Form
The book is structured into 26 chapters, each of which forms a complete story, with no characters shared between chapters. At first glance, this looks like a collection of short stories, but the individual stories clearly exist only to form a bigger picture. This impression is reinforced by the linear placement of the stories at key events in the overall timeline.
Each chapter bears the name of a human group or profession on whose contribution to the overall storyline the chapter is focused, such as "The Cartographers", "The Artists", "The Priests".
Furthermore, most of the chapters are prefaced by excerpts from two history textbooks (one written by a human, one by aliens) corresponding to the events described in the chapter. Compared with the "first hand" information the reader gains in the chapters, both sources show a substantial bias in their interpretation of the events.
Read more about this topic: Birthright: The Book Of Man
Famous quotes containing the word form:
“The old idea that the joke was not good enough for the company has been superseded by the new aristocratic idea that the company was not worthy of the joke. They have introduced an almost insane individualism into that one form of intercourse which is specially and uproariously communal. They have made even levities into secrets. They have made laughter lonelier than tears.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“Touch me not.”
—Bible: New Testament Jesus, in John, 20:17.
Spoken to Mary Magdalene, after Jesus has risen from the dead and made himself known to her. The words are best known in the Latin form in which they appear in the Vulgate: Noli me tangere.
“Driving is a spectacular form of amnesia. Everything is to be discovered, everything to be obliterated.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)