"'Welcome to the hold of Brontothor! Welcome to the Galactic Empire!'
"'The Empire?'
"'Aye, this is the Empire, or what's left of it. A haunted fortress on a frozen ghost world, last fragment of the old Imperium...'" (p. 204)
We Notice:
(i) "Brontothor" is an evocative place name, like "Archopolis."
(ii) The time travellers have brought a psychophone from 4100 AD and thus are able to converse with the Imperials immediately on arrival.
(iii) Vargor describes this last fragment of Empire in yet another memorable phrase. (This story contains several.)
(iv) The fortress is not literally haunted and Earth, although frozen, is not literally a ghost world. The story is sf, not fantasy, although Vargor's phraseology suggests some alarming possibilities...
(v) The last fragment of Empire might have been on another planet or on another continent but nevertheless happens to be visible from the fixed spatial location of the time projector on the Terrestrial surface.
(vi) Vargor Alfri is a prince of the Empire and his alien companion, Hunda of Haamigur, is a (or the?) general of the Imperial armies.
Quite a lot of info there. Your Lancastrian blogger must pause for a meal break.
See also: Wild Beasts Howling
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Truthfully, I thought "Archopolis" to be more evocative than "Brontothor," a name which feels clunky to me.
That last "fragment" of the Empire reminded me of what our real world Eastern Roman Empire" was like after 1400: scattered fragments of a shattered once great Empire. Fragments doomed to be devoured by the Ottoman Turks.
In one of his letters to me Anderson said he could imagine remnants of the Terran Empire of his Technic series surviving. And that some might even be ruled by non-humans claiming to preserve the Terran heritage.
Ad astra! Sean
Ad astra! Sean
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