"Matters were far otherwise with Terra's fierce young rival, the Roidhunate of Merseia."
-Sandra Miesel, "Afterword: The Price of Buying Time" IN Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven (Ace Books, New York, 1979), pp. 237-251 AT p. 243.
A summary worthy of quotation. We know of the vices but what were the spiritual obsessions?
I found another illustration. This montage of Ramnuans, Miriam Abrams, Dominic Flandry, a planet and its moon serves as the frontispiece of the illustrated A Stone In Heaven.
A profusely illustrated text is midway between a prose-only narrative and a graphic novel. The latter medium is a substantial comic strip comprising sequential art story telling with dialogue in speech balloons, a visual adaptation comparable to but different from a film. The illustrated A Stone In Heaven is just a first step in this direction.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I question, however, the accuracy and justice of the historian Sandra Miesel cited as regards first the Eastern Roman and then, by extension, the Terran Empire. Any state with the strength and vigor shown by Byzantium to LAST as long as it did can't truly be characterized as hopelessly decadent. In fact, in his book THE BYZANTINE REVIVAL: 780-842, Warren Treadgold argued the Eastern Empire entered a period of vastly revived strength and power. A work from which I quoted to Poul Anderson in one of my letters to him. And he agreed that the Eastern Roman revival which began in the late eighth century was truly remarkable.
And I have argued to Anderson that for all its much ballyhooed decadence, much the same argument could be made for the Terran Empire in Flandry's time. If it had been truly as feeble as its enemies kept hoping it was, would the Empire had been able to fend off the wild races and Merseia as successfully as we see it doing? I'm not saying strength and determination would last forever, only that it was not yet gone.
Spiritual obsessions? That's easy! One which is prevalent among people who should know better is the so called Green movement, of how some make a virtual religion of "ecology." And try to force foolish, destructive, anti human "limits to growth" policies on us. A point Anderson discussed in the "Commentary" he wrote for SPACE FOLK.
I would also add the kind of nonsense we see classified as "New Age." And of how there are people who believe in astrology, the enneagram, neo-paganism, socialism, evolution denialism, irrationality of all kinds!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But I meant in the Terran Empire!
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I can think of one example from Flandry's time which might have become truly catastrophic. I mean the Cosmenosism we see Aycharaych cooking up in THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN. Something he was trying to nurse into becoming a fanatic, jihadist movement capable of "convulsing and shattering" the Empire.
Ad astra! Sean
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