From: "Urash, Tom" <turash@firstam.com>
Subject: RE: (whorl) Revealed at Last! What (Would Have) Killed the Inhumi	!
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2000 16:21:03 



> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Jim Henley [SMTP:jhenley@nas-corp.com]
> Sent:	Tuesday, January 11, 2000 3:19 PM
> To:	whorl@lists.best.com
> Subject:	RE: (whorl) Revealed at Last! What (Would Have) Killed the
> Inhumi	! (Maybe...)
> 
> 
> I think so, Tom. Happily, David Liebling already gathered most of it for
> me
> (http://www.moonmilk.com/whorl/archives/#59) so I hope I can be permitted
> to
> merely summarize.
> 
> 1) all the reptilian imagery used to describe Krait et al. Not least,
> "It's
> just occurred to me that you inhumi are rather like a kind of
> lizard I've noticed in my garden..."
> 
> IIRC, the Rajan uses a lot of snake figuration to describe Krait at the
> pit.
> 
> 2) It explains why the Rajan expects to find Jahlee alive under the stone
> -
> he knows that they can slow their metabolism in unfavorable conditions.
> 
> 3) Green is full of jungles and dinosaurs. I infer that it is warmer than
> Blue. I'm inclined to think that the Rajan even describes it as warmer,
> but
> I could be misremembering. (One other thought: cross-reference jungles,
> dinosaurs, swamps and hot green planets in The Big Book of Science Fiction
> Tropes and you find the entry for - Venus.)
> 
> 4) They must be able to essentially shut down their metabolism on the
> trajectory from Green to Blue. And it could be that it's the heat of early
> reentry that revives them.
> 
> 5) It's a perhaps slightly more practical secret to have than, "Hey, if we
> start loving each other, you guys are dead meat!"
	 

	 Thanks for the listing, Plasma! I couldn't agree with you more (#5,
above): the "love your neighbor" angle always struck me as down right silly,
naive and extremely over simple for Wolfe. Every time I see it I'm reminded
of Rodney King's feeble "can't we all just get along?" plea during the L.A.
riots. I'm curious to know if anyone recalls old Quetzal having any
behaviors or allusions to support the cold-blooded/hibernation theory(?).
Right or wrong, this theory is my favorite among all others espoused in this
list so far. 



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