short story 7: The Green Wall Said

David Stockhoff · 04 Apr 2012, 13:18 · from 2012-April.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:18:17 -0400
Subject: (urth) short story 7: The Green Wall Said
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Message-ID: <4F7C4A19.7050800 at verizon.net>

On 4/4/2012 9:15 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> *From:* David Stockhoff <mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net>
> 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?.

Never mind. Just never mind.

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