Cultural Allusions
While fleeing the Fire Angel, Merlin passes through a field of flowers whose scent is intoxicating. This is an allusion to The Wizard of Oz.
"Old John," Random's assassin whom Merlin encounters at Bloody Bill's, is a reference to the comic book character Grimjack. (Old John has a "nasty-looking scar running both above and below his left eye.")
When speaking with Nayda, Merlin remarks, "I'd like to meet the person who wrote the reports. There may be a great creative talent going to waste in a government office." Zelazny worked for several years for the Social Security Administration before quitting to write full-time.
Read more about this topic: Sign Of Chaos
Famous quotes containing the word cultural:
“The rumor of a great city goes out beyond its borders, to all the latitudes of the known earth. The city becomes an emblem in remote minds; apart from the tangible export of goods and men, it exerts its cultural instrumentality in a thousand phases.”
—In New York City, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)