Comment by wizzwizz4
21 days ago
This story is set thousands of years in the future, and yet their social norms are broadly those of 1960s America, conspicuously minus the racism. Their notion of gender equality, for instance, is to segregate, but add "(and women)" after every few "men" (respectively "(and husbands)" after "wives"). Stubby Trevelyan smokes, and litters the cigarette butts. This has to be deliberate on the part of the author. I wonder what Ladislas Ingenescu, Registered Historian, has to say about the matter?… if, indeed, he has any original thoughts to share.
I read fantasy set a thousand years in the past, and yet the women are all individualistic and liberated, no women ever spend any time spinning thread, and the monks don't really believe in Christ. Ken Follett really tried with the monks, but although he clearly did a lot of research, it felt like it was alien to him. Br. Cadfael, for all of Ellis Peter's research still thinks like a modern. For that matter, maybe they had legitimately grasped it and I missed it because I was still Baptist when I read them, while medieval monks were obviously Roman Catholic. I've learned enough since then to know that Baptists don't understand Roman Catholics one bit.