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I think Mr. Gray was more a disease than anything. The novel hints at him not actually being an intelligence but something that "infected" Jonesy, and all Jonesy had to do was shrug it off like a cold. Mr Gray may have been all the book said, or he could have been a figment of Jonesy's imagination.
Maybe si, maybe no.
I was sooo confused half the time! LOL! I wish we knew exactly what happened. Can Miss Mod help us out here?
i read it the same way also i just assumed that Mr.Gray was just a figment of his imagination. If anyone knows the full truth i would love to know.
Henry explains it in the epilogue. If Jonesy hadn't been tapped into Duddits' psychic power, it would have ended with "Mr Gray's" explosion at the hole in the wall, because Jonesy was immune. Duddits was the dreamcatcher, though, a web of psychic force uniting them all, and somehow the alien spore's intent, its darwinian will to live, used that to infect Jonesy psychically, but not physically.
My thoughts were that the red spores were the real 'evil aliens' and that the Grays that crash-landed did so because they were infected by the red spores and it drove them crazy. Much like the Aliens in Alien, they take on different forms at different stages of their life or to infect different hosts. (i.e. the **** Weasel vs. the Face-Grabber)Quote:
Originally Posted by Doc Wilson
I think 'Mr Gray' was a red spore infection that took over Jonesy's body (and mind.)
p.s. I think this is my 19th post - woo hoo!
Exactly how I feel. I look at Duddits as an enabling force (the dreamcatcher). I guess the best way I'd describe it is almost like Mr Grey was software - a type of viral software - an almost biological, organic artificial intelligence that ran on Jonesy's computer (brain) using Duddits (operating system). OK, well it's a bad example, I know, but the whole thing of alien life being assumed to be anything like us is taken to task in this story - 'it's life Jim, but not as we know it'. Intelligence but not as we know it. A life force that uses other life *forms* and which might operate differently from world to world but with the basic aim of staying alive and spreading.Quote:
Henry explains it in the epilogue. If Jonesy hadn't been tapped into Duddits' psychic power, it would have ended with "Mr Gray's" explosion at the hole in the wall, because Jonesy was immune. Duddits was the dreamcatcher, though, a web of psychic force uniting them all, and somehow the alien spore's intent, its darwinian will to live, used that to infect Jonesy psychically, but not physically.
This whole concept is brilliant and a real relief from the usual alien stuff. Did greys exist? Probably, as hosts. Were they just bigger weasel's (a la the movie)? No. Definitely not.
There might, I guess, be a closer parallel to the classic 'Who Goes There?' by John W. Campbell, Jr., in that the byrus may dynamically evolve into different physical creatures I guess.... but that's off topic probably. Sorry, this stuff is so fascinating and everyone's posts are so stimulating. :)