Minor Characters

The People Of The Wind, VI.

I said here that Admiral Cajal, speaking at the beginning of Chapter VII, was the sixteenth character in this novel but should I have counted the three unnamed women contacted by Arinnian at the end of VI?

The first is at work in defense production;

the second frantically signals that her husband is at home;

the third is a plump, unintelligent chatterer who sweats and smells of alcohol in her sleep.

But they are three people. The central characters in a novel operate against the assumed background of a planetary population. On screen, some actors star whereas others walk past the camera in crowd scenes. And spear carriers can be promoted. In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, Raor carries something in "The Year of the Ransom" and is the main villainness in The Shield Of Time, PART TWO.

I always like to get the Technic History and the Time Patrol into the same post.