(Love that cover.)
The Imperial army marches north along the course of the Jugular River while the screw-driven Weyrin leads tugs and barges up the river and on board are:
Sidir, commanding the army;
Donya, his prisoner and mistress;
Josserek, Killimaraichan spy, who has gained a berth as a stoker thanks to Casiru's bribes and blackmail back in Arvanneth.
This summarizes the plot to the point where we have currently reread the novel. Our four main characters continue to interact in diverse ways. Donya and Josserek confer clandestinely. Donya could easily drop overboard and swim ashore but wants to remain to learn more. I cannot remember in any detail what happens next except that Sidir is due to come a deserved cropper. Military conquerors deserve to be repulsed. History should move beyond them but this history has been kicked back by the Ice Age.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I disagree with your dislike of Sidir. Frankly, I like him and Yurussan soth-Yorn far more than any of the Rogaviki. Or Josserek for that matter!
As Anderson once wrote: "Conquests happen," and I would far rather the conquerors were reasonably decent people like Sidir and Yurussan.
And I don't believe in Utopian talk about mankind no longer being warlike, aggressive, competitive, etc.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Conquests happen because people conquer. Murders happen because people murder. Conquerors and murderers kill, the former on a larger scale.
Agreeing to transfer production from warfare to welfare on a global scale is feasible and will happen when enough people are sufficiently disgusted with the present system as many already are.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
We can't agree. I don't expect humans to change in the ways you would like them to do.
Your second paragraph: technically feasible but highly unlikely precisely because of how quarrelsome and aggressive humans tend to be. Unless some kind of world gov't monopolizing the means of violence arises. And that will almost certainly happen only by force.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
International cooperation when enough people see the need and begin to act on it.
I spell out conditions in which people would have no reason to keep behaving in the ways that they had done before. I fully agree that there will not be some spontaneous, miraculous, inexplicable inner transformation.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Voluntary, world wide international cooperation? Not in the least likely!
Exactly! That touches on why I don't expect there ever to be any such "inner transformation" in the mass.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
However, I am not arguing that there will be an inner transformation but pointing out how changed conditions will lead to differences in behaviour.
Cooperation unlikely? But also very necessary. And necessities have some effect on what people wind up doing. Present governments think that it is acceptable for them to continue waging environmentally destructive wars at the very time when they urgently need to cooperate to save the environment. It would be the height of complacency just to accept that that kind of "business as usual" should be allowed to continue indefinitely. I cannot predict when but something will happen to break this impasse - for good or ill.
Paul.
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