From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis@sirius.com>
Subject: (urth) sling stones as shooting stars
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 16:02:45 

Mitchell A. Bailey wrote:
>No, I think these bullets are of the sort the kelau use in their slings.
>The firework arbalests used a type of bolt or dart.

Yes, they are the lead shot used in slings (we are told that directly,
aren't we?).  OTOH, I don't think they are the only type of projectile used
by the slingers: I remember their song in CLAW, "Born Under a Shooting
Star," and I seem to recall their fiery presence on the battlefield much
later in CITADEL. So my sense of it has always been that there are
pyrotechnic bullets as well as the lower tech lead bullets (with lowest
tech stones below that).

Oh, look--here we go: `Their slings projected pyrotechnic missiles, the
"shooting stars" of their song' (THE CASTLE OF THE OTTER, article "Hands
and Feet," last page).

FWIW, I think I remember seeing the historical slogan bullets ("Ouch!"
"Strike!" etc.) at use in Flaubert's SALAMBO . . .

. . . still trying to recall where I might have seen the Venus de Milo
"secret history" before reading PEACE . . . a few minutes ago, while idling
on this, I suddenly thought of all the post-1950 fictions I've read that
have Victorian fellows going off to dig up fossils, the more recent example
being A.S. Byatt's POSSESSION and another example being Fowles's THE FRENCH
LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN . . . and if these random thoughts are related (message
from the Overmind), maybe TFLW has a Venus de Milo story in it?  Then I
would have mistaken this crypto-byte with THE MAGUS, I can see that very
easily . . .

Who knows.

=mantis=



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