Sorry to go all gods but you know how it is. I have to be interested in what I am posting so I go off at tangents.
"Hermes, Wayfarer, Messenger, Thief, Psychopompus, Father of Magic, Maker of the Lyre, stood among strangeness." (p. 221)
In Anderson's Time Patrol series, Carl Farness tells Manse Everard that Hermes-Mercury-Hermes knows about magic and is the psychopomp, the conductor of the dead. In Anderson's Technic History, Nicholas van Rijn tells a defeated antagonist that Mercury was the Roman god of thieves. We appreciate the unity of Poul Anderson's multiverse.
The new god is:
"'...the whole of...not simply machines but their interlinks, data banks, systems, processes, concepts, interaction with mankind.'" (p. 219)
In other words, the Internet foreshadowed when this story was published in 1971.
Neil Gaiman's American Gods also introduces new gods, Media etc.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Maybe "A Feast for the Gods" is the story I was trying to remember in the immediately previous combox.
But there was a story I THINK was by Anderson involving computers, but not "Feast." In fact, I remember a bit more about that story: about two computers or AIs negotiating with each other on how best to resolve a conflict between their human masters.
Ad astra! Sean
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