Listening to the latest Shelved by Genre, I'm surprised no one mentioned that Wolfe was very likely alluding to alkali metal slugs when talking about the weapons Baldanders supplied to the shore people.
If you've never seen a demonstration of pure sodium being dropped into water, I highly recommend checking it out, it produces a shockingly violent reaction.
i don't know a single fucking thing about chemistry and have over a decade of recordings proving that
