Laura and I have been culling great numbers of books in preparation for our anticipated move (still months down the road). As I was going through boxes, considering each volume in turn, I ran across my hardcover copy of Dave Wolverton's space opera The Golden Queen (recently republished as part of the two-book omnibus Worlds of the Golden Queen under Dave's more successful pseudonym David Farland).
I opened the book to hunt down a particularly memorable passage, and happened to turn directly to it. I read aloud to Laura:
Everynne closed her eyes and let her mantle connect to Lord Shunn's personal intelligence via telelink. She watched his attack progress—silver fliers swept through the sky in a wedge, shooting low over the forest toward the gate, dropping a barrage of explosives along with canisters of chlorine gas, which was particularly toxic to dronon. As soon as the fireballs began erupting over the treetops, Lord Shunn's attack force moved in.
Under cover of the trees, long-range laser weapons were nearly useless, so Shunn's forces all wielded only incendiary rifles. No human could bear the weight of the armor needed to ward off an incendiary blast, so Shunn's men were protected only by gas masks and lightweight heat-resistant combat fatigues. The men ran forward in loose formation, moving cautiously. Since the battle was meant only as a diversion, they were not in a hurry to engage the vanquishers.
Lord Shunn himself flew in behind on his hovercar, with its hood down, observing the battle. He glided through the trees, and only the distant smell of smoke signified that a battle had been launched. For fifteen minutes, Everynne watched the battle progress, until Lord Shunn's troops met several dozen vanquishers. Suddenly the woods filled with fire as incendiary rifles began discharging. Flaming balls os sulfurous white whipped through the air with incredible speed.
She watched a civilian try to dodge behind a tree in hopes of eluding a ball that flamed toward him, growing in size. The chemical charge from the rifle splattered across the tree and across the man's arm, erupted into flames hotter than the sun. He screamed and held his arm out, spinning once, kicking up detritus from the forest floor. In less than a second, he succumbed to the heat and lay burning.
The sight horrified Everynne to the core of her being. As a Tharrin, she was bred to be empathic. She detested violence. Somehow, knowing that Lord Shunn and his workers had volunteered to die in the woods this day made Everynne feel ashamed, weak. She only wanted the killing to stop, everywhere, but she was forced into a deadly contest and could not escape. (pp. 172-3, The Golden Queen, Dave Wolverton, Tor Books, New York, NY, 1994)
What a delight! This reminded me of the real reason we write science fiction—so we can memorialize our friends in fictional adventures and give them the heroic deaths we know they'll neither achieve nor deserve in life, but which we secretly wish upon them (but without the heroic part). The more futile the better.
I feel inspired! To work!
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