" A wind boomed cruelly hot. The canes where Arnanak stood rattled in its blast. It smelled of seared brush. Red and white light together cast double shadows of different lengths and colors, weirdened the whole landscape..." (p. 48)
Stop there. There is more but that is plenty.
Bodily sensations: wind; cruel heat.
Sounds: boom; rattle; blast.
Smell: seared brush.
Sight: red and white light.
Two suns contend. Conflicting sources of light and shadow alarmingly change the environment as if the end were nigh although everyone knows of old that Fire Time is a cyclical event. Other colours mentioned are yellow shrubs, grey soil, ocherous crags and brazen sky. In that sky:
"A carrion ptenoid hovered far, far aloft..." (ibid.)
This time, appropriately, it is a carrion bird, not a bird of prey.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I don't know if you ever read them, but Jerry Pournelle initiated a few years after FIRE TIME was first pub. a series using a similar idea with JANISSARIES. That is, a terrestroid planet with a sun much like ours was periodically devastated at long intervals by a "demon star" coming near Tran. Interesting series, don't want to say too much about the four books.
Ad astra! Sean
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