5HC question

Adam Thornton · 25 Jul 2006, 23:06 · from 2006-July.txt.gz

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From: adam at io.com (Adam Thornton)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 16:06:01 -0700
Subject: (urth) 5HC question
In-Reply-To: <0E8A8361-C811-447A-BD01-B063ADC6275F at gmail.com>
References: <001e01c6aede$a8fa8180$783ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>
	<44C58E79.9090407 at io.com>
	<0E8A8361-C811-447A-BD01-B063ADC6275F at gmail.com>
Message-ID: <047499EB-9353-4081-A5A8-0E3D3D026B95 at io.com>

So, I have just finished _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_.

SPOILERS BELOW.  Stop here if you haven't read 5HC.

Still with me?

OK.

So, it seems pretty clear that Blue is Ste. Croix, Green is Ste.  
Anne, and that the abos are the inhumu.  What I don't know is which  
of these three hypotheses is right:

a) Wolfe just really likes the idea of shapeshifting creatures  
becoming what they mimic.  So he recycled the central conceit from  
5HC into the Short Sun books, but other than that we aren't supposed  
to see any connection between the stories.
b) Ste.-Anne and Ste.-Croix are Green and Blue from an earlier  
universe-cycle, even farther from the eventual Incarnation and thus  
end of history.  Me, I'm not at all sure I buy the spiral-time  
theory, so I don't really like this one.
c) They're the same planets in the same universe.  But in that case:  
if SS happens after 5HC, then the ruins on Green are explicable, but  
why are there no signs of prior human settlement on Blue?   
Contrariwise, if 5HC postdates SS, then why are there no signs in 5HC  
of prior human settlement on either planet in 5HC?  And who are the  
Visitors anyway?

This also raises a troubling, to me, theological point, that exists  
in SS too:

If the inhumu are merely what they mimic, and before the arrival of  
humanity they are innocent beasts, but after they bite humans they  
can in most essential ways *be* humans....then do they have souls?   
If so, when do these souls come into being?

Adam

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