Hm. You know, as the second person who mentioned this, I'm now starting to wonder if this meant more than I realized. I did know that house servants are invisible, to the point that some even feel a bit uneasy getting personal attention (which isn't really a horrible thing, necessarily - it can be like being called on by the teacher when your hand was flat on the floor, not in the air :-) ).

I still maintain, gently, that this does rob a fine writer of what could have been a great "jaw dropper" of a story, though, which is a shame. Spider sometimes does let "oooh, shiny" beat out "perfectly supported", which is not always a bad thing. For example, I saw one essay that passionately argued that "any space opera that assumes FTL should be more properly labeled fantasy" and I'm not disagreeing - this is a great case of "sufficiently advanced technology" to us. Well, so what? Space opera is a good genre, and I wouldn't want to feel forced to classify the Skylark series as "fantasy" (though I'd have less objection to the Lensmen series being classified as such, for the lens).

(Speaking of which: I bet you'd know if there's any of Doc Smith's old works being recollected/republished... any news? I actually had the full Lensmen/Skylark series, in my hot little hands, but they are gone after multiple moves. I don't know who said it, but there's an idea that "three moves = 1 fire" when it comes to lost stuff. I'd love to give them another read through, when I'm not facing crushing fatigue!)