Malrubius's ghostWhorl

Re Wolfe's remarks in that SFBC catalogue: beware Genes bearing gifts. The idea that Horn/Silk's astral self is the ghost of Malrubius is very creaky, in flagrant contradiction of everything imparted concerning this aquastor or eidolon in THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN. Wolfe's SFBC Note actually means in all likelihood that by accepting the existence of the paranormal--astral projection and the like--we also accept the literal reality of ghosts of the dead. Just as the ghost of Pike was indeed Pike's spirit, so the ghost of Malrubius is indeed the deceased Master Malrubius. Nothing more complicated than that... --Nick Gevers.