Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 13:26:55 +1000 (EST)
From: David Duffy 
Subject: (urth) Re: Digest from  urth@urth.net

alga said:
> ... There are devils and angels in this book. (I prefer to call
> them demons and cherubim, but I'm not getting much of a response.) There is
> The interesting point, to me, is whether the inhumi can really be considered
> "evil." In a debate, I'd enjoy taking the side that they are not. And that
> Wolfe shows the humans, who do not have their needs and nature, as more
> evil.

and Rostrum said:
> On the other hand, I think its implied that the inhumi are as much persons
> as chems.  Their souls may be derivative, but they are real, and they seem
> to be capable of making real choices to do good or evil.  I think their
> nature makes it very difficult to do good, but not impossible.

We were told that the Neighbours carried inhumi to the Whorl,
possibly deliberately, which doesn't seem like a very angelic thing to
do ;). Perhaps Quetzal is what a Neighbourly inhuma is like.

Wolfe definitely is of the genre, and presumably has read some of the
sympathetic SFnal treatments of vampires eg Sime-Gen, Octavia Butler,
Martin.  I do see the settlement of the US say Comanches (or other
groups with a bloodthirsty reputation) v. settlers as a model.  Turning
to the early Christian church as another model, one might well expect
"the conversion of the inhumi" to take several generations (so they are
not irredeemably evil ;)).

David Duffy.


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