(urth) Wolfe at Dragon*Con (AEG)

[Roy C. Lackey]

James Wynn quoted and wrote:

> >Shape shifting involves a certain
> > conservation of mass, such that the subject will weigh the same after
the
> > transformation as before.
>
> You have me at a disadvantage. I'm not an expert on the limits of Gideon's
> nor Reis's ability to shape-shift. However, a prosthetic leg that looks
> realistic on a guy in pants is neither magic nor speculative fiction.

Gid claimed not to be able either to shape-shift or do the "vanishing"
trick. (Yeah, yeah, he could have lied.) It was he who explained to Cassie
why the wolf that got Scott was so big: the man who became the wolf was a
big man. It was also he who said that when a human transformed into an
animal, the animal would have the same weight as the human. That's why it
matters that Reis was a big man and Gid was not, and Gid was a leg shy of
his normal weight.

When Reis was clubbed to death, he kept trying the vanishing trick.

> > Cassie told Klauser that Reis was dead, and at the end of the book, when
> > there was no one to hear her and she was on the way to Woldercan, she
> > bemoaned his death. Who was she fooling?
>
> It was you who first pointed out that Reis seemed to be more than one.
Which
> Reis are we talking about? It's true she says "Bill...why did you have to
> die" but then she says "Come back to me Wally!"

I mean the Reis who was clubbed to death at her feet.

> > She had been in perfect position to see the body that had been clubbed
to
> > death, and she had been forced to watch.
> >Shape-changers and glamour-casters
> > lose control at death.
>
> Do they? I can't do it and so I don't know much about it. In any case, the
> natives did not have long to study the body before Cassie smoked the king,
> and was carried away by the bat things.

In every werewolf movie I have seen, when the wolf shape dies, the body
reverts to the man shape.

> >Who did Cassie--and more importantly the
> > islanders--see dead at her feet, if not Bill Reis?
>
> Wolfe said Cassie went to Woldercon to find Reis.
> If he didn't die on the island, then obviously Cassie knew it. Why
wouldn't
> she?  Since Cassie was swept away immediately after killing the king, we
> cannot know what happened among the natives afterward.
>
> >I don't think it is
> > possible for it to have been one-legged Gideon Chase.
>
> You are freely conclusion jumping. I don't see how you found your way to
be
> so emphatically sure about all this based on what you have offered here.

*I* jump to conclusions??

> Look, Roy, Reis and Cassie were about to be married. But Bill Reis --who
> loved Cassie as much for the way she adorned himself as anything else--
> could not arrange to have either his oldest friend there nor his own son
to
> watch the big event.

Huh? Where did you get that idea? Reis told Cassie that he wanted Rian there
(p-276-77). Klauser received a wedding invitation (295), but was too ill to
attend (278).

> He was practically eloping with her. Does that seem
> likely? Why would he do that? The whole thing stinks.

Cassie is the one who wanted a simple ceremony (275). Even so, it was to be
held on the grounds of the New Zealand consulate (278), with her friends
flown in and "hundreds" of islanders in attendance (276).

> On the other hand, why
> would Chase disguised as Reis do that? Lots of reasons.

I don't think he did.

-Roy