Paul: Hi there
This is a question my wife asked me... She like me enjoyed all of your series. But one thing that irritated her was Covenant's cursing. ie "Hellfire - what kind of a swear word is that".
So I am curious, was "Hellfire and bloddy damnation" a common curse in the mid sevenites? Or did you go out of your way to try and avoid 'dating' your books by using dialogue or settings (in the real world) that would show up the story for its age?
Incidentally, with 30 years of hindsight, I think that Covenant would pay his phone bill at the postoffice - he would do it online and frequent chatrooms
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"Hellfire and bloody damnation" is probably the sort of swearing that only a missionary's kid can truly relate to. I chose it because: a) I'm a missionary's kid; b) it's exotic, unfamiliar, dislocated, an apt expression for a man terminally dissociated from his own life; and c) Covenant pretty much lives in Hell, and his story is about damnation (or the escape from damnation, which comes to the same thing).
Need I point out that when I wrote the first "Covenant" books chatrooms didn't exist, and people *did* pay their phone bills at the phone company?
(09/08/2004)
It's odd, and I can't imagine anyone saying such things it in rl, but, for whatever reason, I love it!
AND, one of my favorite lines comes about because of it:
"By hell," Covenant muttered. "By hell."
"Indeed?" said Amok with a boyish grin that seemed to light up the laughing curls of his hair. "Well, that is not for me to say."
Gotta love Amok!!
