When the Tahirian whom the Envoy crew call "Colin" has explained about plasmoids:
"However academic the statement, Colin's body shivered in ens seat, the fur stood stiff, the mane tossed like gale-blown leaves, a brimstone reek gusted out.
"Kilbirnie nodded, her neck as stiff as her mouth. 'Simple bad luck. And the unknown, which we can't ever provide against.'" (p. 333)
We notice:
that "en" is not a Tahirian word but a new English pronoun for Tahirians coined by the crew;
alien body language;
the evocation of several of the senses;
the wind ("gale..."), this time not as a pathetic fallacy but as an analogy;
the connotations of "brimstone" (Brent has already described the black hole as a "'...hole into hell...'" (34, p. 320));
the acknowledgment of the unknown and of the impossibility of providing against it.
All of Anderson is here.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And that use of "en" as a pronoun suitable for Tahirians reminded me of Anderson doing the same for the tri-bodied Didonians we see in THE REBEL WORLDS, coining terms like "heesh."
Ad astra! Sean
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