What memory device?

Just kidding--that would be really interesting, actually. I've always liked the idea and hoped that Jasper would develope it into something beyond just the throwaway lines in a couple of the books.

Hmmm, if properly configured, could they use the memory erasure device to eradicate Aornis's mindworm?

Hmmm. Ever read Spider Robinson's "Mindkiller"?

EDITED: SPOILER FOLLOWS!

In that story, after memories are sufficiently embedded, removing them leaves so much empty space it is impossible for the mind to heal itself around the missing pieces. They end up turning the guy into someone else entirely to keep him alive.

I wonder if Mycroft abandoned the project because he thought of that possibility? Maybe one of the Next family is already walking around with a split personality??



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/2007 08:50PM by OC Not.

I'd say a mnemonomorph like Aornis has the subtlety and skill to actually heal (as well as cause) mindworms and other complex memories. Rather than just ripping out a chunk of memory and everything it's connected to, they'd be able to go through and trace the specific memory, extracting it without harming the other memories. So if there were another mnemonomorph out there, he or she ought to be able to heal Thursday's mindworm (if skilled enough). On the other hand, memory erasure technology might never be as subtle as that.

Didn't Granny Next tell Thursday that once she beat Aornis' mindworm in WOLP that she wouldn't be troubled by one again? (or am I just forgetting something?)

Yea, I thought she said something along the lines of that....

but I want to say that Jenny is real and that the mindworm is just messing with her to make her thing that she "doesn't" have a daughter.

but I think that would be just as hard to believe.

It made me wonder whether Jenny could have been eradicated...

Oh, and the change in first person caught me too - in fact, at the start of the next chapter I grasped that we were now hearing Thursday1-4's narrative, but I assumed the switch had been made between chapters and it wasn't until the real Thursday said, "I would have done the same" that I realized it had been the double ever since the fight!

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Metaphors be with you!

Well, if the next book turns out to be called "Thursday Next Returns - This Time Its Personal" then we will all be fooled!!