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Originally Posted by McMurphy If dragon and dragon riders can "go between" to teleport large distances on the planet by fathoming a mental picture of their intended location, and if they can likewise travel through time using the same method, then why aren't they always teleported into the past? They are picturing the location by memory, afterall. The theory, while fun and interesting, seems to have some loopholes in logic.
Or am I just not getting it? |
I find logical inconsistencies like this often, unless they immediately irk me and actually make me stop reading to think about them, I usually let them go. But if they flagrantly challenge my intelligence, I will normally just put them down. For example, when reading China Mieville for the first time I was having a very hard time accepting a blend of insect and human; the small amount of biological knowledge I have tells me that their differing systems would be completely incompatable. I kept on even though this really bugged me (no pun intended) because the book had been so highly recommended to me by a person who's opinion I respect (nod to JP) and I eventually got over it to enjoy the story.
For some reason though, McCaffrey's inconsistencies, like the one you mention, seem to be small enough for me to pass over. Perhaps it is because her emphasis is on the story itself and not the technical details. I don't know. I read most of her books a long time ago when I was much younger and I didn't read them all at once - more like a book a year with many in between. This may also account for the fact that I don't recally any problems I had with continuity between stories.
Whatever the reason, I've always enjoyed those books - though the latest ones have seemed to be a little less wonderful compared to my memory of the earlier ones. I don't know if that is because the quality of her writing has degraded over the years or because I'm older and more knowledgeable.