AEG voices

Who--or what--are the voices in Gid's hopper that Computer Lady didn't hear? Should I have recognized them from another source, as is the case for the Squid god? Why do they egg her on? -Roy

I thought they were "Gray Neighbors" mentioned at the Wrap Party at the beginning of the book. The fact that they are there means that Chase is a wizard, not merely a scientist or high-tech fixer, which we knew when he had Cassie possessed by an Aphrodite-daemon. If Wolfe had made a few very slight modifications to the book, he would have had a nice juvenalia series here. J

As has been stated elsewhere, Gideon is (or pretends to be) the sort of pulp hero that kids of all ages love - he's dashing, he's mysterious, he has a cool car. He's like Batman or the Shadow. It's odd how nostalgic a book ostensibly set in the future is. Are there any interviews where Wolfe talks much about his childhood reading? You can infer a lot from his books (Oz, the pulps, etc.), but I'd love to see some sort of list. -Matt

Anyone else read "The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril"??? Talk about homages to pulps....fun easy story with real pulp authers as characters ------Original Message------ From: Matthew Keeley Sender: To: The Urth Mailing List ReplyTo: The Urth Mailing List Sent: Dec 11, 2008 8:34 AM Subject: Re: (urth) AEG voices

As has been stated elsewhere, Gideon is (or pretends to be) the sort of pulp hero that kids of all ages love - he's dashing, he's mysterious, he has a cool car. He's like Batman or the Shadow. It's odd how nostalgic a book ostensibly set in the future is. Are there any interviews where Wolfe talks much about his childhood reading? You can infer a lot from his books (Oz, the pulps, etc.), but I'd love to see some sort of list. -Matt

The voices make me think of spirits bound in service to a wizard. If there's a specific literary reference, it may be to The Tempest: 1) The voice like the wind is like Ariel, the airy spirit. 2) The deep voice that tries to tempt Cassie to drink whiskey is like Caliban, who gets drunk along with Stephano and Trinculo. 3) The tinny voice that mocks the car's windows is like the Shapes that act with "mocks and mows." Bound spirits often try to carry out their own agendas when their master is not closely controlling them. Chase thought it would be dangerous for Cassie to be in the car by herself. She tricked him so he had no opportunity to give orders to the spirits, so they tried to tempt her into trouble. There was another time when Cassie was alone in the car and didn't hear voices -- the night she first met Chase. Either the spirits were not there then, or they were under orders not to speak. (They may have been under orders to cause Cassie to fall asleep. It seems odd that Chase was counting on her staying asleep so he could hop the car to Canada. It's doubtful she would have fallen asleep on her own after being called out in the middle of the night to wait in a car in a bad neighborhood).

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In some of the interviews in Shadows, he talks about how as a kid he would go to the pharmacy, grab one of the pulp sci-fi, mystery etc. magazines, and hiding, would read as much as he could. I doubt he kept any real list. - -- gwern -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEAREKAAYFAklB39MACgkQvpDo5Pfl1oI5zACfWKoXK7FFuiDrcwLKtdTmQDIv erUAnjF7orw/W7IPl0MmrWZbsiiRWVNt =fOtA -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----