The Mansion of E by Robert M Cook :: thoughts on various plot points
Locating the Hollows
The following are some thoughts on the location of the slightly different future Fuzz civilizations we see in Frizzlegarb's and Grekcora's times.
Frizzlegarb is Grekcora's great-ultra uncle. Grekcora may simply be a descendant of Frizzlegarb's foster-sister, Struhaitta's blood daughter, and hence in the future relative to Frizzlegarb's day. But Fuzz relationships aren't necessarily blood ties: Struhaitta is Frizzlegarb's "official" mother, but didn't give birth to him. Because Frizzlegarb was displaced in time, and Fuzz relationships are complex, it's just about possible that Grekcora comes from a quasi-sibling relationship Frizzlegarb got into after he was sent to the past: and if that's the case, Grekcora could potentially be living in a period earlier than that of the Hollows where Frizzlegarb was born.
Because of the existence of Panegates and other twistpoints, including a known Panegate connection between Spire City in Mechana and the Mansion in Audravania (we saw Frederick open it), we do not know whether or not Frizzlegarb's Hollows and wherever Grekcora and co. are living are the same place or not, or whether or not the Snapperchomp Sea is actually adjacent to the Hollows. All we can say is that they're all almost certainly on the same continent, because Panegates don't seem to link different continents, and they're all almost certainly in the same reality, because Panegates only seem to link to either the same reality they started in, or to alternate universes which are strikingly different in some way.
Note that we do not know for sure how big these future!Fuzzes are, because we see a glimpse of what look like Gnoll-sized Fuzzes "Out West", both in imagination and in realtime. However, we know that in his "Mule" form 3375 was only hamster-sized, because we see him meeting a Shallow Wyrm and a Smyt and also handling the Hitchhiking Gem which we know is small relative to a Gnoll. As a humanoid Metalmin he appears to have retained some of his original parts, meaning that he, and Frizzlegarb, are only about eight inches tall. This is confirmed when we see them pass by a Fleeb which is nearly as tall as they are.
In favour of the Hollows being in or near the Basement:
We know that 3375 in his Mule form was "sent on ahead" by something below the Hot Zone in the Basement, and Frizzlegarb says that 3375 in his humanoid (or Smytoid) form was sent to the Hollows by "Ol' whosis Bigshot Downbelow", suggesting the sender is under the Hollows.
The Fuzzes in the Hollows refer to the Zero-Tasker, and there is also a Zero Task Cavern (which in some way limits access to the Grotto of the Jellyfish) in the Basement.
There is a Growth in Summerfather Hollow, like the one at Le Tree, and it's hooked in to what looks like part of The Tree.
Frizzlegarb speaks of "Undersiders" in a deep dark zone which could be the SubShafts.
There are sealed doors of an Ettinish shape, although probably only about 4ft tall.
There is a drawing of Frowgler on the wall.
The Hollows are adjacent to, or at least have easy access to, the Snapperchomp Sea, swarming with fish called Snapperchomps, and with a significant island. The Basement is close to an ocean which has a lot of nearby islands, and it has fish called Chompersnaps which Rob has stated are the same as Snapperchomps. There is a statue of Cap'n Hamster, who sailed the sea off Audravania, on the shore of the Snapperchomp Sea.
There are statues which appear to be confused memories of some of the Earls of E in Datuhkazu Hollow, and what looks like a distorted Yurpsland emblem.
Fuzz Oracles wear thaum-channeling hats which look like the ones worn in Yurpsland and were based on a Human-made diagram.
The thing to, or through, which Anskatkwet reports to her boss, and which is probably the Zero-Tasker itself because she refers to it as "tasking away", looks like part of the Djinnoscope, and there is a spiral-in-circle device on the wall nearby which looks like a security device we saw in Sylvester's office. Of course, devices made by Factor E were widely sold, and Anskat's robotic boss certainly isn't actually the Djinnoscope, as it is only about ten inches tall, and the equivalent part of the Djinnoscope is about as tall as Rosemary. The spiral thing in Sylvester's office was bigger than a Human head, while the one near the apparent Zero-Tasker is just over a third of Anskat's height across, so about three inches.
One of the Hollows is called Joygerm: Joyjerm is or was the name of a town in Yurpsland.
There may be some connection between a tree which naturally grows little Fuzz-sized hats, and the production of living hat-shaped Fixits in the Spike near the Mansion.
There may be some connection between the conscious, sapient plants seen passing messages in the Hollows and the way the Tree gathered information in the Basement. They're also clearly related to the plant that served with Cap'n Hamster in Audravania.
The Hollows are divided up into large discrete enclaves which are separated by barriers which seem to deliberately make it difficult for Fuzzes to cross between them, and many of which have specific and extreme characteristics. We know that different Spires had different and often extreme purposes, and that they had special barriers between them specifically to prevent their Fancy Fuzzes from mingling between Spires. You have to wonder why Rob would even bother to write that, if it wasn't significant, as it doesn't seem to have any direct relevance to what's happening with Svetlana and Federick.
At least some of the Hollows seem to be inhabited by single-sex groups of Fuzzes, and many of the Spires were single-sex.
Some of the Fuzzes (the Purple Zoners) seem to style their fur like antennae, and the Spire Humans wore antennae.
There are no Smyts in the Hollows, whereas the Basement had a vigorous Smyt society: although the Hollows Fuzzes do know that Smyts do or did exist because they have one dead specimen.
The Hollows are very well-lit.
They are not underground, as far as the inhabitants can tell, and Frizzlegarb's party climb down quite a long way and are still above-ground.
Rob has stated that Chompersnaps and Snapperchomps are the same species, and Chompersnaps were stated as being freshwater fish, to the extent that their presence proved to Cully that water was fresh. That ought to also rule out the Snapperchomp Sea as being the sea off Audravania (despite the presence of a statue of Cap'n Hamster), as the sea off Audravania is part of the world ocean, and as such must be salt. [The Sea of Plinths is ambiguous in that regard: its wildlife suggests that it is salt water, but its position, surrounded by land, would suggest a giant freshwater lake.] However, Rob has also said on the forum, in regard to this question, that he occasionally contradicts himself; so it may be that Cully was wrong and Snapperchomps/Chompersnaps are anadromous, like salmon: that is, able to survive in both salt and fresh water.
In favour of Grekcora's world being in or near the same location as the Hollows (wherever that is):
As adults, the Fuzzes there have the same quasi-human shape as the ones in the Hollows, and they share at least some of their culture.
The Smyts there wear hats similar to those worn by Fuzzes in the Hollows.
They have a colour-spewing fountain, which is a simpler, smaller version of the one in Time Hall. However, that could just mean there is some Ettin or Ettin-derived technology at the Spires.
They talk about a River which is not made of water and which "blorps", which suggests the River of Fire under the Basement.
The local "Hume detector" has a big E on it in Mansion livery colours. The building where "The Old Chap" is based is also in E-family livery, although it could possibly be Winnifrite livery at this point.
In the scene where adult Grekcora and Nart are fighting the Biters, there is a distant building in the background which looks more like the Spires than like anything near the Mansion. However, this is at least some years after the scenes with "the Old Chap", so they could be a long way from their starting point.
Frizzlegarb's great-ultra nieces and nephews are living in or near the Basement, but they retained Panegate contact with the Hollows, and at some point they learned about the Human history of the Spires (possibly with input from Svetlana) and how it connected to their origin in the Hollows. They adopted the antennae (the idea of which the Spire Humans themselves may have got from the Metalmin Vasilisa) as a sort of historical tribute, in the same way that humans in our world have had bouts of reviving Ancient Egyptian fashions. They are probably in the future relative to Frizzlegarb's Hollows, but reconnected with Smyts when they reached the Basement.
One of the many interesting things about the series is the way the worlds of the tiny sapients and the Human-sized ones are interlaced. Clearly, Human culture has influenced the future!Fuzzes: many of them worship the Brush and follow the Oracle/Guard(ian) system, and some wear Spire-type antennae. The tiny Science Bugs worship a Human comic-book character, Roshambo the Warrior Beetle, as a god: or at least view a figure of Roshambo as a holy idol. But the Humans (and their environment, if he really did plant the first acorn in the Northwoods) have also been heavily influenced by past-shifted!Frizzlegarb, and they do not realise he was six inches tall. In the Basement, the Fuzzes and Smyts are largely ignored by larger folk, but the Shallow Wyrms are not much bigger and some have huge influence.
Two other questions, only vaguely asssociated. What on Earth was the winged waffle that folk-hero!Frizzlegarb supposedly led around on a string? The only in-universe waffle-like thing I can think of is the interior of the demon-haunted elevator at the Mansion. However, there seems to be an American food-truck firm called The Flying Waffle, and it's also the name of a children's book designed to encourage children to eat their greens.
And is there any connection between the shield carried by future!Guard!Nart and the symbol of the paramilitary group called the Quincunx? It's tattooed in the palm of the dead enemy Mortimer encounters some months or years into the future. It appears on Tansy's arm when Sylvester has a vision of her and Rosemary fighting. But why would Nart be carrying the symbol of the Quincunx? To further complicate matters, we see a slightly earlier version of armoured-Guard Nart – his muzzle is not yet scarred, and Greckora's antennae are less elaborate than in the later versions – and at this point his shield just bears a green circle, without the red triangle at the centre.
How does the Panegate connection to the Spires work?
My initial assumption was that OK, Mortimer was wrong when he said that Panegates could only be opened from the Mansion end. There's a Panegate connection from the Mansion to the Spires, and Frederick knows how to make it open from the far end: and it is Frederick who opens it, not Myrrh. Maybe he gets special privileges because he was Regent, and Sylvester could do it too.
But Frederick and Myrrh didn't go from the Mansion to the Spires, as far as we know. They went to an unspecified not-Spires, not-Mansion place for brunch, then they went to the Spires. And as far as we know the Panegates are all rooted in the Mansion: so how did they get from the restaurant to the Spires? Did they have to go back to the Mansion first, after brunch? Or has Frederick somehow learned how to make twistpoints on the spot? He can't be making actual Panegates, because we've been told they take a huge amount of power and infrastructure to run.
Either way, they appear to have a Panegate or similar capable of jumping them from the Mansion to whatever town they had brunch in, unless that restaurant is in Eetown: and it looks a bit large and lavish for that, plus it clearly caters for Zarkite guests. It looks like they went to the capital, or at least to Glome.
Tracking the HJ42/Zorper.
Much of the chapter Wreaking Havoc is concerned with the HJ42, Hendrick-Joost Expedition 42, collected by a research party from the High University of Azimuth. It may have come from the Infernal Engine. Rosemary believes it to be a semi-mythical historical device known as the Chaos Key, which opens doors and lets unpredictable things through. She stole it from an exhibition to prevent the paramilitary group called the Quincunx from getting hold of it, and it jumped her to Audravania. It is in her Poke-Kit at the same time that it is being circulated around other characters, and it does seem to be the same one, not another example of the same device: so at some point it has been transported through time in such a way as to exist twice in the same time-frame.
Early on April 13th, Protus gives it to Mortimer after his encounter with the Tree-Squid. It's definitely the same device, not just another example of the same device, because Protus refers to it as the HJ42. Protus is angry about it and ranting about "the witch and her slimy little friend", probably Myrrh and Frowgler. The fact that Protus has it explains how it manages to be in two places at once: he must have either taken it from the past before Rosemary got it, and then sent it back later in time for her to find it, or he picked it up from the future after Rosemary finished with it, and brought it back.
Meanwhile the Hitchhiking Gem is related to the HJ42 in some way, as Frowgler speaks to the HJ42 and refers to "your glowing friend". It jumps to Niddle's hand when he goes through a knot in the tunnel to the outside, disappears and then reappears again.
Mortimer takes the HJ42 to the auction in the forest, where the bidders are Nevus, Agita, Guttle and Snerk (who is acting for Frowgler). They had all been sent messages inviting them to the auction, sufficiently in advance for them to set up security precautions. Mortimer activates the HJ42 and it ZORPs, briefly transporting him some months or years into the future, where his future self warns him not to let the HJ42 meet—. It is unlikely he is telling himself not to let the HJ42 meet the Hitchhiking Gem, because if it had not, Sylvester and Rosemary might have been killed by Villipend.
When Mortimer sets off the HJ42 the Gem in Niddle's hand also Zorps. Thereafter it seems to remain with Niddle throughout his trip outside.
Snerk wins the auction (on behalf of Frowgler) and takes the HJ42: he gets a count of 80 to run with it. He collides with Shona, causing the HJ42 to PROZ. It jumps them into the past of Eetown, not long before the Crash. Once they snap back into their own time Snerk runs off, still clutching the HJ42.
Protus tells Sylvester that he has lost a very valuable object, or possibly had it swiped by his employers. We do not know whether, in his own timeline, this is before or after he gave the HJ42 to Mortimer. At this point he associates its disappearance with a vision Sylvester has of a figure with horns driving a lorry. Shortly afterwards a version of Protus from further into his own future thanks Sylvester for his help in recovering the lorry, so if the HJ42 was with the lorry, as is implied, Protus got it back.
Snerk hands the HJ42 over to Frowgler, who looks battered and has a broken horn. Left alone, Frowgler speaks as if he has seen and perhaps possessed the HJ42 before, refers to "your glowing friend" (presumably the wandering crystal that Niddle has, aka the Hitchhiking Gem), then activates it. To do so he extends not only retractable claws but what looks like a button with a "3" and two dots on it, set into the palm of his right hand and resembling the writing on the buttons on the device (or it could possibly be an E-issue coin). This time the Zorper goes "OZPR".
A couple of hours later Frowgler crawls out of the crater left by the OZPR event. He looks much the worse for wear and has the broken horn, and the only event we know of which could have caused this damage is the blast he has just been in, yet he had the broken horn and the bruises just before setting off the OZPR event which probably caused the broken horn and bruising. He seems to have gone round in a circle.
Meanwhile the Operator thinks that Protus has a mysterious object hidden amongst his time pylons. If what Protus has is the HJ42 and the Operator is right that Protus has it hiden amongst his time pylons at that precise time, then the thing is in three places at the same time (for a given value of "same time"): in Rosemary's Poke-Kit; among Protus's pylons; and with Frowgler/in the crater caused by Frowgler setting it off.
It is implied that the HJ42 is in Rosemary's pocket when she visits the River of Fire, confirming that it's in at least two places at once.
Mortimer finds the HJ42 in the bottom of the crater created when it went OZPR. He meets Niddle there, carrying the Hitchhiking Gem, and the Gem begins to react to the HJ42. Then the energies of the crystal and the HJ42 combine and set off an event, just as Snerk appears, chased by the beaver shark. Mortimer and the beaver shark are transported undergound and the letters PZOR appear. Comshaw and Niddle are transported home and so is Ig. Snerk is transported to an experimental facility. It looks like ZORP is future, PROZ is past, PZOR is a movement through space but not time, and OZPR is a time-loop. ZORP generates a small blast, PROZ makes a larger one, PZOR causes a silent, expanding dome of white light, and OZPR blasts a sizeable crater in the scenery.
After going PZOR the HJ42/Zorper and the Hitchhiking Gem are blown into the air, then fall back down where the HJ42 disappears down a crack in the floor of the crater.
The HJ42 is then given to Cully by Tuttle in the SubShafts. Somehow, after falling down the hole in the floor of the crater it dropped down a chute into a tub of sand in a room at the top of the SubShafts, although there may have been intermediate stages we aren't shown. The Remnent, a sort of variable, sapient Panegate, calls the HJ42 "A device to assist in remote viewing". Frowgler has left instructions for Cully to take the HJ42 and keep it safe until the next day, when an unspecified familiar person will collect it.
The story of how Cully got the HJ42, and what he did with it before settling back into SubShaft 44f, runs from strips #2821 to #3027. After collecting it from the tub of sand Cully slides down another chute with it to 44f, but then a machine called the Taphand presses a button on it, it ZORPs and Cully is temporarily transported to the future, although still possibly just within the end of his lifespan (so, maybe fifteen to at most twenty years ahead, since a Gnoll generation is ten years, they regard thirty years as impossibly old and well beyond their own lifespan, and Cully is already a young adult).
It is suggested that Othar travelled through a time-jump, and so might have possessed the HJ42, probably about ten or fifteen years before the main timeline since his granddaughter is an adult, but his lifetime overlapped that of Crud, who is fairly old for a Gnoll. But Othar's account of his trip to the future concerns Frowgler and the Serendipity Pool, so the HJ42 might not have been involved.
Meanwhile the Hitchhiking Gem falls back into the crater and lies there. Agorn passes nearby and climbs down through a hole in the floor of the crater. The Gem secretly attaches itself to Agorn's spear and goes with him. He discovers it when he gets back to the organised Basement territory, and drops it down a chute to the SubShafts. This is all still happening on the evening of April 13th. In the SubShafts it is picked up by two mule Metalmins – strips #3458 to #3513 – who place it in a lift and send it lower down the SubShafts, where it hits the flood-water filling the lower levels of the SubShafts, and sets off a waterspout, washing Mule 3375 away and setting off the train of events which leads to 3375 becoming an important player in the far future and possibly (by dint of Willigig) in the past.
Down in SubShaft 44f on the morning of 14th April, after the flood-water has drained – strips #3754 to #3782 – Protus retrieves the HJ42 from Cully and disappears with it, saying it's time for it to go back where it belongs, and immediately afterwards the Hitchhiking Gem pops out of a chute and bonks Cully. When Crud says it looks like a gem from the Place, it blips and stops glowing. Cully is advised to get rid of it, but doesn't. It does however cease to be visibly with him, and it may be that like Niddle before him, he forgets he has it.
Protus stores the HJ42 in a box in an underground rock wall.
Characters we know are major powers.
These are all major bosses who hold a disproportionate amount of power and/or influence and might turn out to have even more. Some of these may turn out to be different names for the same thing. Two or more of them may be the great powers whose debate washes across the world while Frederick and Myrrh are in the Spire City.
Frowgler, aka Frogmask. The powerful evil forces which Frowgler says he's there to combat. The second "mask thing", other than Frowgler, that Tand thinks must exist. The Operator. Rodolph/Digger Odel. "Mr Muckymuck" at Root Hall (possibly named Fuglemin). "God". The Topspike (possibly the same as God). The Topspike's female enemy Out West (Tansy?). Mr Hand. Mr Flip. The Hermit at the SAR. The brown-haired person watching the screens in Spire City. Whoever controls the artificial Saur habitat. Whatever Wrawa was summoning in the secret Troghome. Protus. Protus's employers with the countless eyes everywhere. The Nexus. The Great Riddler. The Rings of the Shallow Wyrms. The Placettes. The Tree. The Growths with the sessile snakes. The SubShafts The Infernal Engine. Whatever is at the bottom of the Chasm. The Great and Terrible Engine below the Hot Zone (probably same as above). The thing that thinks in lines of white light below the Hot Zone (probably same as above). Whatever is under the Hollows and sends up the bots (possibly same as above). The thing that thinks in lines of green light in a vast chamber below the Spires. The Zero-Tasker, Fallback, Guardians and Sentinels in the Hollows. Metachin and Mirabar's boss in the Hollows. The Gobblem smith who made Frizzlegarb's table, if she is in the present/future and not the remote past. The System Entire (which includes the Tree and probably the SubShafts and others on the list: the Aspect Entire, also referred to, is possibly just the Tree). The HJ42: in this world, a machine could be sentient and sapient.
Who is Yasmine?
Yasmine appears to be a stranger from Shibolith, with a strong accent, and it's pretty definite that she's a Weirdo, but she seems very familiar to Mortimer. She wears a hood and mask which she can't take off until she is a safe distance from either the Mansion or Eetown or Audravania itself. She spits on the repeller poles and they let her through.
So, she is somebody who would be recognised, either as herself or because she looks just like a parent from the area. There's a good chance the Shibolith accent is fake, especially as Protus is surprised when she says she grew up there, and we know that Weirdos are trained to lose their original accents. Spitting on the repellers suggests she's inside the Mansion's security systems, so she could be an Eman relative, or a former servant of the family or child of a servant, or perhaps a guest who visited there before, such as a university friend of Sylvester's, or one of Mortimer's dubious exes. She's not Nirvana (even if Nirvana were bi) because Nirvana seems to be down in the Ettinworks. Frederick refers to "my brothers and I", meaning that Philbert had at least one more son than Quincy and Frederick, and Sylvester refers to an Aunt Agatha (although she can't be a child of Quincy and Agnes as we've been told they only had one), so there are stray family members around any of whom could have had a daughter roughly Mortimer's age.
The fact that there is an attraction between her and Mortimer, who is about 26 (Sylvester is 29 or 30, and Ace was born in between them), means she's most likely in the 20-35 age-range, and not his sister Lenore in disguise. She seems to be quite senior as a Weirdo, so closer to 35 than 20. She's not Rosemary warped back through time by Protus, because Rosemary wouldn't need to be told about the Basement Critters, plus if Rosemary gave off a Weirdo vibe Mortimer would probably have said so. She may turn out to be the helmet-haired female who accompanied future!Mortimer, along with a female Motihaul.
What is Skibble?
The mysterious Trickster-figure Skibble used to go Glowgem hunting with Percy and Tabo, and even before he became a gemhunter he made a name for himself by unexpectedly winning the Stacking Cup at the Basement Games. Camora considers him to be a "second-tier" mind. He was once lifted out of Time Hall by Protus. He is friends with Mortimer. He visited the Hot Zone where he broke the visor on a protective suit which seems to be one also worn by Crud, a Gnoll. He scrounges/loots stuff from the Sneeches. He wears disguises and Shabash dreams of him juggling and says that she and he have a history, and Rowbynn says that he looks formidable. He is regarded as a hooligan.
Camora tells Rosemary and Sylvester a story which involves the words "So Skibble eats all of them!" Rosemary replies "But you just said Skibble is a—", and Camora waves her hand and says "Yeah, yeah, he probably got Blitz to eat them. They were all gone when Guttle got there, anyway. Heh. Knaw chased Skibble all the way to—" The implication is that Skibble is from a species that is not omnivorous, and he can run (or fly, or slither) fast.
So. He's not a total omnivore, so he's definitely not a Gobule, and probably not a Trog, Saur, Gnoll, Pale or Nome, since they all eat both plants and meat and/or insects. He can flee very fast, so not an Ooze. He's a biped, broadly the same size and shape as a Gnoll, so not an Ooze, Wyrm, Ecadem, Queen Snake, Spyder, Growth-thing or Helipath, and not an Ichyoid or a Boogieman unless he's a dwarf specimen like Digger Odel. At the same time he's too big to be one of the small fry, such as a Smyt. He could be a small Ghast or Motihaul, if Motihauls have a limited diet (which we don't know: we only know Agita eats apples), or possibly a Jibjib depending on how flexible that Hot Zone suit is: but Shabash dreams of him juggling, so he probably has hands. He could be one of the mysterious Shades who call Myrrh "The Destroyer". Or he could be a benign Nome-shaped and Nome-sized Demon, since we see that Myrrh requires special food: but would a Demon need to wear a protective suit in the Hot Zone?
What was driving the lorry which Protus showed to Sylvester?
Protus shows Sylvester a vision of a lorry which contains something he needs to retrieve. It is being driven by a figure with horns: actual cow-like horns, not just the crescent curves of a female Motihaul. It could just be a helmet – we know that horned helmets do exist – but if not, the only people we know with horns are either demons or Wendigoes. We also see a hand which could be that of a Wendigo (it doesn't look green enough to be Frowgler's) emerging from under a door in the Ettinworks. However, Wendigoes are arctic creatures and die if they overheat, so they are unlikely to be found in warmer areas.
There's no indicator of scale, and we know that Smyt-scale lorries exist: but those are not the horns of a Smyt, plus the lorry has a big 'E' above the windscreen.
When did the Crash happen?
We've been told that Philbert died three months before the Crash, that he died in 5373, that when Rosemary arrives at the Mansion it is April 5423 and that the Crash happened fifty years ago, on a spring afternoon (meaning that "fifty years ago" must be accurate to within a month or two). So Philbert's death and the Crash happen in the same year, and Philbert must have died in between New Year 5373 and spring 5373. However, when Shona and Snerk are PROZed back to Eetown on the day of Philbert's death it's sunny and people are in their shirtsleeves – bearing in mind that Audravania is farther north than Thembria, even if it does have a warm microclimate – and a book-signing in April is already being advertised. So Philbert died in a warm late February and the Crash happened in late May, almost into summer. If we assume Sylvester was referring to astronomical spring rather than vernacular spring, the Crash could even have happened as late as mid June, and Philbert could have died in mid March. Either way it looks like the lead-up to the Crash was unseasonably warm.
This is assuming a twelve-month year: if they have fewer than twelve months it gets harder to make the springtime Crash and the sunny day in Eetown three months earlier compatible, because three months represents a bigger slice of the year, and therefore of the seasons. If they have more than twelve months, it gets easier. The number and length of their months probably depends on the orbit and speed of their moon, on which we have no information.
