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asher553PEOPLE OF THE WOLF (O'NEAL-GEAR): Chapter 46. With an impassable glacier before them and the threat of war behind them, Wolf Dreamer's faction find a third path: a tunnel through the glacier. They make their way into the darkness, following the light of Wolf Dreamer's fire. Dancing Fox walks at the very end, her bond with Wolf Dreamer severed. Finally, the travelers emerge from the ice, and look up to the sky to see the Blessed Star People.
KING OF THE VAGABONDS (STEPHENSON): Walpurgisnacht, 1684. Jack, alone (or so he thinks) in the woods on the Harz Mountains, stumbles into a witches' ceremony, where he mingles with the crowd and partakes of some mushroom-laced concoction. The revelers, spying his sword and taking him for a churchman (Jack himself has just witnessed a witch being burned in town), chase Jack into an abandoned building, where he makes a highly improbable escape through a series of underground tunnels by the light of a kienspan (torch) and emerges dramatically at a business meeting in the silver mine, being officiated by none other than Enoch Root. And who else is there but Eliza and Dr. Leibniz.
REVELATION SPACE (REYNOLDS): Chapter 8 - enroute to Delta Pavonis, and on Resurgam, 2456. Newlyweds Dan and Pascale (Girardieau) Sylveste escape the wedding massacre that left Nils Girardieau, the father of the bride, dead. They flee into the labyrinth of the Amarantin city, with only Dan's bionic (and infrared-capable) eye to guide them. They elude their pursuers for a while - long enough for Dan to make a confession to Pascale about the events that happened to him near the Shroud. Sleeping gas robs them of consciousness as enemy forces close in; meanwhile, aboard a lighthugger in deep space, other parties are plotting Dan Sylveste's demise.
'Fear! I'm more afraid than I've ever been in my life! It's not death. No, I can die. It's the darkness ... the ghosts. A man shouldn't die in the darkness. His soul is trapped. Dark. Forever dark.'
- People of the Wolf, p. 291.
'"I was scared," Sylveste said. "More scared than I've ever been in my life. Scared of what dying in an alien place would mean. Scared of what would happen to my soul, around that place. In what Lascaille called Revelation Space." He coughed, knowing there wasn't much time left. "Irrational, but that was how I felt. The simulations hadn't prepared us for the terror."'
- Revelation Space, p.175.
As it happened, all three of my readings today involved characters passing through dark tunnels and contemplating life and death. For The People in ice-age North America, a death under ice or earth - cut off from the Blessed Star People above - is the worst imaginable fate. The spacefaring humans of the Revelation Space universe are a long way from venerating the Blessed Star People, but they are still capable of fearing for the fate of the soul.
KING OF THE VAGABONDS (STEPHENSON): Walpurgisnacht, 1684. Jack, alone (or so he thinks) in the woods on the Harz Mountains, stumbles into a witches' ceremony, where he mingles with the crowd and partakes of some mushroom-laced concoction. The revelers, spying his sword and taking him for a churchman (Jack himself has just witnessed a witch being burned in town), chase Jack into an abandoned building, where he makes a highly improbable escape through a series of underground tunnels by the light of a kienspan (torch) and emerges dramatically at a business meeting in the silver mine, being officiated by none other than Enoch Root. And who else is there but Eliza and Dr. Leibniz.
REVELATION SPACE (REYNOLDS): Chapter 8 - enroute to Delta Pavonis, and on Resurgam, 2456. Newlyweds Dan and Pascale (Girardieau) Sylveste escape the wedding massacre that left Nils Girardieau, the father of the bride, dead. They flee into the labyrinth of the Amarantin city, with only Dan's bionic (and infrared-capable) eye to guide them. They elude their pursuers for a while - long enough for Dan to make a confession to Pascale about the events that happened to him near the Shroud. Sleeping gas robs them of consciousness as enemy forces close in; meanwhile, aboard a lighthugger in deep space, other parties are plotting Dan Sylveste's demise.
'Fear! I'm more afraid than I've ever been in my life! It's not death. No, I can die. It's the darkness ... the ghosts. A man shouldn't die in the darkness. His soul is trapped. Dark. Forever dark.'
- People of the Wolf, p. 291.
'"I was scared," Sylveste said. "More scared than I've ever been in my life. Scared of what dying in an alien place would mean. Scared of what would happen to my soul, around that place. In what Lascaille called Revelation Space." He coughed, knowing there wasn't much time left. "Irrational, but that was how I felt. The simulations hadn't prepared us for the terror."'
- Revelation Space, p.175.
As it happened, all three of my readings today involved characters passing through dark tunnels and contemplating life and death. For The People in ice-age North America, a death under ice or earth - cut off from the Blessed Star People above - is the worst imaginable fate. The spacefaring humans of the Revelation Space universe are a long way from venerating the Blessed Star People, but they are still capable of fearing for the fate of the soul.
