Wow,  an actual discussion of some SF,  and not one of the side-trips that
seemed to take over this echo for a while!  :-)

Robert Bull wrote in a message to Kay Shapero:



 KS> CBIP: _Paladins_ by Joel Rosenberg.  Almost didn't read this one (it
 KS> came in a bundle with several other books I did want), but whatever it
 KS> was that bugged me about his early works seems to have worn off.  It's
 KS> set in an alternate version of Earth where Pendragons in the line of
 KS> Mordred rule England, in the equivalent of our Age of Sail, and Our

 RB> Hmmm.  Does that mean that Mordred's descendants are somehow
 RB> tainted,  congenitally dishonourable, or whatever?  Mordred never
 RB> had a good press... 

 KS> occasional in-joke, but on the whole doesn't use them to excess.  I'm
 KS> about 3/4 of the way through.

 RB> Be interesting to hear how it works out.

I haven't bought any of his stuff in ages,  and then recently acquired one
-- "Not Quite Scaramouche",  if I'm remembering right.  I've had
it for a while now and still haven't been able to bring myself to start it.
 And was less so after looking it over and realizing that it was one of a
whole series of "Not Quite..." titles.  Maybe I'll get into it at
some point.



 RB>      I'd got bored with pseudo-mediaeval Northern Europe-type
 RB> milieus for fantasies.

I can see how it would be easy to do that.  :-)



 RB>      Elliott still didn't answer another puzzle.  Why are so many
 RB> American fantasy authors, all of them presumably firm believers in
 RB> democracy,  apparently so obsessed by hereditary kingship?

Because they're _not_ firm believers in democracy.  If you look around that
sort of stuff really does pervade our culture,  though I for one don't care
for it much.  Anglophilia as well.  Think "cultured" here and
you're likely thinking about someone who talks with an
"upper-crust" british accent,  or at least what's envisoned as
such here.  We as a culture should have gotten over that a LONG time ago, 
and it might make for some interesting speculation to try and figure out
why whe haven't.

 RB> Why should that always be the best way to rule fantasyland?

Because the author can't come up with a plausible-sounding story that would
make it happen here?

 RB> Here we have at least some British authors doing the opposite, 
 RB> like China Mieville's city of New Crobuzon run  by a corrupt 
 RB> oligarchy in cahoots with its criminal underworld. 

Sounds closer to the reality of it to me -- they're *ALL* run by groups of
what amount to organized criminals.

---