(urth) Like a good Neighbor

[David Stockhoff]

On 11/20/2011 9:36 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> *From:* António Pedro Marques <mailto:entonio at gmail.com>
>
> Having read as far as the chapter ‘Krait’, the idea that he was 
> replaced by a Neighbour in the pit seems bizarre to me. Just consider 
> the most obvious point: he needs the help of an inhumu to get out! And 
> to get it he betrays his wife and family. Unless you think this 
> Neighbour is a spy for his race and a rather nasty piece of work, or a 
> very impulsive and impulsive creature with no conscience, how do you 
> explain this?

So what? You'll have to outline your objection a little better. When 
does a Wolfe character ever take complete moral responsibility for 
everything? What do the Neighbors owe him after unkilling him?
> The ‘glittering eyes’ he sees while lying semi-conscious, and the 
> ‘long nosed man or spider’ that he apparently sees with his eyes 
> closed are presumably Neighbours. [Are we supposed to think of 
> Severian? Doesn’t make much sense for him to be there though.] The 
> long-nosed man seemingly uses a device on him that sends him on a 
> short astral excursion. I think it is likely that this device 
> *changed* him in some way by granting him or causing him to develop 
> certain psychic abilities (they probably developed as a consequence of 
> his temporary exposure as well as subsequent experimentation and other 
> events). But he is still Horn.
> Assuming the Neighbours were present and are essentially benevolent, 
> it seems they could not help him in the obvious way, i.e. by getting 
> him out of the pit, as Krait did. But this ties in very well with the 
> notion that they are half-in, half-out of our dimension, and are 
> limited in their physical abilities (see also the corpses in the sewer 
> on Green).

As fairies always are.