Subject: (urth) Wolfe surge

From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1998 04:24:00 +0000

Damien Broderick,

I don't know the story "Children's Hour" at all.  Somebody around
here must.

Thanks again for writing up that Suzanne piece!  It was a fun read
and who knows, maybe it will lure new people into coming onboard.

And Everybody,

Seems like a lot of Wolfe stuff has been finding me.  I got a copy of
"Nova Express" the other day, and it is pretty interesting (recent Wolfe
interview and an essay on Long Sun).  Among other things, the
synchronicity wave catches me again--just last week I was talking
with Andy Joron about Avram Davidson's THE PHOENIX AND THE MIRROR
which he had lent to me and I had read.  We were talking about that
book, how very Wolfean it seems, not only influencing TBOTNS but also
the Soldier series, and we were wondering if somehow Wolfe had not
read it?  I couldn't remember Wolfe ever mentioning it in any
interviews . . . and there it is, in this interview, he mentions
Davidson and praises his work!  (He doesn't name the book we were
talking about, but we know he must have read it.  He =must= have!)

I also found the new SFBC reissue of TBOTNS--has anybody else seen
this?  It comes with a poster of the cover, but the really surprising
thing is they published it in hardcover as one volume!  Yikes!  I
didn't buy it, I only marveled at it.

Then today I got a couple of photocopied short stories from psychic
Robert Borski: "The Game in the Pope's Head" which I was looking for
(and still not finding) as recently as yesterday (it is in the
anthology RIPPER! by Dozois) and "The Arimaspian Legacy" which I
don't look for because it is Cheap Street.

Robert is "psychic" because I don't remember telling him I hadn't seen
either, and in his letter he writes he hopes I haven't seen them yet.

Anyway, both stories are gems.

You are unlikely to ever see "The Arimaspian Legacy," so I won't
torture you or ruin anything by saying anything about it.  Except
that it is set in the modern world.  Involving two guys, both only
children (that is, no siblings), who became best friends in some
unnamed town that has grown a lot since then.  And one of them is
telling the story about the other one.  This story is in the Wolfe
tradition of "The Monday Man," and BIBLIOMEN, and others.

OTOH, "The Game in the Pope's Head" is in the Wolfe tradition of
"Melting," "Beech Hill," and other mindwarping semi-psychedelic
whirlwinds.  I won't say anything until Wombat reads it--I think he
will get an especial kick out of it.

=mantis=

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/