"'It's almost as if [the Alori] were fanatics, like the militant religions of the statist tyrannies of old days on Earth,' he said." (CHAPTER XVIII, p. 159)
(Obviously, "...of the statist tyrannies..." should read "...or the statist tyrannies...")
Sf can show us our current evils as in the past. In James Blish's and Norman L. Knight's A Torrent of Faces, the characters find an enigmatic object that turns out to be an ashtray from the Age of Waste.
Parallel histories can have the same effect. In Poul Anderson's "Eutopia," a cross-time traveller has visited the dystopian America. In Alan Moore's Watchmen, a character thinks that the US would have gone mad if it had lost in Vietnam.
When some of the Nomads plan to escape from Loaluani and Sean sets out to play his part:
"There was silence, wind and surf and the high crying of the birds." (CHAPTER XIX, p. 167)
Contradiction? The sentence means that there was silence from the Nomads so that they heard wind, surf and birds. Wind underscores everything in Poul Anderson's works. The three sounds together emphasize the natural environment which the Alori offer and which the Nomads plan to escape from.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
That bit about the ashtray and the "Age of Waste" struck me as irritatingly smug and condescending!
Ad astra! Sean
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