and as the gods rarely , if ever , bothered to inform themselves of what linners were supposedly keeping in store for their lofty scrutiny , this race of divine lunatics also acquired certain godly qualities , such as a supernatural longevity and prescience , which , combined with the skills they learnt from the intellectual influx from advanced civilizations , allowed them to transcend the planes of reality and the boundaries of time and space , and to transform their selves and their surroundings at will till ienar lin became a bizarre paradise of clashing eras and surroundings , of distant worlds lying at hand , opening and closing as easily as doors which admitted every sort of alien being , environ and contraption .