Friday, 15 May 2020

Caton Road

Operation Chaos, IX.

The Homecoming game between the Trismegitus Gryphons and the Alberus Magnus Wyverns is also like that game in Harry Potter.

Looking back for the details, I find that Matuchek has already had a premonition. Shivering in the wind, he thinks:

"'That air smelled wrong somehow... probably only my bad mood, I thought, but I'd sniffed trouble in the future before now." (p. 57)

Before the danger arrives, my willing suspension of disbelief is strained:

a lecturer demonstrates a catalyst;
a student performs a pun-spell;
a cat comes out of the test tube;
but, because of a quantitative error, it is a saber-tooth;
and, because of the pun, it lists.

We are in the realm of crossword clues, not of credible fiction.

Our neighbor, Alan, carves signs for Lancaster City Council. On the footpath by the river, a stone sign to Caton Road consists of an image of a seated cat above the word, "road."

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Yes, but Anderson's OPERATION CHAOS is LESS of a strain on my being able suspend disbelief than May's Galactic Milieu books.

Ad astra! Sean