The story was written and published within two months of "Marius" and they were clearly written as companion pieces - the dawn and sunset of the same culture (later stories of this Future History would be set in the further future, when a still newer civilization would arise from the ruins of what would be called "The Second Dark Ages").
Marius and Brake are linked by various common themes - one featuring the first appearance of the maquis Stefan Rostomily, the other having the last appearance of Rostomily's cloned "sons"; in one Étienne Fourre appears for the first time, in his heroic effort to restore the shattered world, in the other the memory of Fourre is abused and his legacy is claimed by one of the militant factions busily working to shatter it again. In fact, it is Captain Banning, the story' protagonist, who is Fourre's true heir, bravely striving to preserve, for as long as possible, what Fourre and his companions had built.
-copied from the Wikipedia article. See the above link.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
That mention of "maquis" reminded me of Stirling's cautionary comments about not romanticizing the "Resistance" in Nazi occupied France. They were never a serious threat to the Germans.
One think I remembered about Captain Banning from "Brake" was his fondness for archaic nautical terms like "irons" (referring to a ship's compartment used as a cell for holding prisoners).
Ad astra! Sean
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