{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1281",
    "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": 1281,
    "subject": "Hello There",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-11-27T23:00:00+00:00",
    "last": "1998-11-27T23:00:00+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0021-0098@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "m.driussi",
        "address": "m.driussi at genie.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-11-27T23:00:00+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Hello There",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Wow, go away for a few days and come back to find lots of stuff!  Now\nthat's a happy thing.\n\nFirst off, a long overdue report on WFC98.  I'll start with details\nand maybe later I'll get back to the main overview.  Alga was there\nand Patrick O'Leary was there and we all saw each other and I had a\ngood time (oops, maybe that was the overview?).  As usual, I tried to\npressure alga into writing a Wolfe essay, and the same for Patrick.\n<Bo-ring!>  (It was during lunch on Fisherman's Wharf.)  But where I\nreally failed was, I should've praised Patrick for his review of THE\nBOOK OF THE LONG SUN (the =entire tetralogy=) in \"Science Fiction\nEye,\" since it is quite difficult to convince people to do more of a\ncertain thing while at the same time ignoring their achivements in\nthat vein.  SO there you have it: Patrick has written some Wolfe\nstuff, he will write more when time permits, and for this I am\ngrateful.  And alga, aside from being just the muse herself, she does\na lot of work on the booklets, and I think she has promised to do a\nlot of work on the next book, should such a thing errupt, so really,\nI have no business trying to wrestle these people into more\nWolfe-related work.  (More about WFC98 later . . .)\n\nSgt. Rock,\n\nI think that when Paul Duggan wrote \"GW's Commissar kills\nSeargent to prevent squad from routing,\" the \"GW\" stands not for\n\"Gene Wolfe\" but for \"Games Workshop,\" the UK gaming company whose\nproduct Paul is contrasting with Urth.  It was ambiguous.  As for\nyour comments on trench warfare, I don't have any argument really,\nand I think they add to what I was saying about battlefield context,\nnot in the (main) sense of it being inherently irrational (since you\nare saying that they were being rational within their given frames of\nreference), but in the sense of seeing a battle from outside of its\noriginal time/space situation (that is: our \"modern\" reactions to WWI\nare equally removed from its situation as our reactions are to the\nAscian/Commonwealth War). Then again, if I really wanted to argue in\nthat thread regarding indifference to high casualties and the\npressing need to punch through the front and win the war I'd ask\nabout gas warfare and flechette rifles--but I don't, I don't!\n\nPeter Nagle,\n\nRe: Latin translation, thanks!\n\nRe: Napoleonic warfare as closer to Urth, this has clear validity\n(i.e., trench warfare ala WWI is strictly out).  But Napoleonic lacks\nair power, and while I don't want to bring up Korea again, still,\nthere you had some WWII equipment being used in a post-WWII\nenvironment (I'm especially thinking of the P-51 Mustang fighter\nplanes, propeller planes among jet fighters).\n\nBut mainly I think that we're all in agreement that this quiet little\nArmageddon has units from all across the timeline and spectrum of\nWarfare--as if it really =were= the Final Battle, and all the\nprevious champions were raised up to do mighty deeds.  (It isn't, of\ncourse; it is just another day at the front--a battle that doesn't\nreally matter much in the big war.)  We've got =slingers= for Pete's\nsake!  And archers.  And half-nekkid guys on horseback.  And ufos.\nAnd martian tripods (the text quote has to do with towers walking on\nthe Last Day).  And girls, girls, girls!  We've got ancient units,\nmedieval units, futuristic units, and magic units.\n\nNigel Price,\n\nWelcome aboard!  Yes, I wrote/published/continue to sell LEXICON\nURTHUS.  (Thank you for your kind words about it.)  Then came some\neight booklets, most of which are Wolfe related (the only non-Wolfe\ntitle is \"Vance Space,\" a travel guide to the science fiction worlds\nof Jack Vance, reviewed in \"Locus\" and \"Science Fiction Age\" and\n\"Asimov's\"), one of which is out of print (\"The Quick & Dirty Guide\nto the Long Sun Whorl\").  At which point even =I= begin to say, \"This\nisn't healthy.\"  To that myself replies, \"I could stop any time--in\nfact, I stop right now.\"\n\nRe: CASTLE OF THE OTTER.  This is now part of CASTLE OF DAYS (an\nomnibus of COTA and GENE WOLFE'S BOOK OF DAYS, a collection of short\nstories, and a third section of previously uncollected stuff).  You\npretty much need it.  Somebody around here quietly argues that \"Books\nin TBOTNS\" of PLAN[E]T ENGINEERING ought to have been put into CASTLE\nOF DAYS, and there is merrit to that notion since it is the only Urth\nessay in PE, and a powerful one at that.\n\nRe: the Latin inscription.  Thank you very much!  That is exactly\nwhat I was hoping for--a meaning that I was angling toward and a\ncitation that I knew nothing about.  (Icing on the cake if we can\nfind this inscription on a building =anywhere=!  I can't imagine a\nproper context in England unless during the reign of Elisabeth I, or\nby associational and poetic extension, Elisabeth II?)\n\nRe: Terminus Est.  Honestly I'd never thought of it as related to\nwords by Jesus.  But sure, that looks good, and there are a lot of\ndetails in the text linking the sword to a cross (for example, when\nSev leaves on his exile he basically says that he looked like a sad\ndude carrying a cross on his shoulder, but he felt quite happy\ninside).  (Well, the word is \"paterissa,\" and I've bent the sense a\nbit, but it is there.)  You should write an essay.  No, really!\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}