Thursday, 2 April 2020

A POV Change And Years

"Un-Man."

When one Un-Man is killed, another member of the Brotherhood is summoned, by a receiver in his head, to take his place. We move from Donner to Naysmith.

Section IV is narrated from Naysmith's point of view and he is with Sofie but suddenly on p. 36 we are being told what Sofie thinks before the narrative pov returns to Naysmith. Once, when I pointed out a similar Hornblower pov switch to my friend Kevin, he replied, "I wouldn't have noticed," but, when I saw a French guy reading Frank Herbert's Dune and remarked that the pov is inconsistent, he responded, "I have read it!"

Sofie confirms for us that the Years of Hunger were followed by the Years of Madness and adds that next came the Socialist Depression. They have been through a lot - like us. For an indefinite period, I cannot meet with Kevin and John so I texted them both to remind them of the days when "Brexit" was the big issue. Their responses: "Certainly do wish we were back in the good old days"; "Yes. One bloomin' disaster after another. Least that one had less death, and better jokes."

Meanwhile, as we pursue our daily lives, our timeline's equivalent of Un-Men go about their business of surveillance, assassination etc.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I saw Vincent DiFate listed on the publication credits page, which reminded me of how the cover illustrations he did for some of Anderson's books were better than what I've seen on most.

We had better hope our "UN-Men" are reasonably successful! Because there are very bad people, some of them controlling nations, who are not our friends.

Ad astra! Sean