{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1805",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1805,
    "subject": "sling stones as shooting stars",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-09-30T16:02:45+00:00",
    "last": "1999-09-30T16:02:45+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0152@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at sirius.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-09-30T16:02:45+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) sling stones as shooting stars",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Mitchell A. Bailey wrote:\nNo, I think these bullets are of the sort the kelau use in their slings.\nThe firework arbalests used a type of bolt or dart."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Yes, they are the lead shot used in slings (we are told that directly,\naren't we?).  OTOH, I don't think they are the only type of projectile used\nby the slingers: I remember their song in CLAW, \"Born Under a Shooting\nStar,\" and I seem to recall their fiery presence on the battlefield much\nlater in CITADEL. So my sense of it has always been that there are\npyrotechnic bullets as well as the lower tech lead bullets (with lowest\ntech stones below that).\n\nOh, look--here we go: `Their slings projected pyrotechnic missiles, the\n\"shooting stars\" of their song' (THE CASTLE OF THE OTTER, article \"Hands\nand Feet,\" last page).\n\nFWIW, I think I remember seeing the historical slogan bullets (\"Ouch!\"\n\"Strike!\" etc.) at use in Flaubert's SALAMBO . . .\n\n. . . still trying to recall where I might have seen the Venus de Milo\n\"secret history\" before reading PEACE . . . a few minutes ago, while idling\non this, I suddenly thought of all the post-1950 fictions I've read that\nhave Victorian fellows going off to dig up fossils, the more recent example\nbeing A.S. Byatt's POSSESSION and another example being Fowles's THE FRENCH\nLIEUTENANT'S WOMAN . . . and if these random thoughts are related (message\nfrom the Overmind), maybe TFLW has a Venus de Milo story in it?  Then I\nwould have mistaken this crypto-byte with THE MAGUS, I can see that very\neasily . . .\n\nWho knows.\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}