My approach to this story has become just to keep noting its oddities until enough is explained to make some sense:
the narrator buys a whiskey at a newsstand;
water is rationed in different amounts around the country;
that new school was eighty stories high but its shooting range was overcrowded and housing projects stretch beyond the horizon so psychodynamicists have to find an answer;
the local union HQ can give our guy "'...a large job...'" (p. 143) - we will find out what;
a union brother, Sam Jeffreys, has been killed in a private murder with advance notification of intent filed, deed registered and weregild to be paid on schedule so nothing can be done about it;
Sam had lived through the Smashup whatever that was but this sounds like we are getting to the point - some big social "smashup" that will explain how laws and customs have changed so drastically. Read on.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Anderson must have taken "wergild" from its use in Scandinavia. A man who killed another man could offer compensation for his death, sums to be paid to the dead man's relatives varying according to social status.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Van Rijn pays weregild to Gorzunian mercenaries after raiding a place on the Moon.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
In SATAN'S WORLD, I believe.
And we still see Gorzunian mercenaries centuries later in THE PEOPLE OF THE WIND, A CIRCUS OF HELLS, THE REBEL WORLDS, etc.
Ad astra! Sean
Ad astra! Sean
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