Tuesday 5 September 2017

After The Change

The image shows (part of) Australia before the Change.

Not only Japs but Aussies yet!

An Australian King advises a Prince:

"'The whole fucking realm is only as strong as the lowliest peasant. They carry us all, in the end, the poor bastards. Remember that, and respect the truth of it.'"
-SM Stirling, The Golden Princess (New York, 2015), Chapter Four, p. 70.

I could not have put it better myself - and could have said it in the Queen's English without swearing, your Majesty!

There are very few very old people and:

"...most of those had been on remote cattle stations when the Change came and spent the first year comfortably eating the beef they couldn't sell anymore." (p. 71)

How many of us deduced that logical consequence of the Change? A few very lucky people were in remote locations, safe from attack and surrounded by food!

5 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And philosophers have said much the same thing as this Australian king, in rather more dignified language! Confucius, St. Thomas Aquinas, etc.

Yes, indeed, the luckiest people, post Change, old or young, would be the people running these Aussie cattle stations. And similar places around the world. Not that they wouldn't have SOME privations or even dangers, but NOTHING like what most of the world had to suffer.

Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Incidentally, John Birmingham did a story in the anthology, "The Change", in which his adventurers go on an expedition to the haunted ruins of Sydney.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Dear Mr. Stirling,

Then I will have to obtain a copy of THE CHANGE. I assume these adventurers were salvagers, searching for useful things or works of art.

Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Yup. It's a good story, too.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Mr. Stirling,

Then I will definitely look for THE CHANGE.

Sean