(urth) Inhumi in the Whorl

James Wynn crushtv at gmail.com
Wed Aug 18 08:47:46 PDT 2010


>> James Wynn- When I say Scylla, I mean the megatherian of Urth.
>> The reason I suggest it is only that the original Scylla is does make an
>> appearance in "Short Sun". They seem very similar. It makes literary
>> sense is all. I have no further information to defend that hypothesis.
> Lee - Yes, Scylla is mentioned once as a megatherian of Urth. But the same name is
> used in Long Sun as daughter to Pas/Typhon. From an author who has said
> he thinks one subtle clue should be all his readers ever need to figure
> out everything, this seems of sledgehammer impact to me.

But, as you know, determining which clue is the right one is the trick.

Scylla on the Whorl is software entity and she came with the Whorl. When 
we do meet her in the Short Sun books, she is in Oreb and her original 
form as a young girl. We learned that she consciously named herself 
*after* the megatherian for whom she was an agent. Echidna might well be 
hiding out in one or more of the colonists, but how could she become Mother?

The megatherian Scylla is a solid being. A gigantic underwater dweller.
Megatherian, Mother, Vironese Scylla. Which one of these is not like the 
others?

Look, in the five New Sun books, we never meet a megatherian that I know 
of. In the Short Sun, the main character travels all the way to Urth to 
meet one. It's not one of the big  "male" megatherians either (Erebus or 
Abaia). It's the one named after a Greek female monster. And then we 
have huge undersea creature on Blue named Mother. I'm just sayin'. It's 
"fishy".

u+16b9





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