(urth) short story 7: The Green Wall Said

[David Stockhoff]

On 4/4/2012 9:15 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> *From:* David Stockhoff <mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net>
> On 4/3/2012 6:59 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
>
> > Without having read that story yet, just commenting on this comment:
> > this is as clear an "aliens as Fairies" story as one could imagine. AND
> > ... they appear to be robots as well. Functionally speaking, that is:
> > they are immortal, logical, unemotional, dying only from wear and tear,
> > functionally capable of producing offspring but practically incapable.
> I didn’t really get a “fairy” vibe, more of a “saucer alien from very 
> scientifically advanced race” vibe. Granted Wolfe has explicitly 
> conflated fairies and saucer aliens on at least two occasions, but I 
> don’t think he’s really doing it here.
>
> > Not /terribly /different from Tolkien's high elves, who are emotional
> > but in control, undying but capable of being killed, just, and who
> > reproduce rarely. As Fairies, they need humans for something they lack
> > and that only sentient mortality can provide.
> I’m not really up on my Tolkien, but I think if we are going to 
> classify races as fairies so broadly as even to include robots, we 
> need to start specifying subtypes.
> And while fairies might say “we are sane, our laws are just, you have 
> nothing to fear” they are usually obligated to add “unless you eat a 
> bite of the food we seem to offer you freely, in which case you are 
> damned forever”.

Never mind. Just never mind.