Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2003 22:40:32 -0700
From: maa32 
Subject: (urth) latro: mother's mother and misc (Swanwick, etc).

I think I mentioned the whole "mother's mother" thing with Latro in the dream 
palace of lions on the list a few months ago.  My best guess at the time was 
that Sphinx had become associated with Gaea (and if we read the text in that 
chapter, she has!) and there are other goddess assimilations going on - where 
Hera is kind of contiguous with her mother, etc.  So I believed, and still 
believe, that Latro is Pleistorus or Ares - it certainly makes sense of that 
scene and the scene in which Zalmoxis and Latro "fight", and where the high 
priest of the Thebans (I believe - haven't looked at the books since last May) 
calls Latro Pleistorus to his face.  And of the fact that Pleistorus has gone 
AWOL for a long time ... where did he go?  Why, he's fled by 
transubstantiating into a mortal!

OK ... nobody likes the Latro is Ares thread, nor do they like the Green is 
Urth one.  I can live with that.

I had some time off recently and got to read a whole bunch of stuff.  Someone 
mentioned Swanwick on the list a while ago, so I read some of him.  I didn't 
care for the novels too much.  Except Stations of the Tide - are his 
surrogates a rip on Wolfe's eidolons?  The technology wasn't very clear to me.
 And why was it important that Gregorian be stopped anyway, if the planet was 
going to flood no matter what?  Jack Faust started off pretty good, but then 
it kind of morphed into a bit too much of a standard cautionary tale at the 
end.  The other novels didn't do it for me (haven't read Iron Dragons Daughter 
yet, though).  Any thoughts on Stations of the Tide as an imitation of Wolfe, 
with science and magic mixing, weird surrogates who can live on after the 
original dies, but usually are re-incorporated, and characters named "Undine" 
and "Pelagia", with a big flooded world ...

Also got to partially wend my way through Free Live Free again (haven't 
finished it a second time yet).  What's the deal with the typewriter 
mumbo-jumbo that Serpentina types out?  Is that some sort of code or what?  
It's in Chapter 8 (Adam Alcar Dageram, etc.)  Maybe it's made clear later - if 
so, sorry - I'm sure I'll finish the whole thing again eventually.

Just some randomness.
Take care, all.
Marc Aramini



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