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  • Re: MT VOID, 06/13/25 -- Vol. 43, No. 50, Whole Number 2384

    From Dorothy J Heydt@21:1/5 to Evelyn C. Leeper on Sun Jun 15 20:08:41 2025
    In article <102maol$sk97$[email protected]>,
    Evelyn C. Leeper <[email protected]> wrote:
    Dinios Kol (Din for short) is a new apprentice investigator
    assigned to Investigator Anagosa Dolabra (Ana, as you might
    guess). Ana is an unusual investigator in that she stays in her
    own abode most of the time and remains blindfolded in order to
    avoid overstimulation. Ana claims this allows her to concentrate
    better, and that may be true, but I suspect that the real reason
    is that she has a disability that makes it difficult to be around
    other people or external distractions. Thus, she sends Din to do
    the investigating for her, he reports back what he has found, and
    she uses incredible reasoning skills to figure out what's going
    on. Din is helped by the fact that he is an Engraver, a sublime
    (we'll get to that) who is imbued with perfect memory. This
    ability allows him to recall conversations, pictures, writing
    (although that is difficult for him as he has much trouble reading
    (we'll also get to that)) and all sorts of things that make him
    invaluable to Ana.

    [Hal Heydt]
    What immediately comes to mind from that description of the pair
    is Nero Wolfe and ARchy Goodwin, Wolfe's "leg man". Or if you
    prefer an SF reworking of that pair, Randall Garrett's Marquise
    de London and Lord Bontriomphe

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  • From Steve Coltrin@21:1/5 to Evelyn C. Leeper on Tue Jun 17 09:36:21 2025
    begin fnord
    "Evelyn C. Leeper" <[email protected]> writes:

    first we have Deagol who finds
    TOR. Almost immediately, Smeagol murders him for the Ring. So
    both of them seem to have been corrupted by merely being in the
    presence of TOR.

    How do you see D\'eagol as having been corrupted, esp. given that he had
    the Ring for about ten seconds? Sure he wanted to keep the Ring, but
    that's not unreasonable given that he found it. I read the passage as
    the Ring deciding that Sm\'eagol would make a more suitable host (and,
    as it turns out, probably having been wrong).

    --
    Steve Coltrin [email protected]
    "A group known as the League of Human Dignity helped arrange for Deuel
    to be driven to a local livestock scale, where he could be weighed."
    - Associated Press

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