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Chapter 9: Discus Jestus
By: John D. Giorgis
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Title:
Hmmm..... anybody have any clue about the title to this chapter?
Analysis:
This chapter was interesting as Brin seems to suddenly change writing
styles here- going from the single narration of the first half of this book
and of _Sundiver_ to the multiple narrations that he will feature in most
of his future works. Indeed, this chapter reads very much like a clip out
of _Startide Rising_. I guess this isn't surprising since I consider
Brin to be one of the best climax writers around, and he uses the various
viewpoints here to keep the intensity at a fever pitch.
This chapter also reveals a lot of backplot. We find out what has
happende to Stivyung Sigel and his wife. We learn the full story behind
the L'Toff prince's visit we witnessed earlier. We get deeper hints about
exactly what are "the Old Beliefs" and that the Coylians likely have come
from somewhere else, only to lose the ability "to make."
We also get two more lashings with Brin's heavy satire of adventure novels
One of them, on page 184, is explicitly noted as such by Dennis. He
arrives with the Princess into a safe hideaway, just before the climax, and
ends up getting stuck with Chair for the night right after he gets the
Princess into bed. Then, at the end of the daring escape, instead of
kissing the girl, Dennis "gets very sick." Dennis is nothing if not an
anti-hero.
Finally, a very interesting quote on page 205: "wasn't *Earth a strange
place when you came right down to it? Cause and effect seemed so
straightforward there, yet entropy always seemed to be conspiring to get
you! Dennis hardly knew three or four engineer sback home who didn't
secretly, in their hearts, devoutly believe in gremlins, in glitches, and
in Murphy's Law." Ultimately, Brin's novels always make us look back at
ourselves.
Notes:
-pg 185 describes the pixolet as being "pink" as opposed to being green on
the cover.
-pg 186 the pixolets are not truly sentient. I guess they are just
bursting with "potential."
-pg 209 the Coylians have paper money, and also place side bets
-I must wonder what life is like in the future if a physicist can grow up
with both experience in carpentry, and being skilled with a sling. Well,
whatever it takes to make the story.
-Anybody think the Hoss'k has discovered gunpowder?
-Much has been made of the similarity of "the watcher character." I'd
also propose a similarity of "the marginal engineer character." I can't
help but feel that young Gath reminds me of Emerson on Hannes. Any others?
-pg 198 "Before the blecker threw us down to savagery." This is the second
appearance of the word "blecker." On page 55 Tomosh tells a scary story
about "Bleckers" and other fabled bogeymen. Interesting that Bleckers was
capitalized earlier, but not here, where it is used with a definite
article. That is probably a typo. Anyhow, anybody think that a guy with
the last name of "Blecker" stole Brin's lunch money when he was kid????? ;-)
-"Blacker" is the name of a dormitory at Cal Tech. It has an unfortunate
rhyme with "slacker."
-pg 194 has a refrence to the "fastness of the L'Toff." Fastness?
__________________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - ICQ #3527685
"The point of living in a Republic after all, is that we do not live by
majority rule. We live by laws and a variety of isntitutions designed
to check each other." -Andrew Sullivan 01/29/01
