Digest whorl.v010.n071

Suggestion for the secret of the inhumi: Everyone's been focusing on a change in human conduct as the secret that can destroy the inhumi. To me, the most easily accomplishable and plausible weapon that humans could have against the inhumi would be the ingestion of some substance. Since the inhumi drink human blood and appear to derive their personalities from the blood they drink, there may be something that humans can drink or eat that will impact the inhumi negatively. This is pure speculation . . . I have no supporting text to cite. *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.

Very interesting! And what could this substance be? Hmmm.... let me see. Why inhumi flesh, of course, preferably raw, although cooked might work. Humans eat inhumi, develop anti-inhumi antibodies in their bloodstreams. The inhumi die or get very sick when they try to drink the blood of these humans. Eventually inhumi revert back to beast status, in which state they are too stupid to know that human blood is bad for them, so they continue to remain a nuisance, but a much less dangerous one. (Or they might still be smart enough to let humans alone entirely). Ingenious, but I don't think so. alga seems to think we can't guess the secret with what we know now, and that may well be true. But what if we do get it right? Wolfe can just go and change what it is in the other two books! (Of course we'll have to wait a few more years before they come out. <g>) William Ansley *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.

Ooh! It opens up some very interesting lines of inquiry. Best, Jim *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.