Butterfly & Hellflower (was RE: The GZG Digest V2 #1010)

At 03:17 PM 3/19/02 +0000, Adam wrote:
> > From: John Crimmins <johncrim@voicenet.com>
> > But anyway...I'm being all off-topical.  I'm trying to think of
something
> > to bring us back around to SGII, but all I can think of is GW's
Space
> > Marine Combat Librarians.  I should pick up some just so I can run
> > a scenario about their launching a raid on an enemy
> > stronghold to collect some overdue books....
>
>Alternitively there is Buffy's Giles and the War against the Libraries
>in the background of Darktrader and Hellflower [Our heroine is a
>somewhat inadvertent Librarian and therefore the empire wants her
>dead.]

Well... if the Empire knew Butterfly St.Cyr (or, to use her full name, 
Saint Butterflies-are-free Peace Sincere) had Paladin (the Library),
they 
would want her dead.  Of course, since she's not supposed to be off her 
planet in the first place, her life is forfeit anyway.

For those not in the know (which I imagine is many, unfortunately), the 
books in question are the "Butterfly and Hellflower" trilogy by Eluki
bes 
Shahar, whose "only" (to the best of my knowledge) other writings are
some 
children's literature and a couple of *very* nice stories for Dragon 
Magazine.  (Read 'em if you're got the CDs!)  She developed a very
colorful 
universe and, being a librarian herself, with an interest in languages, 
based it around a sentient Library and some commentary on how language
(and 
the evolution/devolution of language) reflects society... among other 
things.  Awesome books, with lots of fun tech toys, too -- I mean, how
can 
you not like Imperial Hoplite Armor, the stuff so dangerous it had to be

decommisioned because the troopers were tearing up their starships by 
accident?  (If you're facing it, that's when you don't like it....)

Okay, I'll stop now.  But they are fun books, very enjoyable though you 
have to get into the different... dialects, I guess, she uses.	So,
Brian 
Bilderback, I think the above books are my pick for you to read. ^_-

And, come to think of it, the universe could be an interesting one to
run 
some SG or FMA scenarios in -- I don't think they ever game enough
detail 
to run FT, and besides some of the ships (the Jagranathas) run into the 
planetoid scale.  (They actually came out about the same time as Weber's

Mutineer's Moon, too, though she had some short story sections out in
the 
early 80s.  I guess 1991 was a banner year for giant, moon-sized
starships. 
^_- )  We also never see enough troops to cover a DS2 action, nor even 
tanks (IIRC) though I am sure they exist.

But troops... hmm... hafta think on this one a bit. ^_^