short story 7: The Green Wall Said

Gerry Quinn · 04 Apr 2012, 13:15 · from 2012-April.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2012 14:15:36 +0100
Subject: (urth) short story 7: The Green Wall Said
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From: David Stockhoff 

On 4/3/2012 6:59 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:

> Without having read that story yet, just commenting on this comment: 
> this is as clear an "aliens as Fairies" story as one could imagine. AND 
> ... they appear to be robots as well. Functionally speaking, that is: 
> they are immortal, logical, unemotional, dying only from wear and tear, 
> functionally capable of producing offspring but practically incapable.
I didn?t really get a ?fairy? vibe, more of a ?saucer alien from very scientifically advanced race? vibe.  Granted Wolfe has explicitly conflated fairies and saucer aliens on at least two occasions, but I don?t think he?s really doing it here.

> Not /terribly /different from Tolkien's high elves, who are emotional 
> but in control, undying but capable of being killed, just, and who 
> reproduce rarely. As Fairies, they need humans for something they lack 
> and that only sentient mortality can provide.

I?m not really up on my Tolkien, but I think if we are going to classify races as fairies so broadly as even to include robots, we need to start specifying subtypes.

And while fairies might say ?we are sane, our laws are just, you have nothing to fear? they are usually obligated to add ?unless you eat a bite of the food we seem to offer you freely, in which case you are damned forever?.

- Gerry Quinn


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