# What does Erebus eat for lunch? Whatever he wants. *The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 27 May 1998* > 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. --- ### Dan Parmenter *27 May 1998, 14:41* > From: C R Culver > The monsters we hear about are Erebus, Abaia, Uroborous, and Scylla (the last > mentioned, I believe, only once). I used to believe that the monsters, besides > Abaia perhaps, did not really exist, but rather were creations of the > laypeople to explain the encroaching ice. But, the last few volumes seem to > imply that an underwater civilisation is actually present. Jonas definitely seems to think that the monsters are for real and even seems impressed that Severian understand that they're genuinely huge. Typhon claims to sense their presence and seems to think that it won't be too much trouble to bend them to his will. Didn't one of Mantis' theories tie into this? That the monsters are the descendants of the monarchists or something? So the "villains" want to extend their own lives, either through replacement bodies or contiued growth. Does Severian hear their footsteps in the mine? I've certainly toyed with the idea that the monsters of the deep were "mythical" or even a deliberate ruse. Re: URTH MUSIC The soundtrack I hear in my mind probably resembles the song "Venus in Furs" by the Velvet Underground, minus its silly lyrics. The song itself is a slow-building, distorted drone with a traditional sounding tune, played on (among other things) an electric viola strung with electric guitar strings. Something about the notion of "repetition is change". I also imagine something akin to Indian Classical music, both due to its droney qualities as well as the unfamiliar 1/4 tones and whatnot. I imagine something quite different from Western scales and modes, perhaps like Harry Partch's 43-tone scales or something. D ---