(urth) Typhon's nature

David Stockhoff dstockhoff at verizon.net
Tue Oct 11 16:17:19 PDT 2011



On 10/11/2011 6:41 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:
> On Tue, October 11, 2011 16:51, David Stockhoff wrote:
>> On 10/11/2011 5:21 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:
>>> On Tue, October 11, 2011 14:22, David Stockhoff wrote:
>>>> Larry was right to point out that Typhon probably senses the "powers"
>>>> more than he "speaks" with them. But they are plainly Erebus and Abaia,
>>>> or I have never read a word by Wolfe and live under the South Pole in a
>>>> rusty tin can.
>>> Typhon's ship commanders slipping away before he knows it argues against
>>> his long-range ESP.
>> Of course, it argues against good signal intelligence as well.
> Skill at subterfuge and confounding men and machines is fairly common in
> the books but there's no hint of a cloak against mind powers.
>
>
>>> He mentions the Asciians in the same breath as the
>>> beasts and knows they are beholden to them as the old autarch and
>>> Vodalus
>>> later confirm. This is entirely consistent with him retrieving Asciian
>>> signal intelligence from automated listening posts; Vodalus confirms
>>> they
>>> use long-distance comms.
>> This seems to assume Erebus and Abaia use ordinary radio. Right?
> I don't know how ordinary it might be, but yes, it assumes that the
> Ascians use radio along with robots and electric lights.
>
>
>>> Typhon's sending of his thoughts into distant places remains a somewhat
>>> curious idiom if it is not literal, but it is not entirely without
>>> precedent in literature and bombast and other figurative expression.
>> Its ambiguity-while-seeming-perfectly-clear would not be without
>> precedent in Wolfe either.
> "I've sent my Athenians into distant places."
Does anyone have any opinion on whether or how Abaia and Erebus rule 
without resorting to ESP powers?


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