Subject: (urth) AEG: Mr. Pavlatos

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Fri, 02 Oct 2009 04:12:29 +0000

My cynicism aside, who is there to say that Cassie didn't find her lost love
and both lived together happily ever after? Whether Madame Pavlatos was
Bill's second wife or not doesn't really matter; all that is important is
that she has access to what has to be his wealth. There is nothing in the
text to indicate that she was a lonely widow or jilted ex-wife, no real
reason to suppose that she didn't have a man in her life.

If Cassie went back in time and found another version of  Reis, she can keep
him. It doesn't matter if the past cannot be changed in any significant way;
all she/they have to do is move beyond the time loop. The time loop is
bounded at one extreme by the farthest point in the past that either of them
traveled. It is bounded on the other end by Cassie's rescue and journey to
Woldercan.

Like this: Cassie goes into the past and finds a version of Reis. They get
together and return to Earth. Both know what happened before and are unable
or unwilling to change what happened. So they don't. Bill Reis is dead and
his enemies will not be looking for him. He takes yet another identity,
under which he manages his financial empire or uses Cassie (his common-law
legal widow) as proxy.

All Cassie has to do is rescue herself at the right time, while Bill keeps
out of sight. He has no need for more money, no reason to attract undue
attention by illegal or questionable activities. Everything plays out just
like it did in the story we have, but Cassie and Bill are free to live as
they please after the book is closed, as Madame and Mr. Pavlatos, or
whatever he wants to call himself.

-Roy

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From: Dave Tallman <davetallman at msn.com>
Date: Sat, 03 Oct 2009 04:56:37 +0000

> traveled. It is bounded on the other end by Cassie's rescue and journey to
I'm not sure what you mean by "another version" of Reis. If you mean a 
Woldercanian copy/doppelganger, this is subject to the same issue of 
lovable/unloveable copies. If this is a *temporal* clone of Bill, he 
will have to complete his own timeline by going back to die before he 
gets too old to carry off the impersonation.

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:47:07 +0000

> gets too old to carry off the impersonation.

Temporal. You seem to assume that time travel is one-way only, into the
past. There is no more evidence for that than there is for travel into the
future. If you receive a reply to an ethermail you haven't sent, you have
had a message from the future.

-Roy

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From: Dave Tallman <davetallman at msn.com>
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:17:26 +0000

> had a message from the future.
However he jumps, into the past or future, Bill Reis has only one 
personal timeline, and it ends when he is executed. Cassie may be able 
to steal more time to be with him this way, but if the past cannot be 
changed he must eventually return to die.

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Wed, 07 Oct 2009 07:11:31 +0000

Dave Tallman quoted and wrote:
> personal timeline, and it ends when he is executed.

Does it? Perhaps, for the individual who was killed. But if there are
characters who have one or more temporal copies running around at the same
time, the copies cannot be simply walking in the footsteps of one who had
gone before. That isn't possible. They would get in one another's way. Say
there are two versions of Reis. Can Wally have lunch with Bill? There is no
good answer.

> Cassie may be able

Take your theory that Margaret is an older Cassie: they interacted. Suppose
that the sniper had shot and killed Cassie instead of Norma. Would Margaret
have winked out of existence at that moment? Again, there is no right
answer. Either way, there is a paradox. When it comes to having one's brains
bashed in with a club, two heads are better than one -- I think.

Back to the ethermails. Cassie got an ethermail from Gideon welcoming her,
and eventually acted on it (buying the hopper and so forth). Which came
first, and from whose perspective? Suppose something similar happened with
Bill. Suppose he received a communication from the future, from some point
in the future after his death, that satisfied himself that events would play
out in such a way that he would survive Bill's death on the island. It's a
time loop again, if you will, only extended further into the future of the
story we have. He can survive Bill's death because he wasn't there; he is a
time-traveler copy.

The hypothetical communication from the future might have come from himself.
He got to the future because of Cassie, who went to Woldercan to find him
and did a little time traveling while she was about it.

All these time-traveling theories require too much supposing for my tastes,
but that's the nature of the beast.

-Roy

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From: Adam Thornton <adam at io.com>
Date: Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:06:12 +0000

On Oct 7, 2009, at 2:11 AM, Roy C. Lackey wrote:

> When it comes to having one's brains

Mister Typhon on lines three and seven for you.

Adam

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:11:29 +0000

> Mister Typhon on lines three and seven for you.

I knew I was setting someone up for a straight-line; it was just a question
of who. <g>

-Roy

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:51:08 +0000

What I know. What I know I don't know. What I think I might know. Perhaps 
this seems like basic stuff to everyone else, but I've had to reconsider 
what I thought to be the plot twice already.

On [page 260 -261] we learn that The Storm King has been on Earth for a 
million years or more. We know this because he has been around before humans 
(although this is the humans' planet) not his. In the interim, many other 
aliens have come to Earth. But they don't reveal themselves to humans. In 
fact, they impersonate humans to keep it all on the down low. Apparently, 
they do this by order of the Storm King. We are not told exactly why he 
commands this. [SUPPOSITION is to prevent humanity from being able to rise 
against him.] These aliens are not Woldercanlings. Woldercan is the only 
planet Earthlings have found with intelligent life. But they are not the 
only intelligent beings that have found EARTH.

In addition, [page 262] there are humans --drawn from California pagans and 
Satanists-- who are directly allied to Storm King. Also, there are humans 
working with competing Federal agencies, such as the Bureau of Alcohol 
Tabacco and Firearms (ATF - Arthur Thomas Franklin).

It's not clear what the government knows or thinks it knows about Ries. The 
President think Ries is spying for Woldercan. John Ferguson (FBI Director) 
does not [p 18-19]. Presumably, he prefers to think Ries is spying for the 
Storm King.  Of course the President might be lying; he tends to be more 
inclined to hold information back than John does. Reis is a man whose 
identity is apparently being assumed by at least two men simultaneously, but 
John implies there are three [p 15].

Copies and mirrors:  Chase makes copies of Reis and tears up the original [p 
21]. Chase enters Cassie's apartment through a hole in her wall from an 
apartment that "mirrors" her own [p 76]. When Cassie boards Pavlatos's boat, 
she is surrounded by mirrors and paintings of Madame Pavlatos [p 289].

What is the deal with the Volcano God play? I have no idea what its tactical 
purpose was. Just for Cassie? I'm not buying that. Why not get her into the 
movies (tri-vid) instead? The ATF went out of its way to assassinate one of 
the actors. How many cast members are not human; hiding out as "actors" just 
as Gideon Chase did? When Cassie meets the *real* Volcano God, he looks just 
like Vince Palma: the actor who played the Volcano God. Possible hint: After 
Cassie psychically merges with the modified human woman, Cassie says she 
"played" her once.

There are werewolves in this story, but it is not clear to me whether they 
are Wolderconlings or one of the other aliens. Just because Woldercan has 
perfected the ability to change, does not mean others have not succeeded in 
the same technology (remember Pat Gomez).

In addition, we have Gideon Chase who works for anyone. He supposedly left 
Woldercon as a child, but he knows a lot of Woldercon tricks, leading me to 
believe he is a changeling. He was able to heal the child of a rich woman 
(probably Pavlatos) of some indeterminate disease.  Maybe he healed him, but 
maybe he just replaced him!

As the time-travel scenarios have become more and more nailed down, I like 
them less and less. I think clones are more likely but I don't think this is 
that sort of story. I think this is a spy novel where everyone is wearing a 
mask. But I'm not certain Wolfe has provided the clues to peer behind those 
masks. I once said that Wolfe would never be more than a "writer's writer" 
until he published a Silmarillion of the New Sun. Even more than those 
others, this novel feels only the first half of a novel. It's "Murder on the 
Orient Express" without the last chapters where Hercule Poirot puts the 
evidence together into the various possible scenarios. It's too bad, because 
I think this is a really cool world Wolfe has created and I'd like to know 
more about it.

J.

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Fri, 09 Oct 2009 05:05:00 +0000

James Wynn wrote:

> are Wolderconlings or one of the other aliens.

Neither. "Werewolves are human." (205)

> Just because Woldercan has

According to Gideon, Wolders "cannot transform as we [humans] do. Not at
all." (99) What male Wolders can do is hybridize with lower animals. (100)

> maybe he just replaced him!

I don't know about Gid being a changeling, but it has been suggested before
that he is not Bob Chase's biological son, that his real father was a
Wolder. That might come to the same thing.

-Roy