{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1546", "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": 1546, "subject": "Amazing Proof! 5HC and B/UNS Were Written by THE SAME GUY!", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1999-04-17T15:51:34+00:00", "last": "1999-04-18T14:28:05+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Mitchell A. Bailey", "address": "mab at lindau.net" }, "date": "1999-04-17T15:51:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Amazing Proof! 5HC and B/UNS Were Written by THE SAME GUY!", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Since things are sorta quiet lately...\nI have set out to catalogue parallels between 5HC, B/UNS, other than\nthose already discussed recently, be they similarity of situation, a\nsimilar turn of phrase, similar motifs and imagery, or what have you.\nHere is what I've found:\n\nA dim, red sun. 5HC (in \"V.R.T.\") further evokes the image of its\nintrinsically redder sun (compared to our Sol) eventually dying and\ngoing out when Victor describes the manner in which he would like\neventually to be interred in a cave in the gorge of the Tempus river in\nthe mountains of St. Anne.\n\nA great, vice-ridden port city as a major setting, in which a rundown,\nneglected library and a citadel are landmarks.\n\nThe finding of a dead body in said city, accepted as an almost normal\noccasional occurrence: \nthe body in brightly colored rags Number Five sees in the alley; \nthe man suffocated \"with a lambrequin\" the morning after Sev meets Dr.\nTalos and Baldanders (ever practical, Dr. Talos checks the corpse'\npockets)\n\n\"A river runs through it\". Said river serves as a metaphor for time. \nMore obviously so in 5HC given the river's settlers' name, \"Tempus\" and\nits alleged place in the theology of both the marsh people and the hill\npeople.\nSee Sev's discussion with Master Ash. \"Gyoll\" is the Styx of\nScandanavian mythology, the river which the dead cross by the Rainbow\nBridge as they near the borders of Hel's realm.\n\nPeople who tell stories, as an utterance of their humanity. In 5HC,\nbeing a shorter work, the stories tend to be referred to than related\nverbatim.\n\nThe staging of a play by major characters in the books.\n\nA wise old teacher who is at least in part cybernetic or prosthetic, but\nalso is very much human: \nPalaemon; Mr. Million\n\nAnother wise old guide or teacher who is an eidolon or \"aquastor\": \nthe aquastor of Master Malrubius; the Shadow Childrens' Old Wise One (or\nGroup Norm)\n\nThe metaphor of a wound speaking like a mouth, in reference to persons\nspeaking whose time in this world has already expired (i.e. a \"dead man\nwalking\"): \nthe marshman blinded by the Shadow Children in \"A Story\"; \nBaldanders' lines in his role as Nod in \"Eschatology & Genesis\".\n\nThe concept that one who is resurrected from death would be immediately\nmurdered in a panic by his/her loved ones: \nthe sad tale of Zama in UNS; \nthe Old Wise One explaining to Sandwalker that though the Shadow\nChildren sorrow for their murdered companions, they would not wish to\nresurrect them by \"singing\" if such were possible, and would probably\ntry to slay them if such a thing occurred.\n\nThe similar dream/vision of hanging disembodied and vulnerable among\nfiery objects in space:\nSandwalker asleep in the sand pit as he is being drawn under by the\nquicksand; \nSev's impressions during the duel of magic with Decuman in the village\nof magicians. Both dreams end in someone else screaming.\n\nI don't really see a dissertation out of this so far, but, what the\nheck, I wasn't an English major. Let's see... thesis: The exultants are\nactually very tall Shadow Children...." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Peter Stephenson", "address": "pws at ibmth.df.unipi.it" }, "date": "1999-04-18T14:28:05+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Amazing Proof! 5HC and B/UNS Were Written by THE SAME GUY!", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Mitchell A. Bailey\" wrote:\nAmazing Proof! 5HC and B/UNS Were Written by THE SAME GUY!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Francis Bacon, presumably?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't really see a dissertation out of this so far, but, what the\nheck, I wasn't an English major. Let's see... thesis: The exultants are\nactually very tall Shadow Children...." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's not so silly... I mean, it's not true, but what is truth? It's\nplausible in a sort of Borskian sense: the stature of the exultants\nsuggests a certain heroic quality, in the classical mythological sense,\nwhile the Shadow Children are explicitly woven into myths, so they have\nthat thematic connection.\n\nBy the way, I noticed at Easter that 5HC has just reappeared in a new\nedition in the UK, in a series called something like `Science Fiction\nMasterworks'; according to amazon.co.uk it's published by Millenium on 22\nApril 1999 (now that's science fiction for you), ISBN 1857988175. You can\nsee the cover art (strange in a not very Wolfean way) at\nhttp://www.amazon.co.uk/uk-covers/1/85/798/817/1857988175.l.gif\n(Amazon US doesn't have this edition, just the 1994 Tor reprint.\nAmazingly, at current exchange rates this is 4p *more expensive*! Possibly\na world first for a British edition.)\n\nIt's number 8 in the series; many of the others are older works, and I\nhaven't read a lot of them yet, but given the evidence that at least one of\nthe first eight is a real masterwork, it's probable I should. (To that end\nI bought no. 5, `The Stars My Destination' by Alfred Bester.)\n\ncorncrake" } ] } ] }