In "Sargasso...," Donovan claims that the Shalmuans were imperialistic. That is not the Shalmuans that we know and love. Maybe some mutant Shalmuans were aberrant? Or maybe there was some inter-species conflict but Ansan propaganda has villainized the greenies? I value consistency in a series but sometimes we can accept and even appreciate that there are different versions of a story even in the Bible and Greek or Hindu mythology. James Blish's "Haertel Scholium" is a number of works that refer to the character Adolph Haertel but that are mutually inconsistent.
The Ganymede cannot transmit information from inside the Black Nebula because the ship's "ultrasonics" (?) are not working. That contradicts the usual means of interstellar communication in the Technic History. This is an inconsistency that could have been ironed out by editing a single sentence or we could try to think of some way round it?
Addendum: Sorry, "subtronics." (III, p. 395)
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I'm reminded of how I read, many years ago, a truly awful "historical novel" about the Eastern Roman Marcian (r. 450-57). It disgusted me because almost nothing in the story matched up with the real history about Marcian, his wife Pulcheria, Theodosius II, etc.
I think it would be easier to think of those inconsistencies in "Sargasso" as bits put in by a pop writer not as careful as he should have been. I also thought of how Persis d'Io complained in Chapter 15 of ENSIGN FLANDRY of how little there was to read during the flight from Starkad: OUTLAW BLASTMAN and PLANET OF SIN, probably badly written pulp adventure novels of that time!
Ad astra! Sean
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