Lives of the Great Beasts

Jeff Wilson · 03 Jul 2010, 05:23 · from 2010-July.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Sat, 03 Jul 2010 00:23:59 -0500
Subject: (urth) Lives of the Great Beasts
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On 7/2/2010 10:24 PM, Jonathan Goodwin wrote:
> "Megatherian" is not Wolfe's coinage. It's in the OED. It is a simple
> variant of the same word used to describe the extinct sloths, used in
> the same way: "great beast."
>
> What does "megatherian" mean in the New Sun? It refers to the great
> beasts Abaia, Erebus, Scylla, Arioch, et al. (If they are the size of
> mountains, what bioengineered animal would warrant "mega-"?) There are
> sorcerers on Urth, and perhaps their power does come from the
> megatherians. I doubt that the mentioned book is a parallel to
> Godwin's Lives of the Necromancers, however. To think it so would
> require making a specific inference from Crowley's silliness, and I
> see no reason to do that.

I still don't see it as necessarily hinging on Crowley's anything.

How do you address the "lives" portion? Like this?

http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Cool_Stuff/Short_Stories/I_Cthulhu

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
< http://ieeetamut.org >

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