May 2014 Wolfe interview in _Technology Review_

...when Wolfe dropped out of college, he was drafted into the Army, and fought in Korea as a combat engineer. He returned home, by his own account, “a mess”: “I’d hit the floor at the slightest noise.” Rosemary, whom he met again shortly after he was discharged, he says simply, “saved me.” ...I met Gene Wolfe at home in Peoria, where he returned in 2013 after many years in Barrington, Illinois. Although he had recently published a new novel, The Land Across, and was working on another, it was a melancholy visit. He had moved because his wife, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, wanted to go home. But not long after their return, she entered an assisted-living facility, and she died on December 14. Wolfe had been ill himself, his eyesight and heart troubled, and for a time he had also been confined to a facility. The day before I arrived, workers had found his dog, who had been missing for weeks: the animal had been hit by a car, and had crawled behind a garden bush to die. The house was nearly empty except for the author’s own books, some family photographs (including one of an implausibly young Wolfe in uniform), a little furniture, and a makeshift shrine, with a statue of the Virgin, rosary beads, and a Bible, in front of a window overlooking the back lawn. In person, Wolfe is large, kindly, and unfailingly courteous. His hands are huge and spatulate. He sports an exuberant hussar?s moustache. He speaks carefully, in a higher register than the voice of the books might suggest. We talked the day after his 83rd birthday. [8 May 2014] ...Q: What struck you about G.K. Chesterton? A: His charm; his willingness to follow an argument wherever it led. Q. What of the founders of science fiction? A. When I was a boy, I read all the pulp magazines, which were still around in those days. You’ve no doubt seen collector editions, but in those days you could buy a pulp for 10 or 15 cents. One of my favorites was Famous Fantastic Mysteries, which reprinted good stuff from the turn of the century. Once, they did Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau [1896] as an entire issue. And I read it, and I absolutely loved it, and when I had read the last page I went back to the first page, and I started again. And when I started my fourth reading I thought, “Well, I know everything that’s going to happen now and I’ll just put it aside for a while until I’ve kind of forgotten it, and then I’ll read it again.” And I never looked at it again until I was about 50. And when I was that age, somebody wrote to me and said he was putting together one of those books that honor the hundred best science fiction novels. It would have essays from writers like me, and this person wanted me to do The Island of Dr. Moreau. I thought, “Gee, I remember that fondly. I will take him up on that. But first, obviously, I have to get a copy of it and read it, since I haven’t read it since I was a kid.” And I did ? Wonderful cover on that book, by the way wonderful! The man was bare-chested?not quite muscular enough to be a hero, but muscular and good-looking and behind him is this enormous, shaggy monster. And the monster has one hand on the man’s shoulder. In a most buddy-looking sort of way, you know. [Chuckles merrily.] I thought that was a lovely cover; I still do ? Anyhow, I read the book and immediately saw there were things in there that had completely sailed over me that were now hitting me like a brick. The book starts when the narrator gets on a ship from some city in South America. On the third day out, they ram a derelict and their ship sinks. He spends three days in a lifeboat with two men, a fellow passenger and a sailor, and he mentions, just in passing, that he never learned the name of the sailor in the boat with him. And another thing: the sailor and the passenger fall overboard in a struggle, and the narrator is picked up by a boat carrying Dr. Moreau’s doctor, who gives him “a dose of some scarlet stuff, iced. It tasted like blood, and made me feel stronger.” That one, too, just whizzed by me. All this stuff, and I was too dumb to appreciate it as a boy! ...Q. I know you thought Algis Budrys a tremendous writer. A. A.J. was a friend. I admired Who [1958] enormously. The plot of Rogue Moon [1960] is striking: Budrys tells us that if you destroyed a man here and reconstituted him somewhere else, you’re fooling yourself if you think that the reconstituted man is the same as the original man. The man who goes into the matter transmitter is going to go dark; he’s going to die. You can create a new man with the memories of the dead man; but that doesn’t mean that the dead man is still alive. The dead man is dead. ...Q. Do you stay up with contemporary science fiction? A. Oh, I can’t. There’s too much to read, and I’ve had too many eye problems recently. I can read for maybe 15 minutes, and then I have to stop. At the time I was reading The Island of Dr. Moreau over and over again, I could read for eight hours a day, and sometimes I did.... ...Q. Your father was lucky to have such a job during the Depression. A. Absolutely. We traveled from place to place, wherever my father could find work. But say this: we always had a place to live; we always had food. One time I said as much to Ben Bova, and he replied, “Well, we didn’t.” His father was a day laborer, and sometimes he just could not get work. And if he didn’t, the Bovas did not eat. All of us from that time grew up with the feeling that you shouldn’t waste anything: you don’t waste rags, because rags can be useful. ...Q. In the Soldier series [1986?2006], which begins shortly after the Battle of Plataea, are Latro’s gods real beings in the way that Silk’s gods are not? Latro has theophanies or, at least, he has strange visitations that his friends interpret as theophanies. A. I’m assuming that the gods actually exist and are there, although from a Christian perspective they should not be worshipped. But on the other hand it’s foolish to think that they’re not there, because they are. ...I once met Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who we’re trying to get made a saint now. He looked at you and you felt that he knew all about you, that he had taken your worth, both positive and negative, and had formed a correct opinion about you, and that was it. Q. Did Sheen feel saintly? He was canny by your account; he had an intelligent eye. A. Sheen was a very intelligent man. He was smaller than I had expected. I suppose he was about five-five, five-six, or something like that. ...Q. But did Sheen feel saintly? Did he have a quality of holiness? A. He had a quality of something really quite extraordinary. I was at a party once for locally important politicians a former governor of Illinois, for example. And Sheen came through as somebody who was actually on a higher level. A hundred years from now, he was the only one at the party who would still be important. The rest of us were lost. ...Q. How did you write when you had a day job and a young family? And how did that change when writing became your full-time job? A. I would write for about an hour before work on workdays, and then I would write on Saturdays and Sundays. That left my afternoons and evenings free to play with my kids or read to them. And then in those days and believe me, I no longer do this anytime I woke up after 4:00 a.m., I stayed up and I wrote. I stopped writing when Rosemary called down to me that breakfast was ready. When I left off editing, I increased the time I spent writing by a factor of three. ...Q. Your writing changed when you became a professional writer. When you stole time to write, your prose style was denser and more literary. Peace and The Fifth Head of Cerberus are very worked-over books, with echoes of Proust and other writers you admired. Since you became a full-time writer, your prose has become looser: the paragraphs are shorter, you rely more on dialogue, and the entire tone is less poetic. A. It’s not that, really. It’s that I’ve gotten so much criticism for being unreadable and overcomplex and hard to get into and all this stuff. And I thought, “Well, I’ll loosen up.” Q. I find that hard to bear. While I admire many of the books after The Book of the New Sun, your early and middle prose style is very original. Nabokov would have recognized you as a being like himself. Yet this feeling that “Wolfe is too difficult” is not uncommon. When I asked the MIT Science Fiction Society what I should ask you, they wrote, “How should a science fiction reader who is more accustomed to [Larry] Niven, [Orson Scott] Card, or [David] Brin start reading Wolfe?” A. I think it’s probably The Sorcerer’s House. It’s an epistolary novel, and that seems to help people along. So long as they don’t get bothered by the fact that the style changes from one letter writer to another. A. See? You’re incapable of being simple. ...Q. Sometimes those challenges can seem eccentrically difficult. In the Soldier series you created a narrator who forgets everything at the end of every day. A. Yes, I came across an article about a brain injury that is perfectly real [anterograde amnesia]. People have short-term memory and long-term memory. One of the things you do in your sleep is transfer certain short-term memories into long-term memory. Unconsciously, you decide what’s really important: if it’s not, you forget it; if it is, you put it into long-term memory. If you destroy a certain portion of the brain, short-term memory is just overwritten. And I thought, that’s very interesting. In Severian, I had created a character who forgot nothing. And I thought: let’s do one of these guys who forgets everything. ...Q. Alden Dennis Weer, the narrator of Peace, is unreliable in this particular sense: he’s dead, and doesn’t know it. A. He’s a ghost. Ghosts often don’t realize they’re dead. That’s the explanation of much of the behavior of ghosts that we find puzzling. Q. In The Fifth Head of Cerberus, does John Marsch understand that he’s really V.R.T., a “shadow child,” one of the aboriginal inhabitants of the colony planet, who is aping a man? A. Yes, he does. He knows he’s not a real Earthman, but he’s trying to talk himself into believing that he is. That’s what he wants to be. ...Q. You’re very interested in anthropology. In Peace, one of the suitors of Weer’s Aunt Olivia, a Professor Peacock, is an anthropologist. Marsch in The Fifth Head of Cerberus is one, too. "Tracking Song" imagines different types of intelligent-speaking hominids alive on the same planet at the same time, as Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans once coexisted. A. If intelligence is just a matter of evolution, what happens when a bunch of species get to a similar point at the same time? We are unhappy to find ourselves the only intelligent animals on our planet. It would be so interesting if we could find others. We can’t. But suppose we could: suppose the lion was intelligent and the deer were also intelligent. It’s very hard to imagine. You have to have sympathy with both. The lion cannot eat grass no matter how much you would like him to. But the deer do not wish to be eaten, and who can blame them for it? Q. In many of your fictions the short story "La Befana" [1973], for instance you imagine intelligent species coexisting on the same planet, who can talk to each other after a fashion but who are fundamentally different. A. Another intelligent species, but fundamentally different: the amazing thing would be to get to some foreign planet and discover people already on it, and now you’ve got to say, “How in the world did that happen?” Q. There’s a similar, eerie idea at the heart of "The Hero as Werwolf" [1975]: you imagine a future where humans have diverged into separate species after one population has evolved through biotechnology and another remains fixed as modern Homo sapiens. A. Some fool said, “If human beings evolved from apes, how come there are still apes?” But I always think about that from the ape’s standpoint. So I imagined two human races: some people who’ve evolved into something superior, and a few who haven’t. I wondered: well, what would it be like for them? Q. For the old-fashioned humans in "The Hero as Werwolf", what it’s like is a shamed scuffling around in the shadows, forced to live off the meat of Homo superior. A. That’s the hero as werwolf. ...Q. Do you have a favorite amongst your own children? Is it Peace? Or is your “Book of Gold” _The Book of the New Sun)? A. Oh, it changes. Peace is a favorite, yes. But it floats around and around, you know....

On Jul 27, 2014 9:57 PM, "Gwern Branwen" <gwern at gwern.net> wrote: TR has published a lengthy interview with Gene Wolfe. It asks plenty of standard questions, but also some interesting ones about some of the short stories which have come up recently, particularly "Tracking Song" and "The Hero as Werwolf". http://www.technologyreview.com/news/529431/a-qa-with-gene-wolfe/ "A Q&A with Gene Wolfe; A Twelve Tomorrows exclusive: Science fiction legend Gene Wolfe looks back on his career", Jason Pontin, 25 July 2014

...when Wolfe dropped out of college, he was drafted into the Army, and fought in Korea as a combat engineer. He returned home, by his own account, “a mess”: “I’d hit the floor at the slightest noise.” Rosemary, whom he met again shortly after he was discharged, he says simply, “saved me.” ...I met Gene Wolfe at home in Peoria, where he returned in 2013 after many years in Barrington, Illinois. Although he had recently published a new novel, The Land Across, and was working on another, it was a melancholy visit. He had moved because his wife, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, wanted to go home. But not long after their return, she entered an assisted-living facility, and she died on December 14. Wolfe had been ill himself, his eyesight and heart troubled, and for a time he had also been confined to a facility. The day before I arrived, workers had found his dog, who had been missing for weeks: the animal had been hit by a car, and had crawled behind a garden bush to die. The house was nearly empty except for the author’s own books, some family photographs (including one of an implausibly young Wolfe in uniform), a little furniture, and a makeshift shrine, with a statue of the Virgin, rosary beads, and a Bible, in front of a window overlooking the back lawn. In person, Wolfe is large, kindly, and unfailingly courteous. His hands are huge and spatulate. He sports an exuberant hussar?s moustache. He speaks carefully, in a higher register than the voice of the books might suggest. We talked the day after his 83rd birthday. [8 May 2014] ...Q: What struck you about G.K. Chesterton? A: His charm; his willingness to follow an argument wherever it led. Q. What of the founders of science fiction? A. When I was a boy, I read all the pulp magazines, which were still around in those days. You’ve no doubt seen collector editions, but in those days you could buy a pulp for 10 or 15 cents. One of my favorites was Famous Fantastic Mysteries, which reprinted good stuff from the turn of the century. Once, they did Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau [1896] as an entire issue. And I read it, and I absolutely loved it, and when I had read the last page I went back to the first page, and I started again. And when I started my fourth reading I thought, “Well, I know everything that’s going to happen now and I’ll just put it aside for a while until I’ve kind of forgotten it, and then I’ll read it again.” And I never looked at it again until I was about 50. And when I was that age, somebody wrote to me and said he was putting together one of those books that honor the hundred best science fiction novels. It would have essays from writers like me, and this person wanted me to do The Island of Dr. Moreau. I thought, “Gee, I remember that fondly. I will take him up on that. But first, obviously, I have to get a copy of it and read it, since I haven’t read it since I was a kid.” And I did ? Wonderful cover on that book, by the way wonderful! The man was bare-chested?not quite muscular enough to be a hero, but muscular and good-looking and behind him is this enormous, shaggy monster. And the monster has one hand on the man’s shoulder. In a most buddy-looking sort of way, you know. [Chuckles merrily.] I thought that was a lovely cover; I still do ? Anyhow, I read the book and immediately saw there were things in there that had completely sailed over me that were now hitting me like a brick.

The book starts when the narrator gets on a ship from some city in South America. On the third day out, they ram a derelict and their ship sinks. He spends three days in a lifeboat with two men, a fellow passenger and a sailor, and he mentions, just in passing, that he never learned the name of the sailor in the boat with him. And another thing: the sailor and the passenger fall overboard in a struggle, and the narrator is picked up by a boat carrying Dr. Moreau’s doctor, who gives him “a dose of some scarlet stuff, iced. It tasted like blood, and made me feel stronger.” That one, too, just whizzed by me. All this stuff, and I was too dumb to appreciate it as a boy!

...Q. I know you thought Algis Budrys a tremendous writer. A. A.J. was a friend. I admired Who [1958] enormously. The plot of Rogue Moon [1960] is striking: Budrys tells us that if you destroyed a man here and reconstituted him somewhere else, you’re fooling yourself if you think that the reconstituted man is the same as the original man. The man who goes into the matter transmitter is going to go dark; he’s going to die. You can create a new man with the memories of the dead man; but that doesn’t mean that the dead man is still alive. The dead man is dead. ...Q. Do you stay up with contemporary science fiction? A. Oh, I can’t. There’s too much to read, and I’ve had too many eye problems recently. I can read for maybe 15 minutes, and then I have to stop. At the time I was reading The Island of Dr. Moreau over and over again, I could read for eight hours a day, and sometimes I did.... ...Q. Your father was lucky to have such a job during the Depression. A. Absolutely. We traveled from place to place, wherever my father could find work. But say this: we always had a place to live; we always had food.

One time I said as much to Ben Bova, and he replied, “Well, we didn’t.” His father was a day laborer, and sometimes he just could not get work. And if he didn’t, the Bovas did not eat. All of us from that time grew up with the feeling that you shouldn’t waste anything: you don’t waste rags, because rags can be useful.

...Q. In the Soldier series [1986?2006], which begins shortly after the Battle of Plataea, are Latro’s gods real beings in the way that Silk’s gods are not? Latro has theophanies or, at least, he has strange visitations that his friends interpret as theophanies. A. I’m assuming that the gods actually exist and are there, although from a Christian perspective they should not be worshipped. But on the other hand it’s foolish to think that they’re not there, because they are. ...I once met Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who we’re trying to get made a saint now. He looked at you and you felt that he knew all about you, that he had taken your worth, both positive and negative, and had formed a correct opinion about you, and that was it. Q. Did Sheen feel saintly? He was canny by your account; he had an intelligent eye. A. Sheen was a very intelligent man. He was smaller than I had expected.

I suppose he was about five-five, five-six, or something like that.

...Q. But did Sheen feel saintly? Did he have a quality of holiness? A. He had a quality of something really quite extraordinary. I was at a party once for locally important politicians a former governor of Illinois, for example. And Sheen came through as somebody who was actually on a higher level. A hundred years from now, he was the only one at the party who would still be important. The rest of us were lost. ...Q. How did you write when you had a day job and a young family? And how did that change when writing became your full-time job? A. I would write for about an hour before work on workdays, and then I would write on Saturdays and Sundays. That left my afternoons and evenings free to play with my kids or read to them. And then in those days and believe me, I no longer do this anytime I woke up after 4:00 a.m., I stayed up and I wrote. I stopped writing when Rosemary called down to me that breakfast was ready. When I left off editing, I increased the time I spent writing by a factor of three. ...Q. Your writing changed when you became a professional writer. When you stole time to write, your prose style was denser and more literary.

Peace and The Fifth Head of Cerberus are very worked-over books, with echoes of Proust and other writers you admired. Since you became a full-time writer, your prose has become looser: the paragraphs are shorter, you rely more on dialogue, and the entire tone is less poetic.

A. It’s not that, really. It’s that I’ve gotten so much criticism for being unreadable and overcomplex and hard to get into and all this stuff.

And I thought, “Well, I’ll loosen up.”

Q. I find that hard to bear. While I admire many of the books after The Book of the New Sun, your early and middle prose style is very original.

Nabokov would have recognized you as a being like himself. Yet this feeling that “Wolfe is too difficult” is not uncommon. When I asked the MIT Science Fiction Society what I should ask you, they wrote, “How should a science fiction reader who is more accustomed to [Larry] Niven, [Orson Scott] Card, or [David] Brin start reading Wolfe?”

A. I think it’s probably The Sorcerer’s House. It’s an epistolary novel, and that seems to help people along. So long as they don’t get bothered by the fact that the style changes from one letter writer to another. A. See? You’re incapable of being simple. ...Q. Sometimes those challenges can seem eccentrically difficult. In the Soldier series you created a narrator who forgets everything at the end of every day. A. Yes, I came across an article about a brain injury that is perfectly real [anterograde amnesia]. People have short-term memory and long-term memory. One of the things you do in your sleep is transfer certain short-term memories into long-term memory. Unconsciously, you decide what’s really important: if it’s not, you forget it; if it is, you put it into long-term memory. If you destroy a certain portion of the brain, short-term memory is just overwritten. And I thought, that’s very interesting. In Severian, I had created a character who forgot nothing. And I thought:

let’s do one of these guys who forgets everything.

...Q. Alden Dennis Weer, the narrator of Peace, is unreliable in this particular sense: he’s dead, and doesn’t know it. A. He’s a ghost. Ghosts often don’t realize they’re dead. That’s the explanation of much of the behavior of ghosts that we find puzzling. Q. In The Fifth Head of Cerberus, does John Marsch understand that he’s really V.R.T., a “shadow child,” one of the aboriginal inhabitants of the colony planet, who is aping a man? A. Yes, he does. He knows he’s not a real Earthman, but he’s trying to talk himself into believing that he is. That’s what he wants to be. ...Q. You’re very interested in anthropology. In Peace, one of the suitors of Weer’s Aunt Olivia, a Professor Peacock, is an anthropologist.

Marsch in The Fifth Head of Cerberus is one, too. "Tracking Song" imagines different types of intelligent-speaking hominids alive on the same planet at the same time, as Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans once coexisted.

A. If intelligence is just a matter of evolution, what happens when a bunch of species get to a similar point at the same time? We are unhappy to find ourselves the only intelligent animals on our planet. It would be so interesting if we could find others. We can’t. But suppose we could:

suppose the lion was intelligent and the deer were also intelligent. It’s very hard to imagine. You have to have sympathy with both. The lion cannot eat grass no matter how much you would like him to. But the deer do not wish to be eaten, and who can blame them for it?

Q. In many of your fictions the short story "La Befana" [1973], for instance you imagine intelligent species coexisting on the same planet, who can talk to each other after a fashion but who are fundamentally different. A. Another intelligent species, but fundamentally different: the amazing thing would be to get to some foreign planet and discover people already on it, and now you’ve got to say, “How in the world did that happen?” Q. There’s a similar, eerie idea at the heart of "The Hero as Werwolf"

[1975]: you imagine a future where humans have diverged into separate species after one population has evolved through biotechnology and another remains fixed as modern Homo sapiens.

A. Some fool said, “If human beings evolved from apes, how come there are still apes?” But I always think about that from the ape’s standpoint.

So I imagined two human races: some people who’ve evolved into something superior, and a few who haven’t. I wondered: well, what would it be like for them?

Q. For the old-fashioned humans in "The Hero as Werwolf", what it’s like is a shamed scuffling around in the shadows, forced to live off the meat of Homo superior. A. That’s the hero as werwolf. ...Q. Do you have a favorite amongst your own children? Is it Peace?

Or is your “Book of Gold” _The Book of the New Sun)?

A. Oh, it changes. Peace is a favorite, yes. But it floats around and around, you know....

-- gwern _______________________________________________

On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 1:20 AM, Matthew King <automatthew at gmail.com> wrote: That is an amazing and suprising interview. Not like anything others I've read before. _______________________________________________

At 07:41 28/07/2014, Matthew wrote: Wolfe is obviously too subtle for me at most times (which is why I read this list), and I'm not sure what he's getting at with "never learned the name of the sailor" thing above. The three days and bloody drink make me think of some kind of undead resurrection, but I don't know (and also haven't read Dr. Moreau...). Any ideas?

On 7/27/2014 9:56 PM, Gwern Branwen wrote: TR has published a lengthy interview with Gene Wolfe. It asks plenty of standard questions, but also some interesting ones about some of the short stories which have come up recently, particularly "Tracking Song" and "The Hero as Werwolf".

On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 4:40 AM, Mo Holkar <mo at holkar.net> wrote: Given Wolfe's preoccupations, it seems likely he is reading this as referring to the crucifixion, which Christ spends in the company of two thieves; and after three days he is returned to life.

The real role that Dr. Death is playing in Tackie's mind is that of the creator (and thus to some extent the deity as well). This is supported in the first big exchange in the book between Ransom and Dr. Death, where Ransom asks the doctor if he has made the human-animal hybrids populating the island. Dr. Death replies with a comparison to the Garden of Eden [which is a significant link to The Death of Doctor Island also], and draws the parallel: "I am God and Nature is Adam". As for the identity of the creator in Tackie's life, it is of course Tackie himself, with his love of the book so intense he is making the characters come alive.

On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 9:02 AM, Fernando Q. Gouvea <fqgouvea at colby.edu> wrote: It's a very interesting interview, much less cagey than usual for Wolfe. The straightforward "He's a ghost" about Weer, and even more the statement that Marsch "knows he's not a real Earthman, but he's trying to talk himself into believing that he is".

On 28/07/2014 16:29, Marc Aramini wrote: Of course he still hasn't said that pretty much everyone but cloned number 5 is an abo, ("someday they (the Abos who pretend to be humans) will want us (real humans to copy)" and that Marsch is a different kind of imitator, a shadow child infection via cat bite incarcerated by Abos who believe they are human, too. Ironically the interviewer fails to differentiate between shadow children and Abos, allowing Wolfe to answer the question fairly honestly if he ignores the VRT portion. (The useless hand of the Abos is port mimizon, with its fingers and thumb and no new buildings in 140 years.) So even straightforward Wolfe isn't really that straightforward.

On Monday, July 28, 2014, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote: On 28/07/2014 16:29, Marc Aramini wrote:

Of course he still hasn't said that pretty much everyone but cloned number 5 is an abo, ("someday they (the Abos who pretend to be humans) will want us (real humans to copy)" and that Marsch is a different kind of imitator, a shadow child infection via cat bite incarcerated by Abos who believe they are human, too. Ironically the interviewer fails to differentiate between shadow children and Abos, allowing Wolfe to answer the question fairly honestly if he ignores the VRT portion. (The useless hand of the Abos is port mimizon, with its fingers and thumb and no new buildings in 140 years.) So even straightforward Wolfe isn't really that straightforward.

The interview question specifically referred to VRT, and the failure to differentiate the Shadow Children from the Sainte Anne aborigines doesn't really make any difference that I can see. I think you're stretching quite a bit here. There is no indication in the text of an infection process by which a human is taken over by an aborigine, and such a process contradicts the logic of the story in multiple ways, for example: - Marsch was bitten by a cat, who was not VRT. But Marsch's later imitator, however he arose, was VRT, not the previous occupant of the cat or a 'child' of the previous occupant of the cat. I do not assume more than that Marsch died somehow, but it's very likely that copying someone involves consuming them in some fashion, so I won't rule it out. (Who killed the cat? I am inclined to suspect it was the first step in VRT's attempt to 'convince himself' he was human, by cutting himself off from his aboriginal origin.) - If the imitation proceeds by way of infection, why would shape-changing ever be necessary or relevant? The shape-changing ability of VRT's mother is referenced. Most people can't do that. - New Marsch has the characteristic green eyes of the aborigines. In an almost clunky passage of the second book, it is drummed into us that for the Marshmen "green is the colour of eyes". Most people don't. As for "Veil's Hypothesis", a wholesale takeover of first one planet and then, presumably the other, during which period both planets are still receiving colonists from Earth, while nobody notices is simply not credible in terms of the storyline. Nor is there any indication that humans have forgotten how to use tools. The lack of new buildings in Port Mimizon is the result of depopulation. Veil's Hypothesis is as Veil said, a fifty pound hypothesis to explain man's inhumanity to man, a theme which was precisely the punchline to another story discussed recently: Our Neighbour, By David Copperfield. To my mind, the history and origin of the human-mimicking abos is set out very clearly in the second book, which is presumably VRT's understanding of what happened, gleaned from the stories of his mother and perhaps other abo contacts. If we are going to accuse him of inventing a fake history, we need not only a coherent alternative (peoples' mileage may vary on what is coherent) but a reason for him to do it. It is certainly not an attempt to convince himself he is human. [As for him trying to convince himself he is human, so long as it is not accepted too literally, I would think that a natural interpretation for anyone reading VRT.] So I don't think there is anything un-straighforward here. Wolfe's style is allusive, he rarely gives specifics of distance or time by which a detective could hang him, the story resonates with tales of Earthly colonisation in which the abos and the colonisers are indeed one species. It's easy to find seeming hints leading in all directions, But it can't be denied that in the second book, we are given a specific origin story, and any hypothesis has to make sense in terms of either accepting that story, or explaining why Marsch constructed such an elaborate lie. I think one could make a better case that everyone is human, than that everyone is abo. - Gerry Quinn

On Monday, July 28, 2014, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com> wrote: The questioner Pontin conflates VRT with a shadow child in the question erroneously. VRT is "variance reduction techniques", an engineering term for approximation. When Ultan's library publishes my forty page paper it will address all that stuff you bring up, Gerry. Unless you want me to send you a copy off list. At the end of a story both Sandwalker and the human landers are switched, Eastwind by a bite echoed in the cat bite at which point he kills his brother (and later Trenchard claims to be descended from the east wind) and the landers suddenly slaughter when "they" don't know what open hands mean - though it is the aborigines who shouldn't know what open hands mean- humans do. That weird pronoun shift indicates "they" have already empathized with the landers And switched perspectives with them, though poorly. Later it is called ill fated and in the section of VRT it is assumed that eastwind survives that encounter. If victor takes the place if Marsch, then victor's death scene and the tree teaching out for him as he falls is an outright lie. Why didn't he want to go see his parents? On Monday, July 28, 2014, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','gerry at bindweed.com');>> wrote:

On 28/07/2014 16:29, Marc Aramini wrote:

Of course he still hasn't said that pretty much everyone but cloned number 5 is an abo, ("someday they (the Abos who pretend to be humans) will want us (real humans to copy)" and that Marsch is a different kind of imitator, a shadow child infection via cat bite incarcerated by Abos who believe they are human, too. Ironically the interviewer fails to differentiate between shadow children and Abos, allowing Wolfe to answer the question fairly honestly if he ignores the VRT portion. (The useless hand of the Abos is port mimizon, with its fingers and thumb and no new buildings in 140 years.) So even straightforward Wolfe isn't really that straightforward.

The interview question specifically referred to VRT, and the failure to differentiate the Shadow Children from the Sainte Anne aborigines doesn't really make any difference that I can see. I think you're stretching quite a bit here. There is no indication in the text of an infection process by which a human is taken over by an aborigine, and such a process contradicts the logic of the story in multiple ways, for example: - Marsch was bitten by a cat, who was not VRT. But Marsch's later imitator, however he arose, was VRT, not the previous occupant of the cat or a 'child' of the previous occupant of the cat. I do not assume more than that Marsch died somehow, but it's very likely that copying someone involves consuming them in some fashion, so I won't rule it out. (Who killed the cat? I am inclined to suspect it was the first step in VRT's attempt to 'convince himself' he was human, by cutting himself off from his aboriginal origin.) - If the imitation proceeds by way of infection, why would shape-changing ever be necessary or relevant? The shape-changing ability of VRT's mother is referenced. Most people can't do that. - New Marsch has the characteristic green eyes of the aborigines. In an almost clunky passage of the second book, it is drummed into us that for the Marshmen "green is the colour of eyes". Most people don't. As for "Veil's Hypothesis", a wholesale takeover of first one planet and then, presumably the other, during which period both planets are still receiving colonists from Earth, while nobody notices is simply not credible in terms of the storyline. Nor is there any indication that humans have forgotten how to use tools. The lack of new buildings in Port Mimizon is the result of depopulation. Veil's Hypothesis is as Veil said, a fifty pound hypothesis to explain man's inhumanity to man, a theme which was precisely the punchline to another story discussed recently: Our Neighbour, By David Copperfield. To my mind, the history and origin of the human-mimicking abos is set out very clearly in the second book, which is presumably VRT's understanding of what happened, gleaned from the stories of his mother and perhaps other abo contacts. If we are going to accuse him of inventing a fake history, we need not only a coherent alternative (peoples' mileage may vary on what is coherent) but a reason for him to do it. It is certainly not an attempt to convince himself he is human. [As for him trying to convince himself he is human, so long as it is not accepted too literally, I would think that a natural interpretation for anyone reading VRT.] So I don't think there is anything un-straighforward here. Wolfe's style is allusive, he rarely gives specifics of distance or time by which a detective could hang him, the story resonates with tales of Earthly colonisation in which the abos and the colonisers are indeed one species. It's easy to find seeming hints leading in all directions, But it can't be denied that in the second book, we are given a specific origin story, and any hypothesis has to make sense in terms of either accepting that story, or explaining why Marsch constructed such an elaborate lie. I think one could make a better case that everyone is human, than that everyone is abo. - Gerry Quinn

On 28/07/2014 19:31, Marc Aramini wrote: If victor takes the place if Marsch, then victor's death scene and the tree teaching out for him as he falls is an outright lie. Why didn't he want to go see his parents?

On Monday, July 28, 2014, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote: On 28/07/2014 19:31, Marc Aramini wrote:

If victor takes the place if Marsch, then victor's death scene and the tree teaching out for him as he falls is an outright lie. Why didn't he want to go see his parents?

This lie is easy to explain - Victor has taken the place af Marsch, so he must invent a description of his own. And how can he visit his parents? He has become someone else. Also: "When he came close to them they extended their hands, open, and smiled; but he [Sandwalker] did not understand that open hands meant (or had meant, once) that they held no weapons. His people had never known weapons." No pronoun shift, in my edition anyway. No slaughter either, not then at least. In VRT there are stories of an aboriginal shaman whose name is given in versions of both Eastwind and Sandwalker; clearly VRT was riffing off this when he wrote "A Story". (He believes the history, but of course he invented the specific characters.) - Gerry Quinn _______________________________________________

On 28/07/2014 21:54, Marc Aramini wrote: Doesn't have to be a lie if something else can explain it. "Nope, whole scene is fabricated." Why two species of alien if both won't be used? Wolfe likes very elaborate games or there would be only one imitative species. There's a reason we can still argue about it after 40 years though. The puzzles are sometimes over constructed and offer a nice false conclusion as well.

From: severiansola at hotmail.com To: urth at urth.net Subject: May 2014 Wolfe interview in Technology Review Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2014 09:07:24 -0400

Gerry Quinn: There is only one imitative species

Well, one evolving imitative species I would say. Actually, since the definition of "species" involves mating and reproducing, the process of direct imitation as an evolutionary mechanism makes the "species" label rather inapplicable. We are presented with two scenarios for the origin of Shadow Children. 1. They are the original inhabitants of the St Anne who evolved from shadowy, telepathic, underground creatures who become abos on their first encounter with humans. or 2. They are the "(d)evolved" result of shipwrecked humans living on Ste Anne and chewing that weird hallucinogenic stuff. Stories are told which support each scenario to the point of cancelling each other out. If we are to know the true story it must come from incidental evidence in the text. The incidental evidence I find for Scenario #1. is: A. the name Shadow Children, a name we would expect for the descendants of underground shadowy things. B. The use of nonsensical geography such as Atlantis, Mu and Gondwanaland used in the attempt to establish an Earth origin for the Shadow Children which seems like an alien-type mistake to make. C. "(D)evolution" ought to turn humans into apes, not Shadow Children. D. The indeterminate, plural nature of Shadow Children is like nothing found on Earth. How could use of a chemical create such an alien change in human DNA? E. The evolutionary process of telepathic shadow creatures to Shadow Children to Abos to (almost) pure Human is an elegant one tracing a continuing path from more primitive and more mystic to less primitive and less mystic. Shadow Children being a stunted, dead-end human result is inelegant and doesn't fit any pattern, like a leftover jigsaw puzzle piece. F. As Gerry notes, if you kill something and replace it, a lie has to be told to explain it. Shadow Children falsely explained as degenerate humans would serve the purpose of such a lie. There does not appear to be any purpose for a lie told about a mystic, domestic, shadowy origin to Shadow Children. I am not aware of any incidental evidence which supports Scenario #2. Perhaps others are aware of some.

On 01/08/2014 22:20, Lee wrote: We are presented with two scenarios for the origin of Shadow Children. 1. They are the original inhabitants of the St Anne who evolved from shadowy, telepathic, underground creatures who become abos on their first encounter with humans. 2. They are the "(d)evolved" result of shipwrecked humans living on Ste Anne and chewing that weird hallucinogenic stuff. Stories are told which support each scenario to the point of cancelling each other out.

On 01/08/2014 22:20, Lee wrote:

We are presented with two scenarios for the origin of Shadow Children. 1. They are the original inhabitants of the St Anne who evolved from shadowy, telepathic, underground creatures who become abos on their first encounter with humans. 2. They are the "(d)evolved" result of shipwrecked humans living on Ste Anne and chewing that weird hallucinogenic stuff. Stories are told which support each scenario to the point of cancelling each other out.

Shadow Children are referenced only in the second novella of the trilogy. The entire novella takes the form of an SF mystery in which 'scenario 2' is slowly elucidated. In all, quite a number of pages are carefully devoted to elucidating this scenario. It is stated as a fact several times. Where do you find a story that supports 'scenario 1'?

Gerry Quinn: Shadow Children are referenced only in the second novella of the trilogy. The entire novella takes the form of an SF mystery in which 'scenario 2' is slowly elucidated. In all, quite a number of pages are carefully devoted to elucidating this scenario. It is stated as a fact several times.

Where do you find a story that supports 'scenario 1'?

From: severiansola at hotmail.com To: urth at urth.net Subject: FW: May 2014 Wolfe interview in Technology Review Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2014 10:18:32 -0400

Gerry Quinn: Shadow Children are referenced only in the second novella of the trilogy. The entire novella takes the form of an SF mystery in which 'scenario 2' is slowly elucidated. In all, quite a number of pages are carefully devoted to elucidating this scenario. It is stated as a fact several times.

Where do you find a story that supports 'scenario 1'?

Well, you have already answered that question- in the second novella of the trilogy, named: "A Story" by John V. Marsch, that being the only place Shadow Children are referenced. Whether abos have replaced humans is a primary, superficial mystery (one to which even Wolfe has publicly revealed the answer). But a deeper, more veiled mystery has been embedded in the story- what is the origin of Abos? They look human. But they can't use tools very well, presumably because they superficially can imitate hands but not the deeper coordinating neuro-muscular structures. So what did Abos look like before they looked human? Are we given any clues? Shadow Children seem a likely suspect for a first attempt at imitating a human being (much like "Zak" in UotNS). Are Shadow Children a primitive version of Abos? There are no other ape or monkey or other proto-human creatures seen on Ste Anne so it is a possibility which can't be ignored. As was correctly noted previously, if one sentient species has imitated and replaced another, a lie must be formulated to explain certain inconsistencies. So are there any lies we can identify in the story of Shadow Children? We are given the story of Shadow Children as degenerate humans. But we are also given the story that they are native, shadowy telepathic creatures. Which is the lie and which is the truth? Even The Old Wise One says he can't remember anymore. If the human origin were the truth, we would expect Shadow Children to be more "handy" than Abos. If the Shadow Children were a more primitive version of Abos we would expect them to be even less "handy" than Abos, being a step further removed from humans. I think it is clear that Shadow Children are even less "handy" than Abos, thus their proto-Abo status is more likely the truth and their human origin is more likely the lie. Their telepathy would seem to further establish the domestic origin as the true story. I think a similar scenario plays out on Green and Blue in Short Sun. Wolfe is not going to commit the Star Trek error of making human beings simultaneously, independently evolved on multiple planets across the galaxy. If there are human shaped beings found on an uncolonized alien planet, they have to be an imitative species copying us, such as Shadow Children, Abos and Inhumi.

Gerry Quinn: Shadow Children are referenced only in the second novella of the trilogy. The entire novella takes the form of an SF mystery in which 'scenario 2' is slowly elucidated. In all, quite a number of pages are carefully devoted to elucidating this scenario. It is stated as a fact several times.

Where do you find a story that supports 'scenario 1'? Well, you have already answered that question- in the second novella of the trilogy, named: "A Story" by John V. Marsch, that being the only place Shadow Children are referenced. [--] We are given the story of Shadow Children as degenerate humans. But we are also given the story that they are native, shadowy telepathic creatures. Which is the lie and which is the truth? Even The Old Wise One says he can't remember anymore.

I think a similar scenario plays out on Green and Blue in Short Sun. Wolfe is not going to commit the Star Trek error of making human beings simultaneously, independently evolved on multiple planets across the galaxy. If there are human shaped beings found on an uncolonized alien planet, they have to be an imitative species copying us, such as Shadow >Children, Abos and Inhumi.

On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 3:20 AM, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote:

But the planet WAS colonised by the human ancestors of the Shadow Children. In their case Veil's Hypothesis is substantially true, but they have not yet completely died out. Your hypothesis requires two imitative alien species, the death of all humans, and one of the species thinking it is human even to the extent of having memories of Earth (how?). And it ignores the fact that an alternative story that explains all this is stated quite clearly in the text. - Gerry Quinn

On 05/08/2014 14:54, Marc Aramini wrote: Seeing as how I view Shadow Children as psychically gifted and "empathetic" and capable of rising up in the draft of currents from the ground and take seriously the idea that even though they are many when they are confronted they fade into "one lonely" - (ie a parasitic community that infects a host so thoroughly that they are effectively only that one being, the small things living in the mouth that the large Shadow Child says might switch Eastwind and Sandwalker when he bites them at the end of "A Story" (because he is infected himself and is a "shadow child", though "A Story" is a myth and is not realistic in all details, being symbolic in some), I feel most of your discussion is probably moot - the Shadow Children are only human insofar as they can infect them. Also, I believe Shadow Child infection can alter the eyes, such as the doubled pupil that seems to be undergoing meiosis or something after Marsch shoots the wild animals near the back of beyond. I don't want to argue about any of that stuff, but I do want to point out "all this is stated quite clearly in the text" when you are talking about "A Story" in Fifth Head of Cerberus is simply not an accurate assessment of all the confusing stuff and mystical mumbo jumbo going on, where both species are very confused about their origin. One is imitative, one infectious, and both might have come from a single source of divergent evolution ... or not.

On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 9:22 AM, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote: On 05/08/2014 14:54, Marc Aramini wrote:

Seeing as how I view Shadow Children as psychically gifted and "empathetic" and capable of rising up in the draft of currents from the ground and take seriously the idea that even though they are many when they are confronted they fade into "one lonely" - (ie a parasitic community that infects a host so thoroughly that they are effectively only that one being, the small things living in the mouth that the large Shadow Child says might switch Eastwind and Sandwalker when he bites them at the end of "A Story" (because he is infected himself and is a "shadow child", though "A Story" is a myth and is not realistic in all details, being symbolic in some), I feel most of your discussion is probably moot - the Shadow Children are only human insofar as they can infect them. Also, I believe Shadow Child infection can alter the eyes, such as the doubled pupil that seems to be undergoing meiosis or something after Marsch shoots the wild animals near the back of beyond. I don't want to argue about any of that stuff, but I do want to point out "all this is stated quite clearly in the text" when you are talking about "A Story" in Fifth Head of Cerberus is simply not an accurate assessment of all the confusing stuff and mystical mumbo jumbo going on, where both species are very confused about their origin. One is imitative, one infectious, and both might have come from a single source of divergent evolution ... or not.

There are no small creatures in the Shadow Child's mouth. "That which swam in my mouth swims in his veins now" is singular - it refers to the drug plant they chew. "And because I spoke to him and he believed me, in his mind he is you" - drug-induced hypnosis. And I ask again, where do we find any reason to believe the original Marsch was infected in some way by Victor? He got a cat-bite that went septic, but nowhere is infection linked to imitation. The green eyes of the aborigines (such as Victor) are not double-pupilled - what have they to do with the eyes of the hippo or whatever? I don't believe there is any confusion - we are given a quite coherent, if unlikely, story. The Old Wise One is never confused about his origin until a large part of him is generated from Sandwalker's mind. Then, and only then, does he become confused, and in a manner consistent with the story so far. Note that the actual story doesn't change anyway - he just doesn't know which of the two peoples he is - the humans who crossed from star to star, landing on Sainte Anne, or the shape-shifting tool-less people - Sandwalker's ancestors - they found there. - Gerry Quinn _______________________________________________

On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 9:59 AM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com> wrote: they say the white creatures they chew and spit out are their "brides." - seems like an organism to me. As I said, the associations are symbolic rather than literal, so proving it is quite unlikely. Sandwalker and Eastwind ARE switched by a bite. Marsch is switched with a bite, too. But you don't buy it, that's fine. On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 9:22 AM, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote:

On 05/08/2014 14:54, Marc Aramini wrote:

Seeing as how I view Shadow Children as psychically gifted and "empathetic" and capable of rising up in the draft of currents from the ground and take seriously the idea that even though they are many when they are confronted they fade into "one lonely" - (ie a parasitic community that infects a host so thoroughly that they are effectively only that one being, the small things living in the mouth that the large Shadow Child says might switch Eastwind and Sandwalker when he bites them at the end of "A Story" (because he is infected himself and is a "shadow child", though "A Story" is a myth and is not realistic in all details, being symbolic in some), I feel most of your discussion is probably moot - the Shadow Children are only human insofar as they can infect them. Also, I believe Shadow Child infection can alter the eyes, such as the doubled pupil that seems to be undergoing meiosis or something after Marsch shoots the wild animals near the back of beyond. I don't want to argue about any of that stuff, but I do want to point out "all this is stated quite clearly in the text" when you are talking about "A Story" in Fifth Head of Cerberus is simply not an accurate assessment of all the confusing stuff and mystical mumbo jumbo going on, where both species are very confused about their origin. One is imitative, one infectious, and both might have come from a single source of divergent evolution ... or not.

There are no small creatures in the Shadow Child's mouth. "That which swam in my mouth swims in his veins now" is singular - it refers to the drug plant they chew. "And because I spoke to him and he believed me, in his mind he is you" - drug-induced hypnosis. And I ask again, where do we find any reason to believe the original Marsch was infected in some way by Victor? He got a cat-bite that went septic, but nowhere is infection linked to imitation. The green eyes of the aborigines (such as Victor) are not double-pupilled - what have they to do with the eyes of the hippo or whatever? I don't believe there is any confusion - we are given a quite coherent, if unlikely, story. The Old Wise One is never confused about his origin until a large part of him is generated from Sandwalker's mind. Then, and only then, does he become confused, and in a manner consistent with the story so far. Note that the actual story doesn't change anyway - he just doesn't know which of the two peoples he is - the humans who crossed from star to star, landing on Sainte Anne, or the shape-shifting tool-less people - Sandwalker's ancestors - they found there. - Gerry Quinn _______________________________________________

On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 10:12 AM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com> wrote: It also seems to me that brides involve a method of propagation and reproduction, you know? like the life cycle involves them somehow. But like I said, I really don't want to argue too much about this because our views on parallel symbolic associations in Fifth Head of Cerberus are diametrically opposed. On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 9:59 AM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com> wrote:

they say the white creatures they chew and spit out are their "brides." - seems like an organism to me. As I said, the associations are symbolic rather than literal, so proving it is quite unlikely. Sandwalker and Eastwind ARE switched by a bite. Marsch is switched with a bite, too. But you don't buy it, that's fine. On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 9:22 AM, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote:

On 05/08/2014 14:54, Marc Aramini wrote:

Seeing as how I view Shadow Children as psychically gifted and "empathetic" and capable of rising up in the draft of currents from the ground and take seriously the idea that even though they are many when they are confronted they fade into "one lonely" - (ie a parasitic community that infects a host so thoroughly that they are effectively only that one being, the small things living in the mouth that the large Shadow Child says might switch Eastwind and Sandwalker when he bites them at the end of "A Story" (because he is infected himself and is a "shadow child", though "A Story" is a myth and is not realistic in all details, being symbolic in some), I feel most of your discussion is probably moot - the Shadow Children are only human insofar as they can infect them. Also, I believe Shadow Child infection can alter the eyes, such as the doubled pupil that seems to be undergoing meiosis or something after Marsch shoots the wild animals near the back of beyond. I don't want to argue about any of that stuff, but I do want to point out "all this is stated quite clearly in the text" when you are talking about "A Story" in Fifth Head of Cerberus is simply not an accurate assessment of all the confusing stuff and mystical mumbo jumbo going on, where both species are very confused about their origin. One is imitative, one infectious, and both might have come from a single source of divergent evolution ... or not.

There are no small creatures in the Shadow Child's mouth. "That which swam in my mouth swims in his veins now" is singular - it refers to the drug plant they chew. "And because I spoke to him and he believed me, in his mind he is you" - drug-induced hypnosis. And I ask again, where do we find any reason to believe the original Marsch was infected in some way by Victor? He got a cat-bite that went septic, but nowhere is infection linked to imitation. The green eyes of the aborigines (such as Victor) are not double-pupilled - what have they to do with the eyes of the hippo or whatever? I don't believe there is any confusion - we are given a quite coherent, if unlikely, story. The Old Wise One is never confused about his origin until a large part of him is generated from Sandwalker's mind. Then, and only then, does he become confused, and in a manner consistent with the story so far. Note that the actual story doesn't change anyway - he just doesn't know which of the two peoples he is - the humans who crossed from star to star, landing on Sainte Anne, or the shape-shifting tool-less people - Sandwalker's ancestors - they found there. - Gerry Quinn _______________________________________________

On 05/08/2014 17:59, Marc Aramini wrote: they say the white creatures they chew and spit out are their "brides." - seems like an organism to me. As I said, the associations are symbolic rather than literal, so proving it is quite unlikely. Sandwalker and Eastwind ARE switched by a bite. Marsch is switched with a bite, too. But you don't buy it, that's fine.

On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 10:14 AM, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote: On 05/08/2014 17:59, Marc Aramini wrote:

they say the white creatures they chew and spit out are their "brides." - seems like an organism to me. As I said, the associations are symbolic rather than literal, so proving it is quite unlikely. Sandwalker and Eastwind ARE switched by a bite. Marsch is switched with a bite, too. But you don't buy it, that's fine.

That's the plant. It's white and without comfort because the drug is used up. Then they wait until sufficient time has passed for safety, and take more of the plant. Why do you say Marsch is switched, rather than replaced? The new Marsch says "I needed to make my voice like his and look older". And the old Marsch was bitten by the cat, not by Victor... - Gerry Quinn _______________________________________________

On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 10:23 AM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com> wrote: my mistake, replaced, supplanted. I KNOW he was bitten by the cat, Gerry. Why even say that? Victor is only a part of the equation because the cat had a kind of affinity for Victor like the Shadow Children do for whoever with their psychic empathy, but it is the bite that brings the fragment of that psychic connection into Marsch and "replaces" him. If there is any of Victor in Marsch, it is through the psychic resonance the cat had with Victor. I think of Victor and Marsch as two distinct entities, and Victor DIES in a scene you believe to be a fabrication, a fall. But Wolfe wants us to believe Victor takes Marsch's place and assumes his shape, because that is the first false solution to the mystery without touching on the life cycle of the Shadow Children that underlies the point of "A Story". It seems Sandwalker the abo lives, as it seems Victor replaces Marsch, but Marsch is actually but a vector for an infection which can rise up on air currents and float in the wind (Eastwind). On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 10:14 AM, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote:

On 05/08/2014 17:59, Marc Aramini wrote:

they say the white creatures they chew and spit out are their "brides." - seems like an organism to me. As I said, the associations are symbolic rather than literal, so proving it is quite unlikely. Sandwalker and Eastwind ARE switched by a bite. Marsch is switched with a bite, too. But you don't buy it, that's fine.

That's the plant. It's white and without comfort because the drug is used up. Then they wait until sufficient time has passed for safety, and take more of the plant. Why do you say Marsch is switched, rather than replaced? The new Marsch says "I needed to make my voice like his and look older". And the old Marsch was bitten by the cat, not by Victor... - Gerry Quinn _______________________________________________

On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 10:25 AM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com> wrote: eastwind has no testicles but survives - the life cycle of the shadow children does not involve sexual reproduction. I also know Eastwind is an abo, but he SYMBOLIZES the shadow children's propagation cycle in the story's conclusion, while Sandwalker symbolizes the aboriginal one. On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 10:23 AM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com> wrote:

my mistake, replaced, supplanted. I KNOW he was bitten by the cat, Gerry. Why even say that? Victor is only a part of the equation because the cat had a kind of affinity for Victor like the Shadow Children do for whoever with their psychic empathy, but it is the bite that brings the fragment of that psychic connection into Marsch and "replaces" him. If there is any of Victor in Marsch, it is through the psychic resonance the cat had with Victor. I think of Victor and Marsch as two distinct entities, and Victor DIES in a scene you believe to be a fabrication, a fall. But Wolfe wants us to believe Victor takes Marsch's place and assumes his shape, because that is the first false solution to the mystery without touching on the life cycle of the Shadow Children that underlies the point of "A Story". It seems Sandwalker the abo lives, as it seems Victor replaces Marsch, but Marsch is actually but a vector for an infection which can rise up on air currents and float in the wind (Eastwind). On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 10:14 AM, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote:

On 05/08/2014 17:59, Marc Aramini wrote:

they say the white creatures they chew and spit out are their "brides." - seems like an organism to me. As I said, the associations are symbolic rather than literal, so proving it is quite unlikely. Sandwalker and Eastwind ARE switched by a bite. Marsch is switched with a bite, too. But you don't buy it, that's fine.

That's the plant. It's white and without comfort because the drug is used up. Then they wait until sufficient time has passed for safety, and take more of the plant. Why do you say Marsch is switched, rather than replaced? The new Marsch says "I needed to make my voice like his and look older". And the old Marsch was bitten by the cat, not by Victor... - Gerry Quinn _______________________________________________

Gerry Quinn wrote: Shadow Children are referenced only in the second novella of the trilogy.

"A Story" by John V. Marsch, that being the only place Shadow Children are referenced.

On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 10:50 AM, Tony Ellis <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com> wrote: Gerry Quinn wrote:

Shadow Children are referenced only in the second novella of the trilogy.

And Lee:

"A Story" by John V. Marsch, that being the only place Shadow Children are referenced.

Actually, they do crop up a few times in the third novella. As well as the various references to child-sized indigenous people, there is: "...and the Shadow Children of course came to steal by evening... there are never as many of them as they think, because some are only in the minds of others..." - VRT, interviewed by Marsch. and "The question is not, as I once thought, how much the thoughts of the Shadow Children influence reality, but how much our own do." - VRT's writings, sometime after incarceration. _______________________________________________

On 05/08/2014 17:59, Marc Aramini wrote:

they say the white creatures they chew and spit out are their "brides." - seems like an organism to me. As I said, the associations are symbolic rather than literal, so proving it is quite unlikely. Sandwalker and Eastwind ARE switched by a bite. Marsch is switched with a bite, too. But you don't buy it, that's fine.

That's the plant. It's white and without comfort because the drug is used up. Then they wait until sufficient time has passed for safety, and take more of the plant. Why do you say Marsch is switched, rather than replaced? The new Marsch says "I needed to make my voice like his and look older". And the old Marsch was bitten by the cat, not by Victor... - Gerry Quinn _______________________________________________

eastwind has no testicles but survives - the life cycle of the shadow children does not involve sexual reproduction. I also know Eastwind is an abo, but he SYMBOLIZES the shadow children's propagation cycle in the story's conclusion, while Sandwalker symbolizes the aboriginal one. On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 10:23 AM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com> wrote: my mistake, replaced, supplanted. I KNOW he was bitten by the cat, Gerry. Why even say that? Victor is only a part of the equation because the cat had a kind of affinity for Victor like the Shadow Children do for whoever with their psychic empathy, but it is the bite that brings the fragment of that psychic connection into Marsch and "replaces" him. If there is any of Victor in Marsch, it is through the psychic resonance the cat had with Victor. I think of Victor and Marsch as two distinct entities, and Victor DIES in a scene you believe to be a fabrication, a fall. But Wolfe wants us to believe Victor takes Marsch's place and assumes his shape, because that is the first false solution to the mystery without touching on the life cycle of the Shadow Children that underlies the point of "A Story". It seems Sandwalker the abo lives, as it seems Victor replaces Marsch, but Marsch is actually but a vector for an infection which can rise up on air currents and float in the wind (Eastwind). On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 10:14 AM, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote: On 05/08/2014 17:59, Marc Aramini wrote: they say the white creatures they chew and spit out are their "brides." - seems like an organism to me. As I said, the associations are symbolic rather than literal, so proving it is quite unlikely. Sandwalker and Eastwind ARE switched by a bite. Marsch is switched with a bite, too. But you don't buy it, that's fine. That's the plant. It's white and without comfort because the drug is used up. Then they wait until sufficient time has passed for safety, and take more of the plant. Why do you say Marsch is switched, rather than replaced? The new Marsch says "I needed to make my voice like his and look older". And the old Marsch was bitten by the cat, not by Victor... - Gerry Quinn _______________________________________________

On 05/08/2014 18:12, Marc Aramini wrote: It also seems to me that brides involve a method of propagation and reproduction, you know? like the life cycle involves them somehow. But like I said, I really don't want to argue too much about this because our views on parallel symbolic associations in Fifth Head of Cerberus are diametrically opposed.

On 05/08/2014 18:14, Marc Aramini wrote: and in VRT the officer reading the documents bathes the girls saliva off "prophylactically" or something of the sort - odd choice of words.

On 05/08/2014 18:50, Tony Ellis wrote: Actually, they [Shadow Children] do crop up a few times in the third novella. As well as the various references to child-sized indigenous people, there is: "...and the Shadow Children of course came to steal by evening... there are never as many of them as they think, because some are only in the minds of others..." - VRT, interviewed by Marsch. and "The question is not, as I once thought, how much the thoughts of the Shadow Children influence reality, but how much our own do." - VRT's writings, sometime after incarceration.

On 05/08/2014 22:58, entonio at gmail.com wrote: It's been a long time since I've read the book, but I don't recall thinking of the Shadow Children as human at all. I'm not saying that I rejected the idea of their being human, I'm saying that when I read the book it didn't register on me that they were or might be human. Was their description pictorial? Why are they assumed to be human?

On 05/08/2014 18:28, Marc Aramini wrote: are these leaves the Shadow Children chew from the carapace corpse trees of the aborigines in the final stage of their life cycle? If that is the case, perhaps the aboriginal cells have two means of surviving: through standard macrocosmic sexual recombination and then through cellular mimicry when they are consumed and chewed, mimicking the host cells and allowing cellular reproduction to occur in this fashion with undifferentiated cells. Would be an interesting case of crazy converging AND diverging evolution.

On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 10:25 AM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com <mailto:marcaramini at gmail.com>> wrote: eastwind has no testicles but survives - the life cycle of the shadow children does not involve sexual reproduction. I also know Eastwind is an abo, but he SYMBOLIZES the shadow children's propagation cycle in the story's conclusion, while Sandwalker symbolizes the aboriginal one.

On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 10:23 AM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com <mailto:marcaramini at gmail.com>> wrote: my mistake, replaced, supplanted. I KNOW he was bitten by the cat, Gerry. Why even say that? Victor is only a part of the equation because the cat had a kind of affinity for Victor like the Shadow Children do for whoever with their psychic empathy, but it is the bite that brings the fragment of that psychic connection into Marsch and "replaces" him. If there is any of Victor in Marsch, it is through the psychic resonance the cat had with Victor.

I think of Victor and Marsch as two distinct entities, and Victor DIES in a scene you believe to be a fabrication, a fall. But Wolfe wants us to believe Victor takes Marsch's place and assumes his shape, because that is the first false solution to the mystery without touching on the life cycle of the Shadow Children that underlies the point of "A Story". It seems Sandwalker the abo lives, as it seems Victor replaces Marsch, but Marsch is actually but a vector for an infection which can rise up on air currents and float in the wind (Eastwind).

On Wednesday, August 6, 2014, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote: On 05/08/2014 18:50, Tony Ellis wrote:

Actually, they [Shadow Children] do crop up a few times in the third novella. As well as the various references to child-sized indigenous people, there is: "...and the Shadow Children of course came to steal by evening... there are never as many of them as they think, because some are only in the minds of others..." - VRT, interviewed by Marsch. and "The question is not, as I once thought, how much the thoughts of the Shadow Children influence reality, but how much our own do." - VRT's writings, sometime after incarceration.

Fair enough. The last one is interesting. He immediately references the original Marsche's interview with Mrs. Blount, in which she describes playing with abos as a child, and her father shooting some. I'm not sure how that fits with his observation above. - Gerry Quinn _______________________________________________

On Wednesday, August 6, 2014, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com> wrote: It exists. It's just that plant leaves aren't what you think they are- they have microorganisms on them that produce the effects of communion. The same reason you ignore the death scene of victor, Gerry. It 's okay when you ignore narrative details for narrative reasons, like Trenchard saying he was descended from the east wind. This is why I don't want to talk to you about this at great length- you will never be convinced because your misprision is cast in iron, and you are exasperated by what you perceive as mine. And that's okay. On Wednesday, August 6, 2014, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','gerry at bindweed.com');>> wrote:

On 05/08/2014 18:50, Tony Ellis wrote:

Actually, they [Shadow Children] do crop up a few times in the third novella. As well as the various references to child-sized indigenous people, there is: "...and the Shadow Children of course came to steal by evening... there are never as many of them as they think, because some are only in the minds of others..." - VRT, interviewed by Marsch. and "The question is not, as I once thought, how much the thoughts of the Shadow Children influence reality, but how much our own do." - VRT's writings, sometime after incarceration.

Fair enough. The last one is interesting. He immediately references the original Marsche's interview with Mrs. Blount, in which she describes playing with abos as a child, and her father shooting some. I'm not sure how that fits with his observation above. - Gerry Quinn _______________________________________________

On 06/08/2014 13:18, Gerry Quinn wrote: On 05/08/2014 18:50, Tony Ellis wrote:

Actually, they [Shadow Children] do crop up a few times in the third novella. As well as the various references to child-sized indigenous people, there is: "...and the Shadow Children of course came to steal by evening... there are never as many of them as they think, because some are only in the minds of others..." - VRT, interviewed by Marsch. and "The question is not, as I once thought, how much the thoughts of the Shadow Children influence reality, but how much our own do." - VRT's writings, sometime after incarceration.

Fair enough. The last one is interesting. He immediately references the original Marsche's interview with Mrs. Blount, in which she describes playing with abos as a child, and her father shooting some. I'm not sure how that fits with his observation above.

Gerry Quinn: Where, precisely, are we given that story?

On 07/08/2014 21:26, Lee wrote: Gerry Quinn: Where, precisely, are we given that story?

Gerry Quinn: > Where, precisely, are we given that story?

Find the passage in which The Old Wise One admits he can't remember which origin story is true.

At risk of being insulting, I am getting the sense that there is a certain literary level often found in WOlfe's writing to which you are not sensitive.

You are trying to solve a Wolfe mystery as though it were Sherlock Holmes or a labexperiment where you are supposed to observe the evidence, scientifically sort, weigh, and otherwise quantify it and the correct answer is thusly calculated. Preponderance of evidence represents the "right" answer.

In my opinion, Wolfe often writes in a manner in which almost everything which is written is a lie in some fashion. He takes "unreliable narrator" to an extreme inso many of his works, to the point that almost nothing written is trustworthy. I think

that description is apt for Fifth Head of Cerberus. In this type of story, other methods of determining the "truth" must be found other than just quantifying the repetition of lies and false evidence.

Consider the example of the Inhumi discussed a few years back. In the beginning of the discussion, the flight of Inhumi between Green and Blue was considered reasonable and true by most of the discussion participants. And why not? The process is discussed a number of times in various direct and indirect ways by Inhumi.

By the end of the discussion, it was generally agreed that such flight would violate so many laws of physics, chemistry and biology that Wolfe could not have accidentally forgotten them. The flight of Inhumi through the void between planets must be a lie, despite all the textual evidence for it. It becomes clear that every bit of this "textual evidence" has come from the mouths of a race of liars.

We know the Inhuman do travel between planets. So how do they do it? The obvious answer is given to us, hidden in plain sight- From our first introduction to them, we know- The Inhumi travel planet to planet by being master imitators and stowaways on the spaceships of other species. We are shown them doing this several times. It doesn't require violating the laws of the universe and it also explains the lies about flying through the void. Disguisers and stowaways must rely on lies to accomplish their deceit and concealment, and thus be experts at it.

Back to Shadow Children. I wouldn't expect you to change your mind but if you have an explanation for why the supposedly human Shadow Children are even worse with tools than Abos, I'd be interested.

Also, as previously explained, the Shadow Children as proto-Abos does not require more than one shape changing species. It requires one. One evolving species, which evolves in pseudo-Lamarckian fashion by adopting the features of their victims rather than developing their own. Shadow Children are a first attempt at the local imitative parasites at copying humans. A poor one. Abos represent a second attempt. Better but imperfect. Marsch and the rest of the population of Ste Anne and St. Croix (except #5 who is self-cloned) are a third, even better attempt.

Gerry Quinn: I would say, rather, that I read the writing with care, and do not

tend to construct elaborate scenarios based on words found here and there.

Most of all - what's the point of all this supposed to be? Why would Wolfe write such a loose-end dripping farrago?

On 08/08/2014 14:47, Lee wrote: Gerry Quinn: I would say, rather, that I read the writing with care, and do not tend to construct elaborate scenarios based on words found here and there.

This is another way of saying you cannot conceive of the existence, purpose or value of a piece of literature in which 95% of what we are presented are lies and only an indirect 5% can be construed as truth.

Fair enough. Perhaps you have never encountered a person who manages to delude themselves about themselves and the world so thoroughly that much of what they say has no real ring of truth to it. I have and I suspect Gene Wolfe has also. I suspect he finds such people both revolting and fascinating, as I do. Very much a worthy subject to pattern much of his writing on.

Most of all - what's the point of all this supposed to be? Why would Wolfe write such a loose-end dripping farrago?

The reliability of Severian as a narrator was being explored in another thread. What IS the basis of so much reliance on unreliable narrators in Wolfe's work? Why does he find exploring the minds of liars, self-deceivers and addled brains so interesting? I understand it. I not sure I can explain it to someone who doesn't find any appeal in finding one's way through a web of lies and deceit. But I get it. I suspect many other Wolfe fans do also. There is something intrinsically "human" about exploring this realm of dishonesty. Ironically, SF provides a platform in which "super-liars" such as the Inhumi and Abos can be invented to more thoroughly explore this side of life and human interaction.

On 8/8/2014 8:47 AM, Lee wrote: Gerry Quinn: I would say, rather, that I read the writing with care, and do not

tend to construct elaborate scenarios based on words found here and there.

This is another way of saying you cannot conceive of the existence, purpose or value of a piece of literature in which 95% of what we are presented are lies and only an indirect 5% can be construed as truth. Fair enough. Perhaps you have never encountered a person who manages to delude themselves about themselves and the world so thoroughly that much of what they say has no real ring of truth to it.

I understand it. I not sure I can explain it to someone who doesn't find any appeal in finding one's way through a web of lies and deceit. But I get it. I suspect many other Wolfe fans do also.

On 10/08/2014 01:04, entonio at gmail.com wrote: Inasmuch as Gerry has said a lot of sensible stuff, the way he's applied it recently makes him more like the anti-Lee than anything else. Now, if I find Lee's stuff over the top, at least it's stuff (and my issue with Lee is more his tone than his content). Whereas recently Gerry has gone out of his way to say 'nothing to see here, move along'.

On 10/08/2014 01:04, entonio at gmail.com wrote:

Inasmuch as Gerry has said a lot of sensible stuff, the way he's applied it recently makes him more like the anti-Lee than anything else. Now, if I find Lee's stuff over the top, at least it's stuff (and my issue with Lee is more his tone than his content). Whereas recently Gerry has gone out of his way to say 'nothing to see here, move along'.

I would argue that in cases where I have been criticising proposed interpretations rather than proposing my own, I am merely arguing for some kind of consistency of approach and of interpretation, and for interpretations that are not infinitely malleable when critiqued.

On 10/08/2014 14:34, entonio at gmail.com wrote: No dia 10/08/2014, ?s 11:14, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> escreveu: On 10/08/2014 01:04, entonio at gmail.com wrote:

Inasmuch as Gerry has said a lot of sensible stuff, the way he's applied it recently makes him more like the anti-Lee than anything else. Now, if I find Lee's stuff over the top, at least it's stuff (and my issue with Lee is more his tone than his content). Whereas recently Gerry has gone out of his way to say 'nothing to see here, move along'.

I would argue that in cases where I have been criticising proposed interpretations rather than proposing my own, I am merely arguing for some kind of consistency of approach and of interpretation, and for interpretations that are not infinitely malleable when critiqued.

But that's not all you've been doing; you've gone far into saying some readings are all there is to a given story, implying that one shouldn't attempt to come up with an alternative. Even if none of the current ones is satisfactory, it doesn't mean one doesn't exist, and there is in principle nothing wrong in refining hypotheses. For instance, I find Marc's interpretation of Suzanne Delage falling short, but nonetheless a necessary first step.

I accept several principals at face value from the narrator as general guidelines: 1)That an extraordinary event actually could be forgotten, so that he can’t be trusted to reliably remember it. If he could remember it, then the premise of the story is invalid. If we do not accept this premise, the analysis can stop right here — the extraordinary event in his life is that he never met Suzanne Delage.

Entonio: my issue with Lee is more his tone than his content

Jeff Wilson: Dude, if you want to tell people authoritatively what a story means, it would simpler, easier, more credible, and less insulting if you wrote your own rather than asserting those already published are only 5% in earnest

Gerry Quinn: In fact the scenario of two independent abo races..

On 10/08/2014 19:46, Lee wrote: Gerry Quinn: In fact the scenario of two independent abo races..

As I have explained several times, this is not my view. My view is that there is one shapeshifting, imitative race from Ste. Anne. Since Ste. Anne is a rather desolate planet, this species started as a somewhat shapeless, formless being(s), likely without a sense of being divided into individual organisms and bodies.

When a human ship crashed onto the planet, the first attempt at imitating them wasn't especially good, hence "Shadow Children" an apt name given that they are derived from shadowy being(s). The very process of being individuals has not been accurately copied and thus Shadow Children do still blend and meld into one another. Part of their disguise is that they have forgotten that they were previously shadowy formless beings, though the Old Wise One briefly remembers it. They tell a false story about being degenerate humans to enhance the disguise.

The third attempt at imitating humans by this same species are the humans who populate the towns and cities of Ste. Anne and Ste. Croix. This attempt is good enough to fool most other Earth-origin humans but some cracks in the fa?ade still appear here and there. As would be expected, the more primitive Abo are found only on Ste. Anne and the even more primitive Shadow Children (if any still exist) are only found in the deeply rural and "backwoods" areas of Ste. Anne, or (if none still exist) only in stories.

Wolfe describes an engineering principle in the text in which "relaxation" technique can be used to solve a seemingly unsolvable problem. One makes a real-world model approximation, does measurements and then uses a second and third attempt and further adjustments to more closely approximate the result you are trying to achieve. Eventually, you can create a prototype which works well enough for your purposes (though perfection is impossible). This principle comes up in a conversation between Dr. Marsch and Number Five and is rightfully ignored by Number Five since he (and his predecessors) are not using relaxation. They are copying themselves without appreciable adjustment or change each generation although he argues with Marsch over this issue. It is the native, imitative species who has engaged in relaxation and Dr. Marsch, now being almost undetectable as a native, is a wonderful example of it.

This is my view of the story. If others have a different view, that is perfectly fine andI make no claim of superiority for mine, nor a claim that anyone else ought to adopt my view.

On 10/08/2014 14:34, entonio at gmail.com wrote:

No dia 10/08/2014, ?s 11:14, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> escreveu: On 10/08/2014 01:04, entonio at gmail.com wrote: But that's not all you've been doing; you've gone far into saying some readings are all there is to a given story, implying that one shouldn't attempt to come up with an alternative. Even if none of the current ones is satisfactory, it doesn't mean one doesn't exist, and there is in principle nothing wrong in refining hypotheses. For instance, I find Marc's interpretation of Suzanne Delage falling short, but nonetheless a necessary first step.

Things can look different from the other side: Marc's post said:

I accept several principals at face value from the narrator as general guidelines: 1) That an extraordinary event actually could be forgotten, so that he can’t be trusted to reliably remember it. If he could remember it, then the premise of > the story is invalid. If we do not accept this premise, the analysis can stop right here — the extraordinary event in his life is that he never met Suzanne Delage.

Doesn't that, from my perspective, look like "nothing to see here"?

Is there actually ANY story by Wolfe which can generally be agreed to take the form of a cryptic puzzle to be unlocked by way of extrapolating from symbolism we may associate (but which is never stated clearly) with cccasional words used by a preternaturally unreliable narrator, to the extend that his descriptions of actual events in the text are to be ignored?

Gerry Quinn: I meant the Shadow Children and the Hillmen/Marschmen, which would - whatever their origin - appear to nowadays have the characteristics of different races if not different species...that species would appear to have acquired the ability to further speciate.

And the drug-plant they talk about - a pre-determined cover story? Do all Shadow Children chew it, just in case a curious 'Shadowfriend' is unconvinced by the basic storyline?

Of course there may well be abos even on Sainte Croix - I believe there is a hint of this in No. 5's comment about a "planetary face" which is not found among the "gypsies and criminal tribes". (There's no direct suggestion that Marsch looks like them, though.)

I believe you misunderstand the reference. The series of clones create their own environment, and consequently stabilise into a solution that does not change with time.

Who is doing the measuring?

Also, according to your theory, Marsch is surely a very poor example! He would be a second-generation type incapable of properly holding a pen,

I point out only that another view can be put forward in which much less of what we are told needs to be discarded as misinformation.

On 11/08/2014 13:31, Lee wrote: The question for you remains- What did Abos look like before humans arrived in the system?

And the drug-plant they talk about - a pre-determined cover story? Do all Shadow Children chew it, just in case a curious 'Shadowfriend' is unconvinced by the basic storyline?

What I see made clear is that the "cover story", the lies which augment the disguise, are not just for the benefit of "Shadowfriends". Self-delusion is necessary for the most complete and convincing disguise. Do Shadow Children know they are poor imitations of crashlanded humans? No. Only The Old Wise One has a glimmer of memory of it. Do the Abos, like Victor, know they have killed and taken the place of humans? No. Victor clearly believes most of what he writes in Marsch's journal. He does, at this point, truly think he is Marsch.

Of course there may well be abos even on Sainte Croix - I believe there is a hint of this in No. 5's comment about a "planetary face" which is not found among the "gypsies and criminal tribes". (There's no direct suggestion that Marsch looks like them, though.)

But Marsch/Victor does run away when confronted by this truth, as just mentioned.

No, he has a long discussion with No. 5, ending only when Aunt Jeannine sends for him. He leaves at another meeting, when No. 5 identifies him as an abo. It doesn't take long for Marsch to be killed and replaced. I suspect all humans on Ste Anne and Ste Croix have been similarly replaced (except Number Five who lives cloistered and protected in his clone castle).

I believe you misunderstand the reference. The series of clones create their own environment, and consequently stabilise into a solution that does not change with time.

I do not misunderstand. This is exactly what Marsch/Victor tells Number Five, trying to explain to him why his cloning experiments don't work; why he doesn't advance.

I am saying it is ironic because Marsch/Victor is telling Number Five exactly how the native imitative species have managed to duplicate humans almost perfectly, Abos and Shadow Children being the earlier approximations.

Also, according to your theory, Marsch is surely a very poor example! He would be a second-generation type incapable of properly holding a pen,

Incorrect. Marsch is the replacement for an Abo, making him the third-generation type. As is made clear, even the third generation type, while they can use a pen- a very fine motor skill no other animal can approach, they cannot use one with the precision of a true human.

On 11 August 2014 13:31, Lee <severiansola at hotmail.com> wrote: Marsch is the replacement for an Abo,

Antonio Marques: If we are to believe Abos imitate other kinds, then they should imitate them along with their imperfections. That would suggest that an Abo imitating an Abo-imitating-a-human would hardly ever be a better imitation of the human, but usually a worse one.

What did Abos look like before humans arrived in the system?

Marsch. He knows who he is. The early parts of Marsch's journal were written by the actual Marsch.

But then where are the super-abos, as humans on the two planets appear to use technology quite well?

On Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 7:55 AM, Ant?nio Marques <entonio at gmail.com> wrote: On 11 August 2014 13:31, Lee <severiansola at hotmail.com> wrote:

Marsch is the replacement for an Abo,

I find this interesting. If we are to believe Abos imitate other kinds, then they should imitate them along with their imperfections. That would suggest that an Abo imitating an Abo-imitating-a-human would hardly ever be a better imitation of the human, but usually a worse one. _______________________________________________