Chapter 5, Page 105

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Chapter 5, Page 105 — 1 Comment

  1. Lots of interesting stuff here.

    We have a name and occupation for Tussel’s father. Professor August Lee. Professor of what, I wonder?

    The obituary appears to come from Tiber’s future, unless the Martian Invasion happens in all three (four?) timelines (since Tussel Sr. is both a hero and a brigadier general and that conforms to Tiber’s earlier comments (although nothing technically prevents her from having received promotion and performed heroics in the other timelines as well)). If it is from Tiber’s future we can infer a fair bit from that regarding the nature of the invasion. Presumably, things quieted down for a fair bit of time after the initial invasion, since Tussel passes from natural causes, the Dead Tree Emporium remained in operation, etc.

    Tussel, and the audience, probably shouldn’t take much of what the Lady is saying at face value here. She is presenting Tussel information as if it is set in stone, despite having just finished telling Tussel how she used time manipulation and knowledge from the future to repeatedly alter her own timeline. Tussel has been given knowledge about her own future from four different time travelers. Also, the Lady is currently contradicting herself. Tussel is both a destroyer worse than the lady, and a woman who perishes as the eventual assistant manager of a book store? Even if true, that implies that she either chose to put aside temporal power for the book store, or that the destroyer bit was accidental. Why the Lady is essentially toying with her food, we don’t know yet. Presumably, she’s doing it for the laughs since she appears to be the villain of the story.

    Finally, even if the obit is prophecy, there’s still a fair bit of wiggle room. Tussel could publish under a pen name, Tussel could very pointedly make sure that the Emporium never stocks her own books, Tussel could go digital and only sell e-books, etc.

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