{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2800",
    "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": 2800,
    "subject": "What the El?!?",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-08-23T17:22:42+00:00",
    "last": "2001-08-23T17:22:42+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0663@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Nigel Price",
        "address": "nigel.a.price at virgin.net"
      },
      "date": "2001-08-23T17:22:42+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) What the El?!?",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Thanks to Mantis for beating the Illinois county bounds, and to Joshua for\nuseful information on the Chicago area and the background to Holly\nHollander's adventures. I very nearly asked, \"What is the El, then?\", but\njust managed to stop myself in time. I assume that it's an Elevated Railway\nor something of the kind. (I think that Fritz Leiber mentions it in his\nmini-autobiography, the splendidly entitled, \"Not much disorder and not so\nearly sex: an autobiographic essay.\" He lived near it at some stage in his\nyoung life, if I recall.)\n\nThanks, too, to Dan'l, for the encouraging words. You're absolutely right to\nwarn about the horrifying and revolting bits in the Night's Dawn trilogy,\nand its theological incorrectness. I really liked the whisky priest, Father\nElwes, and enjoyed his (absolutely predictable!) change of heart and\nspirited recovery, exorcism and extemporary orphanage included. (Patera\nSilk, also an occasional exorcist, would have been proud of him.) His\nconversation with the bishop when he finally gets to Tranquillity is really\ndisappointing, though. He says something along the lines of, \"Well, of\ncourse, Christianity is really all about believing in yourself, isn't it?\"\nThe bishop nods in agreement, and you think, well, no, actually, that isn't\nwhat it's about. Pretty well the opposite, in fact.\n\nAs for the entropic hell of The Dark Continuum and the paradise worlds of\nthe Kiint, one couldn't really take them seriously, though the former was\nhorribly chilling (as it were) and the latter would be a nice place to visit\nfor a holiday. (Have to be better than bloomin' Disneyland Paris. Please,\njust don't ask. It's all too painful...)\n\nHere, though, is an interesting hierarchy of universes, reminiscent in many\nways of Wolfe's cabalistic concatenation of worlds in TBotNS, but altogether\nless subtle. Wolfe makes the point in UotNS that Yesod and Briah exist at\ndifferent energy levels. The Brook Madregot flows \"down hill\" from Yesod to\nBriah as energy seeks a lower state. (Thank you, Mantis - again.) Hamilton's\ndifferent universes are also at different energy levels, and he makes great\nof play of the fact. This is the source of power for the dead, who still\nretain an open link with the higher energy state of the beyond even when\nthey enter our universe by possessing a living being. Conversely, it's the\nreason why The Dark Continuum poses such difficulties for Valisk and its\ninhabitants. The Dark Continuum is the bottom of the hill, energistically,\nthe place where all the energy flows to and dissipates in entropy.\n\n(Urth is often described as a place where entropy has gone a long way\ntowards running its course. Radioactive elements have degenerated into\nharmless metals, mineral resources are exhausted and the sun is slowly\ndying. The icy future Severian glimpses from the Last House awaits the world\nif someone cannot bring the New Sun...)\n\nAs in Wolfe, Hamilton's different dimensions at some level evoke Christian\nspiritual states or places, specifically here, heaven and hell, although it\nhas to be said that in Hamilton, the evocation is fairly playful, and at\ntimes wilfully daft. I especially enjoyed the nice throwaway reference to\n\"The Prisoner\" TV series. The Kiint's former human agents, retired to the\nbook's heaven-analogue, stubbornly insist on calling their sunny but remote\nxenoc retirement home \"The Village\".\n\nI have to admit that neither the gore nor the theological silliness stopped\nme enjoying Hamilton's books. They're definitely prime examples of Dan'l's\nType 2 kind of novel.\n\nIf I ever get time to finish and send in my other submission to the list,\nthe one with \"Ion\" in the title somewhere, I'll try to tackle the subject of\nPlatonism and hierarchies. Don't hold me to it, though. Things are getting\nbusy once more, and I may just disappear for another year or so...\n\nNigel\nA long way from Illinois"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}