Judith asked Lois McMaster Bujold:

Not a question as such, but I've wanted to mention that I spent most of Gentleman Jole expecting the volcano to erupt and the plascrete mixer to be used to divert a lava flow or some such. Am I the only one?

Lois McMaster Bujold No, you are not alone, but there were several logic problems with that potential plot development. For one, it would have required the science crew that Cordelia had hired to track the course of the underlying magma to be entirely incompetent at their jobs. Overstretched they may be; but they are not useless ditzes. This is a millennium in "our" future; we must also posit that volcano predictions are much improved over the benighted 21st Century, just as health care and space travel are.

Also, on the literary level, it would have required a coincidence of plot timing of the sort I have been much criticized-for, in the past.

Much more importantly, on the literary level, it would have proved an interruption to the story I was telling, not a part of the story I was telling.

Ta, L.

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