Subject: (urth) hellish hues

From: Matthew Freestone <matthew at matthewf.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 06 Jul 1997 13:27:27 +0000

[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

Hi,
A few more points on 'Hues...'

Nutria:
>Moreover, it is clear that Kyle (largely a machine) wants Marilyn. Did 
>he kill Skip? The implications are that he did.
Where did you infer this from? Near the end of the story, Marilyn asks
Kyle, 'Can you cure him (Skip)?'. Kyle answers, 'I think so...' Surely
this implies he's still alive. Or do you think Kyle is lying? If so, how
did he get away with the murder in what seems to be a pretty small ship?

>When the shadow man dies, Marilyn feels her baby move. Clearly, the 
>shadow man has moved into her womb. Antichrist is soon to be born. 
I agree with this, and that it's the fundamental point of the story. In
particular, Polyaris' cry of 'Danger! Fire! Flood!' made me think of the
apocalypse. 

Alga:
>(I thought it was a parrot, not a macaw)
Definitely a macaw, on the first page: 'like all macaws, Polyaris doted
on microgravity.'

Ron:
>The shadow being is kept in some type of stasis field, not called that
>but referred to as a "yolk;" this "yolk" only appears when the shadow
>being is brought on board.
I thought what was happening here was that the yolk was just part of the
shadow matter (a theorised form of dark matter that only interacts with
our universe through gravitation, hence the fact that it can only be
seen using visualisers linked to the gravity field generators) the crew
picked up before they got the shadow man/demon. 

One final quote: 
"Marilyn asked, 'How does he look, Ky?'. 'Like hell,' Kyle muttered."

And one question: 
What's the film Kyle is thinking of when he tells Skip that for as long
as he is ill, 'I am the master.'?
--                              II         |\      _,,,---,,_
Matt Freestone                  II    zzz. /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_.
matthew at matthewf.demon.co.uk    II        |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'
www.matthewf.demon.co.uk/       II       '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)

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From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan at gnt.net>
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 1997 00:32:29 +0000

>did he get away with the murder in what seems to be a pretty small ship?

	If I'm right (hey, who knows?), Kyle has been doing a lot of lying. But
Skip claims to have died on the mother ship, so if Kyle did it (or arranged
for it -- I note that Skip does not accuse him directly), he did it there. 

>as he is ill, 'I am the master.'?

	"The Day the Earth Stood Still," from "Farewell to the Master," by -- uh,
oh, my 47 years are catching up with me. But hey, is "I am the master" from
the film? I remember it as the last line of the story, but not from the
film. Did Wolfe slip up? (The story is in the classic anthology of the
golden age, *Adventures in Space and Time* by McNealy and Comas (?)).
	If you don't know, Klaatu is the ambassador to earth from the galactic
civilization, and he is accompanied by a robot named Gort. Everyone thinks
Gort is just a servant, but he is actually a member of the robot-warrior
corps that rules (supervises, polices) the galactic civilization -- in the
film, anyway. The original story has an O'Henry ending, in which Gort
informs us that we have mis-read the story all along, and that he is the
master of Klaatu (the humanoid ambassador). Very Wolfean.

Nutria. (Klaatu, verada niktu!)

(Listen to the thereminvox melody and chord progressions in "Day the Earth"
and you'll hear them again occasionally in "Mars Attacks!")

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From: RRHMAH <rrhmah at aol.com>
Date: Wed, 09 Jul 1997 20:42:56 +0000

>  golden age, *Adventures in Space and Time* by McNealy and Comas (?)).
"Farewell to the Master" was by Harry Bates, I believe.  And that marvelous
anthology is _Adventures in Time and Space_, edited by Raymond Healy and J.
Francis McComas (the latter a founding editor of F&SF).

Rich Horton