{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/108",
    "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": 108,
    "subject": "Marble, off her?",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-02-19T10:54:28+00:00",
    "last": "1997-02-19T10:54:28+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0003-0157@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Ranjit Bhatnagar",
        "address": "ranjit at gradient.cis.upenn.edu"
      },
      "date": "1997-02-19T10:54:28+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Marble, off her?",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "mantis:\n\tRe: the smashed door, okay, I like it!  However, there's\n\tthis problem in that it seems like Marble was\n\tdreaming that scene . . . the text has the surreal\n\tquality we associate in the Long Sun text with dreaming \n\nWell, um, I think it was less a dream than a daze; she's\noverheating, fanning herself; internal alarms are going off;\nshe's awake, but having trouble seeing and thinking.  In\nfact, the description reminds me of when I fell off my bike\nand smashed my head; my vision faded to little dots and I\ncouldn't figure out which way to go to get home.\n\nIf she dreamed accidentally smashing Rose's door, going in,\nfinding Rose dead, and stripping her down for spare parts, \nwell, the door DID get smashed, and Marble DID end up with\nthe parts.\n\n(II, 263-266 in the paperback edition)\n\n\n\nI got another noodle I want to trace.  Crane, Silk, and\nMamelta are ejected from the Ayuntiamento's submarine, but\nonly Crane and Silk seem to make it to the surface.  Silk\nseems, dimly, a \"monstrous mottled face, black, red, and\ngold,\" with a \"gaping mouth that closed upon the splayed\nfigure he had seen,\" presumably Mamelta.  This description,\nalong with the comparison of Silk to a doll in the previous\nparagraph, reminds me of the Brides of Erebus back on Urth.\nI can just imagine Typhon letting a few of them go for the\nride.  On the other hand, if you're underwater looking up,\nwhat you'll see 'cause of refraction is a big circle of\ngolden sunlight surrounded by darker hues; and if you're\nrunning out of breath you'll see red and black dots.  Maybe\nall Silk saw was Crane floating to the surface, where he\nwould've been lost in the glare.  Silk thought the face was\nbelow him, but he might've got turned around like Severian\ndid in Gyoll.  \n\nI guess I'm just hoping to see Mamelta again.  The coast\nguard picked her up in their snappy red-and-gold\nsubmersible, yeah, that's it!\n\n(II, 308-309, paperback edition)\n\n\nOh yeah, which Niven novel was that?  Where the crew set\nthemselves up as rulers before thawing out the sleepers.\nUm, it was, er, _A Gift from Earth_.  (Thanks, Altavista!)\nNovel's set several generations after landing; society is\nstrictly divided into ruling Crew and underclass Colonists;\neven mixed marriages are discouraged.  In a somewhat Lupine\ntouch, they use one of the two original spaceships as an\noffice building, hospital, and... prison.\n\nWhile we're on the topic of other authors, I recently read\nGreg Bear's _Songs of Earth and Power,_ which is a wonderful\nand imaginative \"fantasy\" novel that's not a Tolkein clone\nor a sword-swingin' barbarian epic.  Recommended.  Hmm, I'd\nlike to hear book recommendations (in any genre) from all of\nyou, but don't want to clutter up the list.  Tell you what:\nsend book recommendations, any time you want, as many as you\nwant, to me or to\n\tultan at moonmilk.volcano.org \nand I'll make a web page for 'em.  Please include short\ndescriptions, not just a list of titles.\n\n-rat\n\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}