On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 2:08 AM, Dave Tallman <davetallman at msn.com> wrote:
> Something very strange was going on with Cassie's apartment in this
> story. There are too many inconsistencies for the explanation to be typos or
> mistakes. I believe the answer is that Cassie was unconsciously warping
> reality. Dr. Chase implied that the change he enabled in her was more than
> just bringing out latent talent: she had been raised to a near-angelic level
> of power. "It is easy, terribly easy, for someone who has transformed up to
> slip back down" (p. 100).
>
> 1. In the beginning, Cassie lives on West Arbor (p.81), next to
> apartment 3B (p. 52), so she's in 3A. It's probably on the third floor of a
> small building; it's only a few steps from the elevator to her door (p. 52).
>
> 2. It's within a short walk of a Baskin-Robbins (p. 43). It's not a
> big, upscale store since only a single surly teenager is on duty there.
> 3. It's eighteen blocks from the home of the successful Sharon Bench,
> probably on the poor side of town (p. 24).
> 4. There is a mention of windows, but not French windows or a balcony
> (p. 43).
> 5. It's difficult to find parking places nearby -- Chase has to walk
> four blocks (p. 81).
>
> A couple of days later:
>
> 1. She's on the fifth floor (p. 111).
> 2. The view shows several cars parked on the side of the street, at
> about the same time of day as when Chase had trouble finding parking (p.
> 111).
> 3. Some nearby buildings have doormen (p. 111), but apparently not
> hers. Several people call unannounced. Her telephone is working, but she
> gets no calls about them (p. 105-110).
> 4. That night, she suddenly has a doorman who calls to screen her
> visitors (p. 116).
>
> She didn't just move to a fancier place with her success. She had the same
> upstairs neighbor, Brian Pickins (pp. 85, 250). The hole Gideon Chase made
> to break into her apartment also connects the places (p. 76, 87).
>
> After she goes to the South Sea island, the assassin gives her address as
> 181 East Arbor Boulevard, apartment 301 and Cassie confirms it (p. 249). The
> fact that it is back on the third floor suggests that it's reverting to a
> lower level since she is not there to maintain focus on it. The doorman may
> also be gone, since the cultists have managed to kill a tenant and take over
> his apartment undetected.
>
> In the end, she seems to have lost her power and she is prematurely aged,
> possibly from burn-out as well as her harrowing experiences. Her apartment
> has gone back to the west side of town ("Best of all it was on the east side
> of Kingsport, across town from her old one." p. 293). This transition was
> rougher than the others and it seems that in the process all of her
> possessions were lost (p. 292).
>
> There are several other instances of reality-warping in the rest of the
> story.
>
> 1. People start thinking she is famous before she has even given her
> breakthrough performance (p. 45), and Sharon calls her a famous actress the
> day after that performance (p. 89).
> 2. Early on, Cassie is familiar with Mickey the stage manager and asks
> for him by name (p. 58). Later, she doesn't know his name (p. 137). A famous
> star wouldn't know a lowly stage manager, unlike the struggling actress she
> was.
> 3. Vince Palma knows her full name and uses it in public (p. 63).
> Later, Cassie is so surprised that Reis has found out her real first name
> that she stutters (p. 146).
> 4. She sees Alexis Cabana as a waitress at Rusterman's (p. 118). Alexis
> doesn't remember acting under that name (or she pretends not to). I don't
> believe this is just a coincidental resemblance. Possibly the past has been
> warped so that Cassie played the main role ("By this time you'd be Jane
> Simmons." p. 54).
> 5. Cassie hid her diamond necklace in her hotel room and the next
> morning finds it in a room safe she doesn't remember using (p. 152-153). I
> believe she created the room safe overnight out of her wish to have a more
> secure place for her jewels.
> 6. She calls Sharon from the South Sea island at her breakfast time (p.
> 236), which would be nearly Sharon's lunch time because Cassie is a late
> riser ("I get up at eleven, don't I, Margaret?" p. 139). There is almost no
> time difference, which is impossible if Sharon is really back in the states.
> I believe Cassie has time-warped this call. It's possible that some sort of
> time-warping is available on the islands and that Reis makes use of it,
> because he acts so quickly to find Cassie almost as soon as she is recruited
> by Chase ("This afternoon I found my director." p. 66). There seems to be a
> connection between Woldercan, where ethermail messages can arrive out of
> causality order (pp. 18-19, 298), and the Chtulhu-ruled islands. (Woldercan
> is the name of a city where a pagan god was worshipped with human sacrifices
> in "The Circus of Dr. Lao", so a link is definitely implied). Former
> ambassador Klauser also says that time is an illusion (p. 298).
>
> In the end, "Fiona" was hoping to bring Cassie Casey back (p. 296). She was
> going to Woldercan to see Gideon Chase. I doubt he would be able to perform
> the same trick twice, but he will love her anyway ("As soon as he spoke, he
> knew that for him no reversal would have the least effect." p. 81). There's
> a chance for a bittersweet happy ending, but Cassie was still deep in grief
> over Bill/Wally. She may have had a sense of Bill's presence because of the
> last fading traces of her power which she lost when she got far enough away
> from Earth. That would account for her sudden desperate cry: "Please, oh,
> please, Wally! Come back to me!"
>
> Reis had good intentions, but he had a "touch of megalomania" (p. 304) and
> wanted to rule the world ("I have that island now, but I've seen a better
> one. A blue isle in a sea of black. I fight for it every day, and I'll win."
> p. 125). He did far more harm with his good intentions than the amoral Dr.
> Chase, especially when he provoked a fight between the Navy and Cthulhu. I
> would say that the power of his alchemical wealth was the "evil guest" in
> this story which destroyed both him and Cassie.
>
Thanks for digging up all of that and putting it together. I'm not totally
convinced that Cassie's apartment changes. She actually does have a balcony
to start off with (p76, down the bottom). It doesn't have to be a
particularly deluxe building to have a doorman. In my experience, generally
visitors who know which apartment they are going to don't get stopped by
doormen, but somebody in a chauffeur's uniform might well be, and of course
the driver might simply have asked the doorman which apartment Cassie was
in. I don't see any particular inconsistencies in the references to parking
difficulties etc etc. The only really telling points are the reference to
"five floors below", and the "East Arbor" reference by the assassin. These
*might* just be typos.
On other time things: If Kololahi is a fictionalised Tonga and Kingsport is
in MA then the time difference in fall would be about 18 hours, or 6 hours
with a day shift (GMT+13 versus GMT-5). This fits with Cassie's observation
after being dropped off by Gid at the airport (p225) - in the evening back
home, a little after lunch here. If she's having an early breakfast and
Sharon is coming up to lunch-time when they speak, that fits also: her
comment about getting up at 11am earlier doesn't mean much (she's playing
prima donna, I think, and anyway apart from late-night encounters with alien
bat-people it's likely enough she's getting to bed early in Kololahi).
I wonder if Cassie is hoping Gid can bring Bill back to life, at the end. I
think she's hoping he can bring back her mojo, but maybe that as well. Is it
possible that Bill can astral travel in some way? His appearance as
talking-head to Cassie in his limo may not have been just a holo-projection.
Gid seems to have ghosts or spirits of some kind in his hopper; he says
somewhere that he's talked with ghosts; maybe he can bring Bill's, somehow.
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