"How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson."
How do aliens appear to us and vice versa?
Jim Ching sees a picture of a Chinese lung, mis-named "dragon," and thinks of Adzel. Freeman Riefenstahl sees Adzel and thinks of Fafner, Wagner's dragon. But the truth is that Adzel was created by a human author so he was always likely to look like something Terrestrial, whether biological or mythological. What will aliens really be like?
Do Adzel's speech patterns indicate that he is not a native Anglic speaker? He says:
"'Tell, Jimmy...'" (p. 65)
We would normally avoid such an awkward phrase because it requires a extra long pause in the middle to prevent it from sounding like "Tell Jimmy..." which means something entirely different.
"Have you eaten, grandmother?"
Adzel says:
"'A word to the right men - that does appear to be how your Technic civilization operates, no?'" (p. 66)
He has learned this by coming to study in Technic civilization. On Woden, he:
"'...was a prairie-galloping hunter.'" (p. 64)
Finally, for now, he drinks a lot of alcohol for a convert to Buddhism.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
It's always been helpful if you know influential or powerful persons willing to listen to you.
Testing.
Sean
And Adzel is big enough to -need- a lot of alcohol before it has any effect!
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I remember that as well. Whole buckets of beer hardly gives him more than a slight buzz!
Testing.
Ad astra! Sean
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