Subject: (urth) Six American Nights

From: Alice Turner <al at ny.playboy.com>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 17:35:30 +0000

[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

Rock,

Well, he does like twists and turns. Look how many of the stories in
TIODDAOSAOS depend on this kind of Mobius strip: the title story, Alien
Stones, Dr. of Death Is., Eyeflash, to a degree. Etc. (I'm also a new reader
to this collection.)

I could see the deformity coming a mile off too--it was telegraphed every
which way--but not the murder. Not nice.

I have a reader's guide to Wolfe that mantis sent me, published in 1986 by
Joan Gordon. She's very uneven, useless on "Traveler's Song," much better on
"Seven American Nights," which obviously caught her fancy. And one thing she
notes, that I'll pass along, about playing Russian roulette with the
acid-impregnated eggs:

"We know that he eats five of the six eggs: his mind may be altered further
on any one of these occasions, or on all, if all the eggs are tainted as the
one in the theater may have been. As for the sixth egg, Nadan believes that
the police may have searched his room and stolen it, but there is another
explanation. The sixth egg may have been the one containing the
hallucinogen, and its effects may have caused him to lose a day. Our proof?
'Seven American Nights' describes only six nights."

Woo!

-alga-