Tuesday 13 December 2016

Later

After the marines, not many parallels last night, folks:

film quiz, but no sf films;

in a Smallville episode called "Prodigal," Lionel Luthor's other son, Lucas, showed up and turned out to be sociopathic just as, in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, Dominic Flandry's only known son, Dominic Hazeltine, showed up and turned out to be working for Merseia.

But maybe this highlights something. Science fiction is an exercise in the imagination and, like all fiction, also deals with people. Thus, at least two kinds of parallels will be found. Between Poul Anderson's works and Smallville:

standard sf ideas like invisibility etc;
personal relationships, like between father and son.

Meanwhile, I have to find out what happens in a war in another timeline. What happens after those marines attack? One thing that does happen is that two Nantucketers kill a couple but rescue their baby.

2 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Of course I'm glad Marian Alston and Swindapa rescued that baby. But one thing bothers me--unlike the case with Lucy and Heather, it would be possible to find the relatives of this infant boy. In fact, the enemy commander who was killed was King Isketerol's youngest brother and all they had to do was make some inquiries and turned the child over to the king. We KNOW Isketerol was devoted to his family and would certainly cherish his brother's son. But Marian made no efforts to confirm the child's very likely identity and return him to King Isketerol. And that bothers me.

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

Sean,
On the one hand, maybe the Nantucketers did not know that the baby was related to the King? On the other hand, they could have inquired during the peace negotiations.
Paul.