Subject: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v027.n011

From: Kieran Mullen <kieran at brigit.nhn.ou.edu>
Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1999 11:40:55 +0000

>On Wed, 26 May 1999 13:29:21, Robert Borski wrote:

>>>For isn't Jonas, a former servitor of the Hierodules, from Yesod? ... This
>would allow for Jonas/Sidero to have crashed in the future ...<<

   In one of the postscripts Wolfe speculates that there is only one
ship like Tzad's.  I always sorta thought that Jonas and Hethor came
from the same crashlanding.  However, we don't really know how long
Jonas has been on Urth - he could have been there for years before
Hethor showed up.

   It seems unreasonable to think that Tzad's ship crashed on Urth since
it is so huge.  Surely there would be some notice!  

>mantis asks:
>> ... the
>> central mystery seems to me to be: what is so upsetting to Jonas?  It seems
>> to be something(s) that the prisoners told him, rather than just an
>> upwelling of empathy for their terrible situation.

   I always put this down to delerium.  His organic parts are feverish and
that's causing problems for him.  He seems more delerious than simply
panicky.

                Kieran Mullen

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

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From: Carlos Martinho <carlosom71 at yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1999 10:03:23 +0000

> it is so huge.  Surely there would be some notice!  

It could have been some sort of shuttle, like the one
wich brings Severian end Burgundofara back to Urth...
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From: Dan Parmenter <dan at lec.com>
Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1999 11:52:12 +0000

> In the past on this list there have been periodic reference to Blish's
> book, by three or four people hereabouts.
> 
> Well I just read it, myself, and I liked it a lot more than the BLACK
> EASTER books, with which it shares obvious similaries (including, IMHO, a
> weak ending--but now I'm getting ahead of myself).
> 
> So I would like people to take this opportunity to chat about COC, compare
> and contrast with the Urth Cycle.  I know that at least a few of you have
> read it, and most likely many more have, since it is an award winning
> (Hugo, I believe?) classic.

Things worth noting:

*spoilers*

The original novella ends a bit more ambiguously than the novel does I
believe.

I've always thought that COC should be read along with BOTNS and the
C.S. Lewis "space trilogy".  Both COC and "the space trilogy" deal
with the notion of the consequences (and origins) of a race seemingly
without sin.  

I agree that this should be discussed, but this is not the time for me
to do so, since I'm at the office.

Lex Shellac

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From: Matthew Malthouse <matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 03 Jun 1999 09:17:20 +0000

> it is so huge.  Surely there would be some notice!

I'd offer two reasonable solutions.

First _if_ Jonas sailed Tzad's ship then the vessel in which he crashed
might have been some tender or shuttle.

Perhaps more likely; Tzad's ship might be the only one that sails a
course between the universes but it most certainly isn't the only one in
the skys of Urth of which we know.

There are those vessels of the heirodules - which may themselves be only
tenders of The Ship. There are the ships that once came and went from
the Old Port (Citadel). There are the ships that made a human empire in
space and the same, or others that brough Typhon back. If one want to go
slightly outside the bounds of Urth then there is at least one
generation ship from Typhon's era.

What is that requires Jonas to have been a sailor on Tzad's ship and no
other?

Matthew