{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1027",
    "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": "whorl",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1027,
    "subject": "Return to the Whorl: Early Predictions",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2000-09-11T18:29:00+00:00",
    "last": "2000-09-11T18:29:00+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0011-0259@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Robert Borski",
        "address": "rborski at charter.net"
      },
      "date": "2000-09-11T18:29:00+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Return to the Whorl: Early Predictions",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "While Horn is still in Gaon as Rajan, a fortune-teller comes and makes a\nnumber of predictions about what is yet to transpire in his life. Writes\nHorn: \"It was the usual mix of flattery and menace--I would lead three towns\nnot my own to victory, would be tried for my life, would return as a\nstranger to my sons' native place, find new love, and so on and so forth. I\nwill not put myself to the trouble of recording the entire rigamarole. When\nhe had finished I asked how I--or anyone whose future he foretold--might\nknow that his prophecies were valid; and he solemnly declared that the stars\nthemselves confirmed them.\"\n\nObviously, the stars have accorded themselves very well, and no doubt the\nother events mentioned by the soothsayer will come to pass in RETURN TO THE\nWHORL. But to the above list I'd like to append my own early speculations;\nsome build on theories I've already elaborated upon or had published\nelsewhere, others are the result of half-baked notions that never quite\ncompletely jelled; still others are pure fancy, the stuff of the coveted\nBorski award. You should take them with the same grain of salt as the\nGaonese when told about the astral veracity of the fortune-teller's\ndivinations. (\"Everybody laughed.\")\n\nQuadrifons, allegedly, has four faces. I predict an ontogenic quartet of\nape, shaman, scientist (complete with bug-eyed glasses), and robot. The\ncrossroads with which he's associated is actually the juncture of the New\nand Short Sun series.\n\nThe Neighbors will have either two heads or be Janus-faced, linking them to\nTyphon the First, galactic homeboy returned. Alternate theory: some of them\nlook like Horn. This is because Horn was purposely drawn by Seawrack's\nsinging to sexually assault her--not the kind of special talent a sane\nperson would desire, but one which does work to provide the Mother/Scylla\nand her exiled Mainframe cabal (the people in the underwater boats) with\ngenetic material to work from. This artificial propagation (\"My name is\nHorn, also\") may well explain the Neighbor's quasi-mysterious remark about\nhow \"the Mother\" is one of the sea goddess' name. I.e., Scylla's their\nclonatrice.\n\nWe will meet the oft-mentioned blind Pig, and the lesser mentioned Hound,\nPatera Grig and Tansy. Babbie, when he shows up, will have a defective or\nmending eye, and Horn will venture something to the effect that Babbie must\nhave injured it in a fight with another Blue beast or scratched it on a\nthorn in his intercontinental travails.\n\nSeverian's sister, when met, will be told to fetch Incanto & Company\nsomething to eat or drink, and the Cumaean may be present.\n\nThe fact that the inhumi don't fly from Green to Blue and/or can breed on\nthe latter are components of the Great Secret, but not its crux.\n\nRobert Borski\n\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}