Posted by Jock on July 08, 2010 at 04:31:47 user Jock.
In Reply to: Re: Are things getting better? - Warning off-topic! posted by Eric Abraham on July 06, 2010 at 05:06:43:
Thanks Eric for turning the thread back to AR. I suppose these days I am much less optimistic than you are.
I always associated the Mastadon's dilemma in SW with Ransome's own attempt to ride two ideological horses at the same time.
When I was a child we lived in fear of the Russians and my comics depicted Germans and Japanese as sub-human monsters. But
at the same time you could buy explosives over the counter in mining districts and photograph trains to your heart's content.
Now Russian gas keeps my cookers burning, we admire the German economic miracles and the Japanese are those awfully nice
chaps who build our electronic toys. A replacement cast of bogeymen have been skilfully set on stage and if I wave a camera
around at as much as a bus station I'm liable to have a nasty confrontation.
There is a refreshing wind of optimism that blows through the early books. In SA and SD it's almost a gale, then it moderates
to a light breeze by SW and dies down entirely by GN.
Or at least that's how it seems to me!