Subject: (urth) Confirming Talirican's _Fifth Head_ variation

From: Dan Rabin <danrabin at a.crl.com>
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 21:56:31 +0000

"Talarican" <exultnttalarican at mindspring.com> writes:

>I recall when I read the hardback library copy, I was struck by one
>particular passage that I was positive had been added from the older
>paperback version. It was in "A Story", where the Old Wise One was
>explaining to Sandwalker how the Shadow Childrens' "singing" worked. In the
>paperback version, as I recall, he said something like "Shake your hands.
>Now imagine your hands gone. That is what we shake. You may call it nothing,
>but what you think is nothing holds all things apart. When it is gone, all
>the worlds are born". I seem to recall the hardback version continued with
>another new sentence, not present in the paperback, which indicated this
>"birth" would follow the collapse of the universe. (so the Shadow Childrens'
>"singing" vibrates Einstein's Cosmological Constant, or Fred Hoyle's
>C-field? <g>)

Confirmed.  The first edition hardcover has (p. 88)

  When it is gone, all the worlds will come together in a fiery death from
  which new worlds will be born.

where the Ace paperback has (p. 95)

  When it is gone, all the worlds will be born.

The Orb trade paperback (p.96) follows the text of the first edition here.

The discrepancy can be accounted for by assuming that the person
re-entering the text for the paperback edition confused the two occurrences
of the word "worlds".  A pity, but it now stands corrected.

All three editions have the passage concerning the volume by V. Vinge.

  -- Dan Rabin

P.S. The hypothetical must have been pretty bored to skip over a phrase
such as "fiery death"!

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