From: Dan Parmenter <dan@lec.com>
Subject: (whorl) another latecomer to the party finally finishes IGJ (spoilers)
Date: 10 Aug 2000 10:35:42 

Howdy folks - 

I've been working my way through the back issues of the Whorl list
digest having finally finished IGJ.  I still have a lot of questions
and I'm still processing it all, but one question in particular hit me
like a bolt from the blue: was the Cumaean from BOTNS an Inhuma?
Please shoot me down in flames if I'm clearly and demonstrably
overlooking some obvious reason for why that makes no sense.

Random impressions: There's something of a "C.S. Lewis moment" in IGJ
when Incanto and company visit Nessus.  The description was (IMO) very
evocative of the city of Charn in THE MAGICIAN'S NEPHEW, so much so
that at first I wondered if they had come to the Stone Town
(completely abandoned as opposed to merely squalid like Nessus), which
led to my above speculation.

Other literary "echoes": even if Green isn't Lune, I can't help but
detect a little bit of the influence of Brian Aldiss' HOTHOUSE (aka
THE LONG AFTERNOON OF EARTH) much as BOTLS seemed like another take on
Aldiss's generation ship in STARSHIP (of course Aldiss didn't invent
the concept, but he did have a priest as one of the major characters).
I think there was even a reference to green spiders (the moon of
HOTHOUSE is inhabited by giant vegetable spiders), though I'll have to
double check.  These are all very incidental and probably has more to
do with my sentimental attachment to the two Aldiss books.

Eco: a tip of the hat?

Shellac


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