{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1027",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1027,
    "subject": "Good Ship/Bad Ship",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-07-22T10:11:32+00:00",
    "last": "1998-07-22T10:11:32+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0017-0064@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Alex David Groce",
        "address": "adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu"
      },
      "date": "1998-07-22T10:11:32+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Good Ship/Bad Ship",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "\tIt seems to be that space ships in Wolfe stories are very seldom simply\nneutral tools, carrying people around space.  They're more like the little girl\nwith the curl--\"when they are good, they're very, very good/ but when they are\nbad they are horrid!\"  It is mostly a case of the events that take place on the\nships, obviously, but there also seems, in the case of the evil ships, to be a\nhint of the \"haunted house\" story--the ships themselves are places of evil,\nperhaps because of the purposes to which they have been bent in the past.\n\n\tThe \"heavenly\" ships, actually, aren't as strong a case as the\n\"diabolical\" ships.  In the class of good ships, I'd place Tzad's ship, for\nobvious reasons.  The only other example I can think of is Daw's ship in \"Alien\nStones\", \"guided\" as it were, by the Old & New Testaments.\n\n\tHowever, the evil ships are more definite.  \"All the Hues of Hell\" is\nfairly obvious for Wolfe:  the ship is hovering over Hell, and picks up a\ndemon.  There are unpleasant indications of machine over man, a mindless\nworship of \"life\" in any form, even demonic, and of course the ending\n\"Rosemary's Baby\" twist.\n\t\"The Other Dead Man\" I also recall as investing a space ship with a\nfair amount of symbolic evil.  It even fits very nicely into the \"haunted\nhouse\" theme, by not allowing the dead to rest.\n\n\tFinally, there is a story that, for my money, is one of Wolfe's most\ndisturbing and enigmatic tales:  \"Silhoutte\"\n\t\"Silhoutte\" reminds me now (it didn't when I last read it because I\nhadn't read any Aickman then) of a Robert Aickman story, specifically the story\nof the Anglican church vault, busted by the bell, opening a (possible) gateway\nto hell, although that's the minor action of the story (I cannot recall the\ntitle now).  I'm not sure WHY it reminds me of that story, other than that I\nfind both tales disturbing, can't decide if I sympathize with the protagonists\nin either story, and don't even pretend to really understand either story.\n\tBy the way, it strikes me that many Wolfe readers would probably enjoy\nAickman.  Aickman has an extraordinary way with words, but demands constant\nattention from the reader and often says more by what he carefully avoids\nsaying than by anything else.  On the other hand, I think Wolfe usually plays\nfair in that there IS a reasonable (if startling) interpretation of events that\ncan (in theory) be worked out by the reader.  I think Aickman is often engaged\nin the somewhat different game of using subconscious symbolism and\nintentionally undecipherable clues to simply leave you vaguely terrified\nwithout a focus for the terror.  Which is, after all, a good enough game in\nitself--Aickman's metaphysical horrors are, to my mind, a lot more interesting\nthan Lovecraft's cosmic monstrosities."
        },
        {
          "kind": "sig",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.\" - John 8:32\n--\nAlex David Groce (adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu)\nSenior (Computer Science/Multidisciplinary Studies in Technology & Fiction)\n'98-99 NCSU AITP Student Chapter President\n608 Charleston Road, Apt. 1E (919)-233-7366\nhttp://www4.ncsu.edu/~adgroce"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}