From: ansible@cix.compulink.co.uk (David Langford)
Subject: (whorl) Amazing Wolfe Revelations
Date: Sat, 12 Jul 97 10:08 BST-1


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

In-Reply-To: <199707120102.SAA20769@lists1.best.com>

Mantis: many thanks for posting Our Gene's responses.

> 24.  "Why does the monitor . . . overrule their . . . choice of
> Green?"  Because the choice had been Quetzal's and the monitor,
> seeing his body, realized that he had not been a human being.  (You
> already knew the answer, and gave it yourself.  Why ask me?)

I too was puzzled by various people's past confusion about this one (in 
the archive). Wolfe/Horn went out of his way to insert what would 
otherwise be a nonfunctional sentence: "As it chanced, there was a glass 
in this sickbay ..." So -- after initially accepting Quetzal's choice -- 
the monitor has access to the same visual information which causes the 
women laying out the body to scream. And changes its mind.

> 25.  "Does Green/Blue have anything to do with THE FIFTH HEAD OF
> CERBERUS?"  No.

Told you so!

> 27.  "Is Pike's ghost really Quetzal?"  No.

[FX: sound of gnashing teeth]

Dave

David Langford
ansible@cix.co.uk * http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/