Even at this late date I'm still thinking about the theme---or themes---I wrote about in True Son of Tartarus. Loyalty is definitely one theme: Malkis' loyalty to his people and to his wife, both Rona's and Hughes' loyalty to him. Self-sacrifice as an expression of love is another theme here, just as it was in Judgment on Tartarus. The sheer power of that kind of selfless love is crucial to the plots of both books. And the villains in both, the Gorgonians ( aka Ghendarians ) are absolutely clueless when it comes to any concept of love, loyalty, or self-sacrifice---which is, of course, what makes them the bad guys!
One of the major questions asked in True Son is: which is more important---honor or survival? Each of my characters has to make up his or her own mind and make a choice during the course of the plot.
Love is also a major theme of both books, though different cultures define "love" much differently. Being Terran, Rona Scott and Richard Hughes tend to identify love with a state of emotion, while Malkis of Tartarus is of a culture which does not recognize the emotional component at all and fails to understand it.
And, most likely, the hedonistic, fatalistic Cythereans would merely shrug and identify love as just another form of pleasure-seeking!
Although I'm quite obviously a Terran myself, I can understand somewhat Malkis' concept of love; having once been involved in the Worldwide Marriage Encounter movement, I can't help but recall their saying: "Love is a decision."
To each his own, I guess!
MRTighe
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