# Digest urth.v019.n004 *The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 28 Sep 1998* > 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. --- ### Jay Lake *28 Sep 1998, 05:52* Having been lurking on the digest, I must mention something... > For a long time my favorite explanation for the events that transpire in > "Forlesen" was provided by the undertaker-type character at the story's > end--namely, that Emanuel Forlesen has been "revived by unseen aliens who, > landing on the Earth eons after the death of the last man, have sought to > re-create the life of the twentieth century." Kind of GW's version of THE > EINSTEIN INTERSECTION, so-to-speak, with Dilbert as Lobey. I have actually thought for many years that Delany's 'The Einstein Intersection' and 'Fifth Head of Cerebrus' were in so close a parallel as to be eerie. To me, they are almost the same book as written by two authors. I believe that I base this feeling primarily on the fact that both books are masterworks in the art of storytelling by misdirection, both are about severely displaced/resurrected cultures, and both are (nominally) about humans in stressful, regressed settings. BTW, I am reading BOTNS aloud to my wife, a chapter per evening, which is doing amazing things for my own perceptions. We are keeping the excellent 'Lexicon Urthus' on the night stand for quick reference (although I won't let her see the entries until we're done -- no spoilers!). So I have come to realize a fundamental question about the book: How big is that freaking sabertache anyway? Jay Lake Austin, Texas --- ### CRCulver *01 Oct 1998, 01:53 · follows Jay Lake* Jay Lake said: I don't know, but if it wasn't so anachronistic and out-of-fashion, I'd have already bought or made one. Those things are neat. Christopher R. Culver http://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html ------------------------------------------------ ---