{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2005", "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": 2005, "subject": "New Sun Mysteries FAQ?", "messages": 6, "voices": 3, "first": "1999-12-02T12:38:20+00:00", "last": "1999-12-07T02:51:32+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ron Hale-Evans", "address": "rwhe at apocalypse.org" }, "date": "1999-12-02T12:38:20+00:00", "subject": "(urth) New Sun Mysteries FAQ?", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "We all know that the New Sun cycle is filled with deliberate little Lupine\nmysteries for the reader. Some are relatively easy (who were Severian's\nparents and grandparents?) and some are very hard, so hard that maybe not\none of us on the list could accurately answer every question on a\nsubstantial list.\n\nI know of two lists of these mysteries. One is in an old Usenet message by\nDonn Seeley that I have kept and treasured since the early Eighties.\nAnother is in _Lexicon Urthus_ by our own Mantis. Perhaps we could combine\nthese lists (authors willing), add a number of our own, and set about\nanswering them in FAQ form. We could warn the reader that these are major\nspoilers and that the FAQ is not to be read until the New Sun books have\nbeen read at least twice.\n\nIf we decide to do this, I would prefer that someone else coordinate the\neffort, as I have too many irons in the fire already. (Hmm, in light of Our\nHero's trade, that doesn't sound good...) If no one steps forth, however, I\nwould be willing to do so.\n\nThis could become an important resource for future readers of the New Sun\nbooks, and would likely be a lot of fun to put together. Mantis, what say\nyou? Donn Seeley, are you here? (Anyone know how to reach him?)\n\nRon H-E" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Ron Hale-Evans: rwhe at apocalypse.org ... \nCenter for Ludic Synergy: \nKennexions GBG artgame: \nHexagram-8 I Ching Mailing List: \nPositive Revolution FAQ: " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ron Hale-Evans", "address": "rwhe at apocalypse.org" }, "date": "1999-12-03T13:31:26+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) New Sun Mysteries FAQ?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "OK, we have mantis's permission to crib from his list of New Sun mysteries.\n\nI've been thinking about copyright law, which protects only the expression\nof a work, not its ideas. (Only a patent can protect an idea, and no one\nhas patented the idea of a list of New Sun mysteries.) This means that\nwhile it would be nice to have Mr. Seeley's blessing on the New Sun\nMysteries FAQ, if we cannot locate him in 1999 (fifteen years after his\npiece was posted to Usenet), we need not wait for his permission to\nincorporate the _gist_ of his questions into the FAQ. We cannot legally use\nhis actual prose or even a close paraphrase, but we can nevertheless use\nhis piece as a guide for creating a list of questions of our own.\n\nThat said, is anyone willing to compare Seeley's list and mantis's, and\ndistill them down into a single list, to be posted here?\n\nIf no one volunteers by Sunday, I'll put it together myself.\n\nRon H-E" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Ron Hale-Evans: rwhe at apocalypse.org ... \nCenter for Ludic Synergy: \nKennexions GBG artgame: \nHexagram-8 I Ching Mailing List: \nPositive Revolution FAQ: " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ron Hale-Evans", "address": "rwhe at apocalypse.org" }, "date": "1999-12-05T17:33:33+00:00", "subject": "Fwd: Re: (urth) New Sun Mysteries FAQ?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I got a very nice message from Donn Seeley yesterday; you'll find it below.\nWe have his blessing.\n\nalga has volunteered to help me get the list of questions into shape. I\nhope we'll soon have the initial mysteries list, and can then work on (1)\nexpanding the list of questions, and (2) adding answers.\n\nRon\n\n" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "To: Ron Hale-Evans \nSubject: Re: (urth) New Sun Mysteries FAQ?\nDate: Sat, 04 Dec 1999 07:58:51 -0700\nFrom: Donn Seeley \n\nYou compiled an excellent list of mysteries in the New Sun\nbooks that you posted to Usenet in 1984. ...\n\nWow, that was certainly a long time ago. Feel free to make any\nuse of that posting that you want.\n\nDonn Seeley" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Ron Hale-Evans: rwhe at apocalypse.org ... \nCenter for Ludic Synergy: \nKennexions GBG artgame: \nHexagram-8 I Ching Mailing List: \nPositive Revolution FAQ: " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "JMCAzurin", "address": "mikah at brewsoft.com" }, "date": "1999-12-07T02:51:32+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: New Sun Mysteries FAQ?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ron Hale-Evans wrote\nI hope we'll soon have the initial mysteries list, and can then work on (1)\nexpanding the list of questions, and (2) adding answers." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hi Ron,\n\n Just a suggestion: perhaps two versions of the FAQ could be maintained? One with answers and one without.\n\nMikah\n\n- Are you crying?\n- No, I'm bleeding." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "William H. Ansley", "address": "wansley at warwick.net" }, "date": "1999-12-06T22:29:44+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: New Sun Mysteries FAQ?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The story so far.\n\nRon Hale-Evans bravely volunteers to produce a TBotNS\nFAQ.\n\nJMCAzurin suggests:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " Just a suggestion: perhaps two versions of the FAQ could be maintained?\nOne with answers and one without." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "How about a dozen or so versions of the FAQ. All the questions will be the\nsame, but the answers will vary depending on which of us is reading it. We\ncan have the Roy C. Lackey version, the Tony Ellis version, the Robert\nBorski version, the William Ansley version... . Just to name a few folks\nwith differing insights into TBofNS.\n\nWilliam Ansley\n\nP.S. Ron, by all means, carry on! It is a most noble quest. Just don't\nexpect the going to be too smooth." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ron Hale-Evans", "address": "rwhe at apocalypse.org" }, "date": "1999-12-06T19:48:39+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: New Sun Mysteries FAQ?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 10:51 AM 12/7/99 +0800, Mikah wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Ron Hale-Evans wrote\nI hope we'll soon have the initial mysteries list, and can then work on (1)\nexpanding the list of questions, and (2) adding answers." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Hi Ron,\n\n Just a suggestion: perhaps two versions of the FAQ could be maintained?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "One with answers and one without.\n\nI *just* got an email from alga, who is working on combining and editing\nthe two lists. She expressed a couple of similar concerns. Briefly put, she\nsaid that we probably don't want an easy-answers/\"Cliff's Notes\" approach\n-- and that maybe we don't want to give answers at all; couldn't we hint at\nthe answers instead and make the reader do the work?\n\nI thought about this for a moment and thought of a possible solution that\nmight make everybody happy, both the people who want to incorporate answers\n(including me) and the people who don't. And this is going to make Dave\nLebling laugh, I know...\n\nInvisiClues!\n\nWhat the heck are those, you ask? Well, the computer game company Infocom\n(which Dave helped found, BTW) published a very successful and long-lived\nseries of \"adventure games\" in the 1980s, including the Zork series,\n_Trinity_, and one based on _The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy_.\nAdventure games are a text-based genre of computer fiction wherein you type\ncommands like GO NORTH and TAKE SWORD and KILL TROLL, and the computer\nresponds by describing your environment to you. Much of the game centers\naround puzzles that you must solve, such as how to open a locked treasure\nchest or how to get into a room with a very small door.\n\nInfocom did not invent the adventure game, but they made many innovations.\nOne of them was a way for players to get clues to puzzles without spoilers.\nInvisiClues came in little books that you could buy at the computer store\nwhere you bought the game or from Infocom itself. The questions in the\nbooklets were printed in ordinary ink, but the answers were printed in\ninvisible ink. There were perhaps four or five progressively more detailed\nclues for each answer, and the last entry in the series just gave the\nanswer straight. You would wipe a little pen that came with the book over\nthe InvisiClues until you got to the level of detail that you wanted.\n\nExample:\n\nHow do I get into the room with the tiny door?\n\n1. Look around the hallway.\n\n2. Do you see a bottle on the stand in the corner?\n\n3. Did you read the bottle's label?\n\n4. What do you do with a bottle that says DRINK ME?\n\n5. Drink the contents of the bottle and it will make you small enough to\nfit through the door.\n\n... and so forth. There was also a certain percentage of bogus questions\n(sometimes with very entertaining bogus answers) scattered throughout, so\nthat you couldn't be sure that the other questions referred to real things\nin the context of the game, thus avoiding the questions becoming spoilers\nthemselves, to a certain extent at least.\n\nLater Infocom games incorporated InvisiClues directly into the games via a\nmenuing system. After Infocom was eaten by Activision and the text-based\ngames were neglected in favour (oooooh...) of flashier graphical games,\nNetters \"liberated\" the text of the InvisiClues booklets and incorporated\nit into a series of files for a program called UHS, standing for something\nlike \"Universal Hint System\" -- a standalone, generalised version of\nInfocom's earlier menuing systems.\n\nWhew. So the point I'm making is that a system like the one described above\n-- perhaps UHS itself, or perhaps some web-based setup -- could be used so\nthat we could have a list of questions with answers, but no one would be\ngetting more than they wanted, or less than they wanted! And of course we\nshould prepend the proviso that no one should read the \"FAQ\" until they\nhave read TBOTNS at least twice, as I mentioned in my original message.\n\nThis whole thing reminds me of the controversy in Japan over books for sale\nthere that contain a list of Zen koans together with their \"answers.\" I\nhave seen one myself in the States. They do indeed contain the \"real\nanswers\" (as far as I can tell), but any Zen teacher will tell you that it\nis the process of arriving at the answer yourself that is the real answer.\nAnyone who thinks a koan answer book or our FAQ is a shortcut to instant\nunderstanding deserves what they get.\n\nWhat do you good folks think?\n\nRon H-E" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Ron Hale-Evans: rwhe at apocalypse.org ... \nCenter for Ludic Synergy: \nKennexions GBG artgame: \nHexagram-8 I Ching Mailing List: \nPositive Revolution FAQ: " } ] } ] }