Subject: (urth) Re:urthquake

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Thu, 02 Dec 1999 18:49:55 +0000

mantis wrote a very insightful piece (as was the recent one about Foila,
BTW) with which I quibbled on a small point:

>>So Roy, are you saying that the resurrection at the Convulsor was
accomplished via the more usual white fountain energy rather than any other
source?  I can't really tell from your post.<<

    Yes, assuming, that is, that that is the source.

    I don't know how Wolfe thought to rationalize the quake; my only point
was that it wasn't a natural one, which the text seems to support. The
effect seems to have been localized. Perhaps Severian acted as a lightning
rod, discharging the energy into the ground, both of the weapon and whatever
supernatural revivifying agency is responsible for the suspension of the
laws of physics necessary to keep him alive.

    The attending physician's contention that it was a natural quake and
that Sev wasn't struck by the energy beam is just the NEW SUN version of
Doctor Crane's hypothesis about Silk's enlightenment. Such a timely quake,
even if such geological activity still took place, just *ain't gonna
happen*. It was just another miracle in the Conciliator's legend, like those
in the Gospels attendant upon Jesus. Miracles have no rational explanation,
and Wolfe clearly believes in miracles; you have to to be a Christian. That
similar wonders occasioned by Sev's "death" at the Citadel are not
replicated elsewhen he dies wasn't necessary for the Legend or for Wolfe's
theme or plot; besides, he had to account for the broken Curtain Wall. <g>
Wolfe was more concerned with setting up echoes of Jesus with the
Conciliator for religious resonance than explaining the science in his
fiction. Bad science or good, the scientific tidbits in the Urth Cycle were
just a sop thrown to the more ardent purists of the genre who, like us,
strain at scientific gnats while swallowing religious camels. Rational
science cannot account for many of the plot elements of NEW SUN any more
than you can take a sliderule to the Bible.

    That's why your face among the "hard-ish sf" crowd is not smiling. :-)

Roy

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

---

From: Jim Henley <jlhenley at erols.com>
Date: Thu, 02 Dec 1999 20:35:26 +0000

> -----Original Message-----
> From: urth-errors at lists.best.com [mailto:urth-errors at lists.best.com]On
> Behalf Of Roy C. Lackey
>

I think Roy's right, with a minor possible modification: my impression was
that one of the things the quake did was ensure that the beam _missed_, or
at least caught Sev only glancingly. Regardless, I class the earthquake
with Big Storm on Boat as an environmental effect Sev generates.

> Doctor Crane's hypothesis about Silk's enlightenment.

I'm now far enough in Long Sun that I do not, as I did when this came up
before, wonder why people keep adducing Frazier...

> Miracles have no rational explanation,
> and Wolfe clearly believes in miracles; you have to to be a
> Christian.

Or they do have a rational explanation but it's not the full explanation -
that is, that the "miracle" consists in the bending of rational processes
to divine purpose, or, to put it another way, the rational explanation is
merely the means used to work the Divine Will.

> Bad science or good, the scientific tidbits in the Urth
> Cycle were
> strain at scientific gnats while swallowing religious camels.

And here I must demur. "Just a sop" is a prejudicial way of stating a
viewpoint that is at least arguable and at worst obviously wrong - that is,
we know that Wolfe took great pains to support his saga with a scientific
foundation, and even took great pride in it. He as much as tells us that it
was a major reason for writing the story. Statements from "there's no
'magic' in TBOTNS" point to his description of what he meant by "science
fantasy" indicate just how important the "science fictional" aspects of the
story were to him - I get the impression that it was where a lot of the
_fun_ lay in composing the saga. That and ripping off as much Borges as
possible...

Best,

Jim
 *****************************************
 "Just because you won't unlock your door
  that don't mean you don't love me any more"
              -- Steve Earle