Novels About Cities

A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens is about the real London and Paris of the French Revolutionary period.

Ulysses by James Joyce is about the real Dublin.

Dublin: Foundation and Ireland: Awakening by Edward Rutherford are about the historical Dublin.

New York by Rutherfurd is about New York.

Mother London by Michael Moorcock is about the real London.

The King of Ys Tetralogy by Poul and Karen Anderson is about the mythical Ys.

Voice Of The Fire by Alan Moore is about the historical Northampton.

Jerusalem by Alan Moore is about the mythical and real Northampton.

Cities:

London
Paris
Dublin
New York
Ys
Northampton

The Blogverse

I signed off for 2016 from Poul Anderson Appreciation here. However, since then, I have posted on six other blogs:

Science Fiction
Kinds Of Sequels (comparing Poul Anderson and SM Stirling; citing Larry Niven)
Reviews (comparing Stirling to Anderson; quoting Harry Turtledove)

James Blish Appreciation
Armageddon (comparing Blish and Stirling)

Logic of Time Travel
Back In Timeline 1 (Stirling)

Religion And Philosophy
Meanings Of A Word (gods and God)
Atman And Anatta (non-theistic religion)
Doctrinal Disagreements About What Exists (non-theistic religions and physics)
Preliminary Thoughts On "Eternalism" (responding to the Awesome Mage of Northampton)

Comics Appreciation
The Name And The Man (possibly of more general interest)
Jerusalem (the Awesome Mage)
Green Arrow: A Mini-History (comics stuff)
Green Arrow: A Mini-History II
DC Screen Continuities
Different Versions
Shado And The Huntress
Hell Or Hern (Hern the Hunter)
Christmas Presents
Changes In Comics (Hern)
Rupert Bear

Personal And Literary Reflections
Archery, Wicca, Kipling And Tyre (Stirling)
Introducing Michael Havel... (Stirling)
Another Transtemporal Inn (the Mage)
The Blogverse (which you are reading)

Another Transtemporal Inn

I have found another inn of indeterminate ontological status to add to Poul Anderson's Old Phoenix and Neil Gaiman's Inn of the Worlds' End. In Alan Moore's Voice Of The Fire, an English pub called Labour In Vain is often unnoticed, seems not always to be there and initially looks as if derelict but, when it is entered, the reader recognizes characters from other chapters/centuries.

Introducing Michael Havel...

"Michael Havel..."
-SM Stirling, Dies The Fire (New York, 2005), Chapter One, p. 1.

Who is he? Well, we don't know yet. Starting to read a new (to us) novel, we expect to be introduced to a whole new cast of characters. More specifically, having just finished reading the multiple viewpoint Nantucket Trilogy and now starting to read the opening volume of another series set in a much later period of the original timeline, we are obliged to accept a whole new cast of characters. But the author is able to introduce a considerable number of them in just a few pages.

Dan and Gerta Fogarty employ Havel as an aviator and Gerta's aunt introduces him to five new passengers. We quickly forget our Nantucketers although they exist off-stage for the first hour of the new narrative which begins on:

"Tuesday, March 17th, 1998
"6:15 P.M., MST - Change minus one hour." (p. 1)

Many will die in the Change but most of the newly introduced characters must be destined to survive or there would be no point in introducing them. Will some Fundamentalists believe that the Change was the Rapture and that they have been Left Behind? Fortunately, I understand, there will be some comparatively sane Wiccans among the cast. Nowadays we inherit all the traditions and can opt to celebrate life through a myth different from that of our parents.

We knew that the Nantucket Event must have been perceived by people outside Nantucket but now we know how they perceived it:

"'Some sort of electrical storm off Cape Cod - not just lightning, a great big dome of lights over Nantucket, half a dozen different colors. The weather people say they've never seen anything like it.'...
"The voice of the on-the-spot reporter cruising over Nantucket Sound started to range up from awestruck to hysterical...
"White light flashed, stronger than lightning..." (p. 7)

After the Event, the Change. Suddenly, Havel is flying a dead plane... 

Is the Marvel Comics White Event connected?

Archery, Wicca, Kipling And Tyre

Does a sentence get its meaning from the words or do the words get their meanings from their positions in a sentence? It has been argued that it is the latter. Certainly the difference between the bark of a tree and the bark of a dog is their relative positions in this sentence. Despite the paradoxical nature of sentences, each of us every day utters phrases and sentences that have never been heard before yet are instantly understood. I doubt if anyone has listed "Archery, Wicca, Kipling And Tyre" before.

In Dies The Fire (New York, 2005), SM Stirling acknowledges a work on archery. Works for me: archery will revive when gunpowder stops working and I am watching Arrow dvds. Stirling also acknowledges help with Wicca. Works for me: I know several Wiccans and one of my few neighbors who is neither a Muslim nor a University student has an altar with images of the horned god and the goddess.

Stirling quotes Kipling:

"Far-called our navies melt away
"On dune and headland sinks the fire;
"Lo, all our pomp of yersterday
"Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!"

This resonates. Stirling quoting Kipling referencing Tyre evokes the Bible, a poem by James Elroy Flecker and a Time Patrol story by Poul Anderson.

A title can be a quotation or a deliberate misquotation. It seems that Dies The Fire is the latter. Other examples:

Goethe's Faust wrote, "In the beginning was the deed!";
TS Eliot, in The Wasteland, wrote, "I will show you fear in a handful of dust," whereas Neil Gaiman's The Sandman was advertised with the phrase, "I will show you terror in a handful of dust...";
a poem based on Gaiman's Endless characters ends with the line:

"Rage, rage against the dying of delight."

In Preston Today

The English Defense League held a small national rally in Preston, bringing their message that immigrants are not welcome. This is the group that, when it was able only a few years ago to demonstrate in large numbers and was not heavily policed, ran riot and attacked Asians.

In response, Preston City Council, Preston Trade Unions Council and Preston Mosques held a "One Preston, One Community" rally with music, speeches and free food provided by the mosques. An officer of my former public sector union helped to organize the event together with the national Unite Against Fascism campaign. Several hundred people, including families with children, attended and a Muslim community leader proposed that this become an annual event. We occupied the central square of the city.

The EDL, escorted by the police, held a brief rally in a nearby side street, arriving long after us and leaving long before us. We saw the tops of their banners above a police barrier. We were not visible to them because of the barrier but made sure that we were audible. The Leader of Preston City Council and other Councillors of his political party went as a group onto the stage. He spoke of refugees who have recently been welcomed into Preston and have become members of the local community. He also linked this to the welcoming of Jewish refugees in the 1930s.

We were able to return home after an enjoyable event, confident that the EDL message of hate and division had been decisively rejected.

SPECTRE

This Blofeld is authentic to Fleming's novels because he is Polish and realizes the importance of information and also to the Connery films because:

he presides at a SPECTRE meeting with his face in shadow;

the meeting pauses and everyone stands when he enters;

he acquires a disfiguring facial scar across one eye;

in an impressive SPECTRE headquarters, he addresses Bond from off-stage before entering to meet him in person - like Doctor No who, in the films, was also a SPECTRE operative.

Addendum, 18 November 2015: The octopus rings are also authentic to the Connery films.