Subject: (urth) The Book of the Short Sun

From: Nicholas Gevers <potto at webmail.co.za>
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 1999 05:23:01 +0000

Thanks to Michael for his introduction and to Robert Borski and Alice
Turner for their welcomes. Thanks also to all who've responded to the
"Nova Express" article. I've written a sequel article which has yet to
find a publisher; if anyone's interested, I can e-mail that to you.
Regarding my speculation that the inhumi may be a good deal more
sympathetic than most would believe (sorry for discussing this here,
but Whorl is inactive these days): first, my gratitude to Michael for
calling on the pitchforks to stand down; a speculative spoiler is not
a spoiler at all. And Michael, you say you know no more about the
content of Short Sun than the publishers do: but don't they have the
manuscripts of Volumes One and Two to hand? So what do you know? I
don't mind spoilers; you can tell me in private correspondence.
Second, the colonialism question: there's a rather useful commentary
on Fifth Head in a volume entitled "Science, Myth, and the Fictional
Creation of Alien Worlds" by Albert Wendland (Ann Arbor, Mich: UMI
Research Press, 1982). Something worth adding to secondary
bibliographies. I think it's a reasonable guess that, considering how
colonial guilt haunts both Fifth Head and TBotNS, a concern of Short
Sun will be the justice of anyone occupying someone else's territory
unasked (assuming, of course, that Blue isn't Ushas, in which case the
cargo are simply returning home). Wolfe does a masterful job of
keeping Quetzal's true intentions and moral nature ambiguous in Long
Sun; this is a foundation for SOMETHING remarkable.
//--------------------------------------
Nicholas Gevers
potto at webmail.co.za
_______________________________________________________________
 http://www.webmail.co.za the South-African free email service

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

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 1999 16:27:10 +0000

On Sat, 10 Apr 1999, Nicholas Gevers wrote:

> but Whorl is inactive these days): 

> I think it's a reasonable guess that, considering how

Speaking of ambiguity, we might remember that the Long Sun books were
written by a colonist (Horn) who may not have been entirely impartial in
his portrayal of Quetzal and the inhumi.  Some of the scenes where we get
the most characterization of Quetzal must be somewhat speculative
reconstruction on Horn's part, or at best second or third hand accounts
(such as the scenes with Quetzal and Remora).

As a colonist, Horn may have reasons (real or imagined, just or unjust) to
dislike the inhumi that he projects back into the Long Sun narrative.

-Rostrum

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From: Peter Westlake <peter at harlequin.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 08:47:22 +0000

At 07:23 1999-04-10 +0200, Nicholas Gevers wrote:
>...(sorry for discussing this here,
>but Whorl is inactive these days)

Has it stopped working? It seemed okay last time I posted to it.
It wouldn't be inactive if you had posted this to it, and there
are quite a lot of spoilers in these messages. Of course, it is
a while since tBotLS was published, and most people will have
read it by now; so maybe "whorl" could become a list for discussion
of the Book of the Short Sun when it is published, to keep messages
separate until we all get a chance to read the Book?

SBear.