From: "Alice K. Turner" 
Subject: Re: (urth) Those chems
Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 21:20:04 -0400

In this discussion, which is pretty interesting (I admit to having cruised
past most everything here lately, but this arrested me), I am surprised that
no one has yet brought up Sidero or Ossipago. Sev believes that Jonas must
once have been an automaton (Urth, 93). But I think that part of Wolfe's
grand plan is to meld or confuse the differences between AIs, sci-fi
"robots" (already so out of date except for those over-priced "dogs"),
mythological or genre-endorsed supernatural beings (confused deliberately
with religious beings--though I guess that goes without saying), enhanced
(and regular) humans, and aliens. Anyway, Sidero is a sort of Hierodulian
chem (or automaton) and and Sidero is pretty interesting in  himself. So
don't leave them out!

-alga



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