The word "collaborators" is interesting because it can introduce an ambiguity that is appropriate for Interventionists. It is possible to "collaborate with the enemy" and Chapter Three of Exode highlights the self-doubt of Interventionists: they must wonder if they are really puppets of the Huaoshy. The Interventionists like to imagine that they have been working to thwart the plans of the Huaoshy, but they can never be sure about that. Possibly, just possible, the Interventionists are doing exactly what the alien Huaoshy want them to do. If so, then while striving to be rebels, the Interventionists might unwittingly be collaborating with the mysterious aliens who the Interventionists regard as the enemy.
Glawen and Sessily |
Cover art by Boris Vallejo |
Dame Clytie and Simonetta Original cover art by Edward Valigursky |
Lucky for Glawen and the Conservationists, the leaders of the peefers and the Yips can't agree on common goals. Dame Clytie (head of the peefer party) and Simonetta (who has made herself queen of the Yips) literally come to blows when they can't agree on a shared plan of action against the Cadwal Conservancy.
Finally, "Smony" decides that Dame Clytie and the peefers are in her way, so she tries to eliminate them in one quick and decisive action: blasting their home, the cliff-side settlement of Stroma into the sea.
Stroma |
In Exode, the reader comes to imagine that the only hope for Humanity lies with the rather bumbling efforts of the Interventionists. However, it is hard to have much faith in the Interventionists because it seems like no two Interventionists can agree on anything. While the Interventionists don't start attacking each other, some decide that it might not be wise or safe to keep pushing the Earthlings ever faster towards an uncertain future of rapid technology-powered cultural change.
In the second book of the Cadwal Chronicles, Glawen faces a similar problem. He wants the Cadwal police to take swift action to rescue his father who is being held captive at a secret base on Ecce. However, his supervisor is unwilling to risk precious resources on a dangerous rescue operation into enemy territory.
Glawen must heroically go on the rescue mission by himself with only makeshift resources at his disposal. Glawen is well aware of the danger he faces, so when he boldly goes off to rescue his father we have no difficulty viewing his actions as heroic.
In the case of the Interventionist agents like Parthney in Exode, they are not at all well informed. In fact, Parthney is quite naive about what he is getting himself into. He is intrigued by the opportunity to go to Earth and finally live among other humans, but he can't really bring himself to imagine that going to Earth might bring him personal danger. Gwyned tries to make Parthney so comfortable at Lendhalen that he will never want to go off and face the hardships of being stationed on Earth. Gwyned provides Parthney with a robotic assistant, Robin and she helps Parthney pursue his musical interests.
After Parthney grows too comfortable at Lendhalen something must be done! The Buld have to ratchet up pressure on Parthney to make him fulfill his destiny and go off to Earth. The reader might feel that it is foolish to not let Gwyned go to Earth instead, but she is unable to make progress in her attempts to take control of the teleportation equipment at Lendhalen. Frustrated in her attempts to reverse engineer the advance technology at Lendhalen, Gwyned eventually returns to Klyz and tries to strip away the secrecy that shrouds the Fru'wu. Gwyned is at Klyz when Hana arrives from Earth. Neither of them have good things to say about Parthney and Gwyned helps lead Hana towards the suspicion that Parthney is responsible for the death of Hana's husband.
No comments:
Post a Comment