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 only justification for repressive institutions is material and cultural deficit. But such institutions, at certain stages of history, perpetuate and produce such a deficit, and even threaten human survival.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)