That Andersonian wind never ceases to fill the silences or apparently to comment on the characters' dialogues and actions. When Barbro has sung the concluding lines of an Outling ballad to Sherrinford:
"She laid the lyre aside. A wind rustled leaves. After a long quietness Sherrinford said..." (p. 34)
The quietness that is necessary for reflection on what is conveyed by the ballad is accompanied and emphasized by the sound of rustling leaves.
I think that there is too much of Sherrinford expounding what has happened and not enough of us readers being shown what is happening. One scene in particular would require very dramatic visual effects in any screen adaptation. Barbro sees Fairyland spires, a courtyard, candles, fountains and beauty and hears melody and birdsong. Then there is growling, fire, thunder, screaming and a steel intruder. Bare crags replace towers and a cave gapes. Some of those who retreat into it have scales, tails and beaks. Sherrinford has destroyed the illusion.
I suppose that there could be an open-ended sequence (rather than a series) of stories about extra-solar colonies with little or no contact between them. They could even have contradictory misinformation and traditions about what Earth had been like before their ancestors had left it. A more sensible Star Trek scenario.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I was reminded of one of the contributions to MULTIVERSE, a story by Nancy Kress called "Outmoded Things," set on Roland. I did not like it, finding it far too hostile to human civilization and exalting the native Rolanders. Kress didn't seem to understand why Mistherd was so embittered and outraged when he found out he had been beguiled by lies and delusions from infancy by those natives. Nor did I find her treatment of Shadow-of-a-Dream at all convincing.
Ad astra! Sean
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