(urth) An Evil Guest - An Object Lesson (was Palgrave History of Science Fiction)

[Robert Pirkola]

I must say Eric that your thoughts about Cassie Casey are unusual.  I find it most peculiar to take political and cultural stances towards information conveyed about a character in a book.  It is not I who am measuring CC.  Margaret measures her and we are informed of it *in the book*.  And not for the purpose of objectifying her, but for the purpose of making costumes for a play!  Would you object and use willful ignorance’s magic wand to forget that Gideon Chase was born an ambassador’s son on a distant planet because you believe so strongly in America as melting pot that you find social and cultural background immaterial?  Rather than read a book you should go write one, perhaps about a non-pregnant woman with undisclosed height weight and other physical features who must endure the tightening impress of “rape culture”.  If a character’s attributes in a book you have chosen to read (several times by your own admission) is “not my business”, I wonder why you bother.
There are points to be made (and which are made) about the pressures CC feels in her life to be thin and attractive and to be a star.  They are the stuff of the novel.  But you do not engage them by dismissing portions of the book that give you the squirms.  CC has endured what sounds like sexual abuse in her background.  Surely that says something about why she is the way she is, why she is prone to exploitation and use at the hands of GC and WR.  What’s interesting is watching her cotton to their manipulations and begin her own manipulation of them.  When she finds her inner strength that is when she becomes a character of great interest.
I have, in coming to the speculation that she is pregnant, not studied Cassie’s weight or other physical attributes any more than I have for other characters.  In fact, hers are not the only anomalous ones.  Gideon is supposed to be able to squeeze a hole in CC’s apartment wall “less than a foot square”, pg. 87.  Gideon says: “I made [the hole], pushed your couch aside, crawled through . . . .”, pg. 76.  Are we observing and judging Gideon by noting that this is impossible for a man of his size?  If I were to refuse to consider this problem, would I be unfair to Gideon?  Would it be fair to Gene Wolfe, who wrote this into the novel?

If I were across from CC at Walker’s, I’d order an omelet and ask her if she’d escaped that time loop yet.

>“I also wonder if this is a dangerous position for any scholar.”
It is an incredibly dangerous position for a scholar, if left unacknowledged.

>”who’s the father”
I think Gideon Chase impregnates her when he is performing his wizard nonsense on top of the mountain at the start of the book.  She will have given birth to the baby before being stranded, if the book is following Revelations like I think it is.  CC feels the loss for sure.  That’s why she starts time traveling (we meet her older selves in the book – Madame Pavlatos and Margaret).

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