Finished Declare.
.
Have you read Declare? You really, really should.
So much so that I’m putting these comments under a spoilers fold.
Like this.
Or maybe like this?
Hang on a few lines…
…
almost…
OK.
…so who, then, really, was Theodora? When you consider the length of his plans, his inside knowledge about St. John Philby, his game of doubles, it seems simply implausible that he would not know about a whole world of djinn, apart from those on the mountain.
And it’s very in-character for Powers to leave us a clue. His Classical and gender-swapped surname. Jimmy/Ginny /djinni?
…was he playing the whole Britisg secret service establishment on a long plan to destroy competitors? Is this some very, very old grudge? Who moved Russia’s guardian angel in 1883?
Any thoughts? Should I write up Powers’s djinn as a tent-pole monster?
(if I do, it won’t be for a few weeks yet…)
Tattered Remains of Tartary 
I hadn’t really considered Theodora’s true identity before… until now.
LikeLike
hm…
LikeLike
what game system are we playing Declare in?
LikeLike
It’s a very good book.
LikeLike
BRP with the addition of exactly one Fate Point per soul (and rumour has it you can somehow swindle people out of their single second chance).
LikeLike
I note in passing that Theodor/a means “gift of God” and is therefore pretty much the opposite of a Deodand.
And that Empress Theodora had the skill set of a spy, having been an actress and a prostitute.
LikeLike
a handy guide to Empress Theodora, of whom Prokopius said that she lamented that she had only three orifices to give pleasure (dear me, The Guardian!):
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/jun/10/theodora-empress-from-the-brothel
LikeLike
ahem.
LikeLike
Looks like I have Declare as a Kindle Matchbook title. Maybe I’ll re-read it as soon as I
give up onfinish this tiresome Pat Cadigan book I’m reading.LikeLike
…and so I note that Theodora says to Hale in 1948 “the Kurds are like your precious Bedouins…”
It seems moderately natural in the scene: Hale has just been among Bedw at Wabar and we know he made friends. But it’s really Philby pere et fils who have “precious” Bedw friends – the kind who give them fox fur coats and 20 carat diamonds. The Philbys have spent many years with them, not a quick and dangerous trip, and are known for the association.
As if Theodora forgets for a moment who he’s talking to.
LikeLike
and this book loves its wordplay. Philby uses gin to wash djinn out of his mouth (both are spirits). He mixes it with Flit, which as you recall is the insecticide used to make Skunkworks’ LF fuel – the only fuel that could guarantee a “stable flight” for the high-flying SR71 Blackbird then in development – perhaps the only plane high enough to need protection from the djinn “of the upper air.”
And at one point Hale thinks of himself as a “frightened mammal” before the djinn who, as masters of the underworld, are “attired in feathers, like birds.” And his guide on Ararat happens to be called Mamalian.
And Mamalian, it turns out, is a djinn cultist who conveniently turns on the Russian commandoes and kills them, without which action Hale could not carry out his mission. And Mamalian had been smuggled into the USSR by Hale in 1948, on Theodora’s orders, without either Hale or Mamalian knowing it.
So when they approach the ark, all 3 men left alive were placed there by Theodora, and all are necessary to the way events must play out.
And Hale doesn’t join the dots, but we can. Just like Powers did, looking for the missing links in Philby’sstory that might suggest the intolerable truth.
So who the hell is Theodora, the grand architect whose plans stretch 40 years and more from their inception? Who in the end entrusts everything to such fragile agents and cannot simply go up the mountain himself?
LikeLike