Subject: (whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v005.n023

From: Alice Turner <al at interport.net>
Date: Wed, 04 Jun 1997 09:47:20 +0000

[Posted from WHORL, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]

>  Aren't priests the only ones who carry the gammadion?  For 
> that matter, is anyone besides Silk mentioned as having one?  
> Furthermore, the gammadion does function as a tool for working on the 
> 'Windows', the sources of 'revelation' whether you regard that revelation

> as true or false or (better I think) truth which conceals another truth? 

> And I don't think that Wolfe uses language in a sort of simple 
> equivalence such as gammadion = screwdriver and nothing more; after all, 
> he could have invented some science fictinal gobbledygook for futuristic 
> tools like they do on Star Trek (induced phase decoupler or some such 
> nonsense).

All priests carry them and have been taught to use them to fix Windows.
They get fancier with rank---Quetzal's is jeweled. Incus fixes Hammerstone
with one, and his non-priestly black mechanic pals doubtless wield them
too, possibly illegally or at least heretically. 

I don't think any of us thinks of a simple equivalent (gammadion =
screwdriver), but it doesn't hurt to use an analogy. Mantis once came up
with gammadion = Swiss Army knife, and I rather like that.

-alga-

---

From: Michael Richman <mrichman at cybernex.net>
Date: Thu, 05 Jun 1997 20:37:05 +0000

>> tools like they do on Star Trek (induced phase decoupler or some such 

 see below 

>too, possibly illegally or at least heretically. 

Quetzal doesn't fix Hammerstone with a gammadion but with something called
an "optisynapter" IIRC.  The Quetzal was able to repair Maytera Marbles arm
while Silk was not.

Michael Richman
380 Homans Av
Closter, NJ  07624
mrichman at bc.cybernex.net