Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 12:20:16 -0700
From: Michael Andre-Driussi 
Subject: (urth) "sibyl" as in "multiple personalities"

Now that we're plunging into the question of how many personalities are
in/make up Maytera Marble, I'm reminded of the 1970s book and tv movie
"Sibyl" that was all about the woman who had multiple personalities.
Interesting touchstone, and I wonder if influenced Gene Wolfe's notion of
Marble.

Leaving aside the complexities of Short Sun's multiple personalities, I
guess my first question would be:

Is Marble's scattered nature due to an inherent quality of her original
state, or is it due to a critical mass of recycled parts?

Because the swordmaster, for example, has a leg made from five others,
iirc, and he does not seem to show the weirdness.  Granted he is a bio, but
we are saying that Rose herself may have been influenced by her chem parts.

So is there a level of prosthetic inclusion where the items are purely
prosthetic (human level), and then a level beyond that where the
prosthetics begin to influence the individual (cyborg), up to a level where
the prosthetics either take over the individual or cause it to disintegrate
under the babble (robot)?  (This does have some bearing on the issue of
Horn as a software prosthetic for crippled Silk.)

=mantis=


Sirius Fiction
booklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley
29 copies of "Snake's-hands" until OP!
http://www.siriusfiction.com/



--