Subject: Re: (whorl) A Few RTTW Questions [spoilers]

From: Spectacled Bear <spectacled.bear at pobox.com>
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 13:35:55 +0000

At 07:30 2001-02-09 EST, BMeyer7 at aol.com wrote: 
...
> 2. Who are "the little men on the bridge" and "the black gang" (p. 336). 

<<<<
The Flyers are "little people", reminiscent of Fairies in their
size and secretiveness. And Celticness, I suppose. They are the
crew, and the bridge is the bridge of the starship Whorl.

The black gang work near the reactor, so their name is probably
an old phrase for coal-blackened engine room stokers. That's
just a guess, but searching Google for "black gang stokers"
gives a page of results that confirm it. I do love the Web :-)

3. Are we to believe that Horn/Silk is Malrubius? 

<<<<
It's an interesting idea, and quite plausible.
4. Who is the man in the cloak on Green? (p. 191) 

5.  There has previously been a suggestion that maybe Horn/Silk was an 
inhumi.  It has been noted that one feature of inhumi is that they don't eat 
much.  On p. 361, it is said of Horn/Silk:  "sometimes it seemed like he was 
just pretending to eat and drink, and this was one of them."  Wow!  This is a 
Gene Wolfe red flare signal of something isn't it? 

<<<<
He definitely does eat and drink sometimes, and since he *is* Silk,
he can't be an inhumu. So far the idea that Silk just eats a lot
less than Horn seems most reasonable to me.

Spectacled Bear.

P.S. Could you set your mailer not to send HTML, please?
That would be a great help.

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