; also, I seem to recall that Meresia has “high” and “low” cultural registers too, including genre fiction for non-aristocrats.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree! I would expect intelligent races enough like each other, biochemically, that they would desire the same kinds of planets, for their cultures to influence each other. Examples I've thought of being how Merseians came to enjoy playing chess, drinking tea and scotch, and even adopting the Terran laws and customs of war and diplomacy.
We even see mention in ENSIGN FLANDRY of two "pop" novels: OUTLAW BLASTMAN and PLANET OF SIN, which Persis mentioned reading after she and Dominic Flandry escaped from Merseia.
Ad astra! Sean
I will have to look out for those references to Merseian fiction.
Kaor, Paul!
It was those two lowbrow human pop novels which caught my eyed!
Ad astra! Sean
Also, there’s a close connection between espionage and espionage fiction in our own history; the early 20th century saw the birth of modern intelligence and counter-intelligence organizations, and with the exception of the Okhrana (which was the organizational father/inspiration oft he Cheka/NKVD/KGB) they were largely inspired by fictional depictions of large, well-organized clandestine organizations which didn’t exist until then.
(The Soviet secret police were using lightly edited Okhrana training and operational manuals down to the 1950’s, btw.)
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I read a lot about the Tsarist Okhrana in Alexander Solzhenitsyn's novel NOVEMBER 1916. The Okhrana seems to been very effective at its job--the problem was their incompetent political masters, who seemed unable to effectively utilize the Okhrana.
It would be interesting to compare an Okhrana manual from 1910 with a similar Soviet manual from 1950.
I did read Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger's book PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE. SF fans should know his other "name"!
Ad astra! Sean
His other name... C’Mel, perhaps? 8-).
The Okhrana was the most effective Russian government department; they predicted the revolts of 1916-17 well in advance, and advised the government that the urban garrisons were unreliable and that food shortages were producing an explosive situation.
As is usually the case, it’s very difficult to convince people of things they don’t want to hear. That’s why it’s far more common for intelligence failures to be the product of interpretation rather than lack of raw data.
There’s always enough “noise” that you can pick and chose data to reinforce rather than challenge your assumptions.
The KGB did the same thing the 1980’s, for example — they were telling the Soviet government things were going to crap well before it all fell apart.
(Central Asian governors building palaces in the desert with bribe money and having their personal enemies thrown into pits with hungry tigers And/or wolves was a dead hint, for instance.
Brezhnev was vfirtually comatose at the end, though, and that was symbolic of the deep institutional decay of the whole system. To be fair it had started along that road as soon as the conspirators shot Beria and then agreed that the Nomenklatura wouldn’t kill each other in political struggles.
The system needed mass terror to work at all.
Good guess about Linebarger's other name...
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Ha, ha!!! I hadn't known Linebarger's other name was C'Mel! (Smiles)
Yes, no matter how able an intelligence agency might be, all their work can go down the toilet if their political masters don't want to heed it.
I recall from Solzhenitsyn's book that one of the problems the Tsar's gov't mishandled in 1916-17 was that too many men had been called up for military service. And that too many were unreliable. Far better to have left them on the farms where they could have helped produce more food for the cities.
I agree on how loathsome and corrupt the Soviet system was.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment