Poul Anderson describes a sword fight between Flandry and Cerdic. I read past the details because I am unfamiliar with fencing and because it is a foregone conclusion that Flandry will win. We have heard or read fencing terms and they are all here but let us this time pay attention to them. Flandry parries, retreats, withholds a stop thrust, parries again, ripostes, lunges, feints, glides, beats, deflects and smites. Cerdic slashes and hews. There are more terms than I had expected when I started to list them. At the end of the following story, "Honorable Enemies," Flandry thrusts whereas Aycharaych feints, thrusts and parries. I could google all these terms but for once I will leave that to interested blog readers.
Conan is Swords and Sorcery. John Carter is Swords and Science. Dominic Flandry's first two short stories climax with scenes of Swords and Science. For the rest of his series, Flandry visits more modernized futuristic planets not inhabited by archaic humanoids but colonized by technological human beings.
Yesterday evening, we attended a solo violin concert where the performer stood beneath a massive rotating globe of Mars. We started to become familiar with surface details. I remembered Wells, Burroughs, Bradbury, Lewis, Anderson and scenes in Alan Moore's Watchmen.
2 comments:
Flandry also comments that deliberate archaism is characteristic of decadent cultures -- and that studying scientific swordplay is rather common on Earth.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: Flandry was better at using swords than Cerdic, but during that fight it was not necessarily a foregone conclusion to HIM that he would win.
This is an old argument we have, I don't find it totally implausible to think some non human intelligent races will be humanoids. That is, have one head, two arms with hands, and two legs. I can think of practical reasons for thinking evolution on other worlds might sometimes PARALLEL what we've seen on Earth.
Mr. Stirling: You beat me to saying that! Also, I'm sure many members of the Society for Creative Anachronism are enthusiastic fencers.
Ad astra! Sean
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