# Digest urth.v028.n153 *The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 11 Feb 2000* > 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. --- ### Alice Turner *11 Feb 2000, 14:46* > From: "Jeremy W. Crampton" > How about the Soldier series? > > Personally they're the most impressive to me (boring personal opinion but > there ya go). After Vol I of New Sun, natch. I like them too. But I like novels set in the classical period (Renault, Graves, Mitchison, even that trashy but fun detective series set in ancient Rome). > Okay I'll give one reason: Wolfe shows the social construction of belief > (in the fine tradition of most skiffy, eg PKD, Ballard, Priest etc. The > latter's The Affirmation is a classic example). Particularly religious > belief of course. One of the central scenes in the Soldier books is the > human sacrifice one, where Mother Ge talks about how for other people she > is yet young, and that how when we stop believing in them the gods > disappear, ie they are human-dependent.** There's also all GW's talk of how > he is showing society as the Greeks really saw it, ie meeting gods on the > way back from Marathon (Fennel Fields). Where are these gods now? Long time > passing... > > **didn't Terry Pratchett also do this? What was it; Small Gods? I think he's done it quite a bit. Death is always showing up. Pratchett's a clever lad. I haven't read much of him, but he's more than OK. > From: Jim Jordan > The traffic jam society is > clearly symbolic of the "world," especially the world of today (in > Christian terms, of course: the three enemies being the world, the flesh, > and the devil Oy. > A thought: The traffic jam is purgatory. This would link with *Peace,* > where the character is also in purgatory. Remember that in RC thinking, > purgatory is just the anteroom to heaven, and is not like hell at all. > Purgatory is the place where a heavenbound person makes peace with his past > and his sins. Just a thought.... Gevalt. -alga ---