Except for one single detail, this chapter is realistic historical fiction about wars and battles between kings and their armies, something that Poul Anderson understands well. The single exception is Hadding's battlefield invocation of his foster father, the jotun Vagnhofdi. Smoke appears, whirls, whistles, thickens and solidifies as Vagnhofdi, blocking the sun, gripping axe and club, striding forward, crunching bones, men running before him. Hadding can make this invocation only once. It is as if from now on history must take its course - although, of course, other fantastic events will still occur. In this novel, people ask whether Thor is going to intervene in the same way that we now ask whether the UN or NATO will intervene.
Mythological beings and Time Patrolmen intervene in battles and other historical events in Poul Anderson's imaginative parallel narratives.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I have zero use for the worthless UN! And Putin is putting pressure on NATO members by demanding they pay for imports of Russian oil and natural gas in rubles, not dollars. Which of course weakens NATO and strengthens Russia's war against Ukraine.
The NECESSITY of importing energy from Russia undercuts those sanctions imposed on Putin's regime.
Ad astra! Sean
How many people don't realize that which seems obvious to me - that shutting down European nuclear generators made European countries dependent on Russian gas. This is bad both from a security perspective & an environmental perspective.
So the best thing would be for Europe to restart any recently closed nuclear reactors and for the longer term build new reactors.
If Japan was to restart its reactors that would free up gas from non-Russian sources to go to Europe.
As for the UN, for the most part replace it with a United Democracies organization. & keep the UN to help communication with non-democracies
Kaor, Jim!
I knew! I have long believed in and advocated for nuclear power. For the foreseeable future nuclear energy is the only practical alternative to fossil fuels if you want a modern, high tech society. And by "foreseeable future" I mean a minimum 25 years.
And countries like Germany are finding out the hard way how RECKLESS it was to shut down its nuclear power plants and switch to depending on RUSSIA for oil and natural gas. I'm sure many Germans are now having second thoughts about the wisdom of doing that!
Japan, however, might be a more problematic case. It's location in the "ring of fire" of volcanic activity and proneness to earthquakes might mean there are few geologically stable spots in Japan for building nuclear power plants.
I have only contempt for the UN, best would be shut it down and replace it with an Alliance of Civilized Nations, defined strictly to mean only countries with actual shared values and beliefs. Such as the UK, US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia. The Anglosphere, IOW! If it works others could join up, mostly from Europe. Some in Asia might join as well: Taiwan, South Korea, Japan.
No need for the UN, ordinary diplomatic relations with non-members will do. The old UN building in NYC could be taken over by the Alliance of Civilized Nations.
Ad astra! Sean
Re: nuclear in Japan
Note that all the reactors more recent that Fukushima Daichi rode out the earthquake & tsunami with no problems. Also that while thousands died from the earthquake & tsunami, there was at most one death from radiation releases from the reactors (one death got very dubiously attributed to the radiation release)
There were quite a few deaths due to the *evacuation* from *fear* of radiation.
I do wonder if Japan shouldn't put more of its industry, of all sorts, on the west (Sea of Japan) side of the islands farther from the most active faults (Pacific Ocean side of the islands)
Kaor, Jim!
Good. I'm glad Japanese nuclear power plants were so well and solidly built. In that case, they should build more nuclear energy plants. I agree it would be better, where practical, for Japan to relocate industries further away from the most quake prone regions.
Ad astra! Sean
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