Sun Tzu and staff duty officers are obliged to prepare short papers for presentation to other officers on their readings. Similarly, Sun Tzu's "Art of War" is listed on the Marine Corps Professional Reading Program. During the Gulf War in the 1990s, both Generals Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. and Colin Powell employed principles from Sun Tzu related to deception, speed, and striking one's enemy's weak points. However, the United States and other Western countries have been criticised for not truly understanding Sun Tzu's work and not appreciating "The Art of War" within the wider context of Chinese society. Daoist rhetoric is a component
The Book of the Long Sun brief suicidal crisis, and comes to final conclusions about the moral doubts that he possessed during the earlier parts of the series. When "The Book of the Long Sun" concludes, Patera Silk's fate is unknown. Silk is an allegorical character, as is typical for Wolfe's work. He is often associated with Moses. Maytera Marble is a chemical citizen of Viron, or a "chem." This means that she is a robot who possesses a self-aware, sentient mind. Maytera Marble was initially designed to be a maid, but as her life progressed she found a more religious calling and became one of