From: mark millman <millman@us.ncipher.com>
Subject: Re: (whorl) Picturing the inhumi
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2000 15:36:59 

At 11:54 am -0700 on 14 April 2000, Nicholas Gevers 
<vermoulian@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Has anyone on this list tried to picture exactly how
> Wolfe intends an inhumu (or inhuma) to look in its
> undisguised state? Various zoological parallels are
> suggested by Horn, IIRC including an owl, a serpent,
> reptiles generally; but I have trouble visualising the
> creatures exactly... 

I don't know whether this will help anyone, but I tend to
visualize a sort of a tailless cross between a naked flying 
squirrel (substitute lemur or possum for squirrel, as geo-
graphically appropriate) and a pterodactyl--the sort with-
out a beak, of course.

I suspect, however, that Wolfe's key idea about the inhumi
is their mutability, and that attempts to visualize them undis-
guised probably miss the point a little bit.  I have also won-
dered how much the guises adopted by inhumi depend on 
physical alterations, and how much on psychological (or 
possibly psychical) effects.

Nacre

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