Hermetian society as described by Poul Anderson is solid from Sandra's long, darkly wood-paneled conference room, its windows open onto a lawn guarded by a mastiff, to the complex hierarchical social structure. Peter Asmundsen cannot avoid giving preferential promotions to Followers but can try to compensate the strike-threatening Travers, maybe with extra vacations. Grand Duchess Sandra is worried by a large Liberation Front rally with intemperate orators and a large, enthusiastic Travers crowd. The society is complex enough for readers to adopt different positions towards it. I think that it sounds over-ripe for reform - which does happen in the novel. I empathize with Travers, not with Kindred or Followers. What the Grand Duchess regards as intemperate, I might regard as moderate. The fact that readers can disagree on these issues shows that Anderson has created a plausible society.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, complex societies, real or fictional, inevitably means disagreements will arise. I am certainly seeing that already in Solzhenitsyn's MARCH 1917.
Which does make me wonder, during the years of his exile in the US, did Solzhenitsyn ever come across any of the works of Anderson? Probably not!
Ad astra! Sean
Though with Hermes, the "cure" you-know-who pushes turns out to be emphatically worse than the disease.
One of those "be careful what you wish for" things.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Absolutely! I'm so sick of fanatical revolutionaries like Strang! All we we have ever gotten from monsters like Robespierre, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, et al, were cruel and brutal tyrannies!
Thank you, I will take King Log any day over King, President, or Comrade Stork!
Ad astra! Sean
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