A couple of quick notes:
mantis,
The "teratoid sign" in TBOTNS is our radiation warning symbol.
Damien Broderick,
Aunt Bella's vision is of a downdown street at night in our own time. The "thousand carriage lamps" are of course auto headlamps.
This is an excellent essay, thought-provoking and complete. Didn't someone report (somewhere in the archives) that Wolfe has said that no one was murdered by Alden Weer in Peace? Of course, this could be a Clintonian evasion. (Weer didn't murder anyone, but through negligence, or misadventure, or...)
--viz
(david_lebling at avid.com)