Picturing the inhumi

mark millman · 14 Apr 2000, 15:36 · from whorl-v0010.mbox · original

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From: mark millman <millman at us.ncipher.com>
Subject: Re: (whorl) Picturing the inhumi
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2000 15:36:59
Message-ID: <whorl-v0010-0325 at digest.urth.net>
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At 11:54 am -0700 on 14 April 2000, Nicholas Gevers=20
<vermoulian at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Has anyone on this list tried to picture exactly how
> Wolfe intends an inhumu (or inhuma) to look in its
> undisguised state? Various zoological parallels are
> suggested by Horn, IIRC including an owl, a serpent,
> reptiles generally; but I have trouble visualising the
> creatures exactly...=20

I don't know whether this will help anyone, but I tend to
visualize a sort of a tailless cross between a naked flying=20
squirrel (substitute lemur or possum for squirrel, as geo-
graphically appropriate) and a pterodactyl--the sort with-
out a beak, of course.

I suspect, however, that Wolfe's key idea about the inhumi
is their mutability, and that attempts to visualize them undis-
guised probably miss the point a little bit.  I have also won-
dered how much the guises adopted by inhumi depend on=20
physical alterations, and how much on psychological (or=20
possibly psychical) effects.

Nacre

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