Friday 19 August 2016

Operation Luna, Chapter 2 of 49

Poul Anderson, Operation Luna (New York, 2000), Chapter 2.

"...a farseer bezel..." (p. 9)

"...his chocolate-hued phiz..." (p. 10)

al-Bunni is the goetic universe version of von Braun but we have said this before.

"'The beauty titer...'" (p. 11)

The "beast" is a horse but of bronze, not of flesh and blood.

"...a knight's destrier." (p. 12)

The goetic Earth has neither astronauts nor cosmonauts but "celestonauts" (p. 12) who are mostly women because, in Europe, it was usually women that flew broomsticks.

"...something haunted the moon." (p. 12)

-but we do not yet know what. As when Ransom encountered beings that were both extraterrestrial and supernatural (see here), we are surprised and even shocked by the idea that the Moon could be haunted. To those who are sensitive to the numinous or awesome, the entire universe is haunted. James Blish has an extrasolar race that refers not to "God" but to "the Great Ghost" and one Person of the Christian Trinity is called the Holy Ghost.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I rather like that old fashioned word for "face": "phiz."

Hmmm, the dominant enemy power in OPERATION CHAOS' equivalent of WW II was the Caliphate (standing for Nazi Germany, of course). And the German rocket genius von Braun had as his analogue in the Caliphate al-Bunni. That makes sense.

Sean