From: Ron Crown <crownrw@slu.edu>
Subject: (whorl) another WHORL-train passenger?
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 11:30:47 


[Posted from WHORL, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]

I've been away from the list for a while and just getting caught up and
trying to come up with a good question--hard to do if you don't have
such a detailed recollection of the text as some do.  So, I sat down
last night and re-read Horn's "My Defense" and came up with the
following:  (my apologies if it or something like it has already been
asked)

Why does the monitor, having given the passengers in the lander a choice
between Blue or Green, overrule their (Quetzal's) choice of Green?  Or
maybe why were they given a choice in the first place, if the monitor
already knew where to go?  Or was the fact that it was Quetzal (an
inhumi) who made the choice cause the monitor to change from the Green
(the inhumi whorl) to Blue?  Or...trying to figure out how to ask a
question is not that easy!  Or is the answer so obvious and I have
completely missed something that makes this question totally
superfluous?  Mantis, can you make something worthwhile out of this to
send on the train?  Maybe this gets too far into territory that might be
covered in the Short Sun series?

Ron Crown
crownrw@slu.edu