Reptiles

Lee Berman · 07 Jan 2011, 08:37 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2011 03:37:31 -0500
Subject: (urth) Reptiles
Message-ID: <SNT123-W55E3B97A0F4F7F82F3C33CCF0B0 at phx.gbl>

>Jerry Friedman: it's not the inhumi's nature that's reptilian; it's their appearance.  
>They're nothing like Earth reptiles in their behavior.  And I see no discrepancy 
>between reptilian appearance and external fertilization.  I see no reason evolution 
>on Blue-Green should have gone the same way it did on Earth, no reason we have to adjust 
>our ideas about them when we learn about their fertilization or even if they have some 
>mysterious essential link to trees and vines.

I think we have another example of personal experience biasing interpretation. For me, 
being a reptile MEANS internal fertilization and terrestrial eggs. That was their major
evolutionary adaptation, allowing vertebrates to colonize the land and join their plant
and insect cousins there. 

For me it is as though Gene WOlfe spent three books noting the bird-like appearance
of Inhumi and then at the end reveals- they have no wings. That would have to be a 
significant solution to some series mystery, because an assumption of wings is something
(I think) we all share with regard to birds.

I don't know if Gene Wolfe shares my perception that internal fertilization is an essential
part of being a reptile or whether he just thinks of them as being scaly, creepy things. I 
can't know. On the one hand he is scientific and detail oriented. On the other hand he seems
to have conflated monkeys and apes in a couple spots in his work. (a baboon is big, but 
definitely a monkey).

I lean toward Wolfe recognizing the essentiality of reptilian internal fertilization because
it fits patterns I keep seeing. One is the increasing simplicity of their origin...

But the other may even more central...Wolfe is saying, at the end, that shapeshifting Inhumi need 
a body of surface water to reproduce. In a 12 book series in which fish and flooding seem to be 
recurring themes, I think this is likely to be a significant revelation.

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