Since Clarke is himself an unswerving optimist, with an all but Buddhist reverence for life, the worlds that he creates, however strange, are usually basically benign.
One of the intriguing aspects of the Powell-Blair relationship is the combination of unswerving loyalty with flashes of profound irritation.
"Doerr's prose dazzles, his sinewy sentences blending the naturalist's unswerving gaze with the poet's gift for metaphor," Nancy Willard said in the Book Review last year.
Instantly, three young roe deer start from cover 20 metres away; I watch them through, and between, thickets of interwoven hazel and birch as they make their unswerving getaway with a stiff, springing gallop.
This is music that demands we be thrown off balance and drawn into total identification with its world, and Nelsons, conducting with unswerving passion, achieved precisely that.
For the moment, she documents her existence with unswerving consistency.
But the music stays shiny, poppy and hermetically precise, with unswerving, radio-ready dynamics.
That, too, made young people love and trust Lester Bangs with unswerving devotion.
Clever, honest and courageous, Mr Juppé had served Mr Chirac with unswerving loyalty for more than 20 years.
By profession a football administrator of long standing, he also served the game of cricket with unswerving devotion.
