{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2870",
    "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": 2870,
    "subject": "PARADOX MEN and our man in antarctica",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-12-15T00:01:41+00:00",
    "last": "2001-12-15T00:01:41+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0031-urth.v031.n016.2@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com"
      },
      "date": "2001-12-15T00:01:41+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) PARADOX MEN and our man in antarctica",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Before I lose the trace thoughts alltogether, I should mention a few notes\non THE PARADOX MEN.\n\n(I did ask Damien Broderick, and sure enough, he has read TPM, but to my\nsurprise he doesn't like it so much--for him it isn't enough like Van Vogt.)\n\n1) The main \"New Sun\" thread is the Van Vogt situation of the seemingly\ncommon man awakening to his latent super powers.  There is also a solar\nconnection, and some neat time travel, with paradoxes about determinism and\nfree will, and a retroactive \"optimization\" (for those of us who continue\nto think of our Severian's life as the optimization of an earlier Severian).\n\n2) There is also a strange little tidbit regarding \"Jonah.\"  In TPM they\nhave these high-risk solar stations that mine the sun directly for this\nconcentrated energy stuff called Muirium.  A ritual that the sunmen have is\nto roll the dice to see if they will survive the shift they are about to\nbegin: they insist that the dice roller be a novice.  (A glaring flub:\nHarness goes on about how the odds are against it: \"there had been one\nchance in six of throwing a seven.\"  Well no, not with two six-sided dice!\nSeven is the most common throw; two and twelve are the hard ones [harder\nthan one-in-six, in fact].  One in six means 16.6%, that is, like rolling a\none on a single die.  And if they ain't six-sided, then pray tell what?\nActually they are called cubes, so they must be six-sided.  Odd.)  The most\nexperienced sunman, a man named Miles, explains all this, and says that he\nis disqualified from rolling the dice because he is a Jonah.\n\nThey also want the hero to roll because his face resembles that of an \"old\nfriend,\" who is presumably the genius proto-sunman, Muir.\n\nThe hero rolls and the dreaded, unlikely number seven comes up, meaning\nthat the ten crewmen will die.\n\nLater on, it seems like fate has been cheated because the station is going\nto be visited ahead of schedule and evacuated.  But it turns out Miles and\nthe rest have all hidden themselves in the hold to prove the dice right.\nAnd they all dematerialize when the station's load hits critical mass.\n\nJonas (aka Jonah), Miles, resemblence to an old dead friend (who actually\n=is= the same person with amnesia), death by dematerialization.  Hmmmm.\n\n\nOur Man in Antarctica\n\nYes, our fellow Wolfe-reader Henry Kaiser is actually living at the South\nPole right now.  He has sent me digital photos of Mount Erebus.  He is\nhaving high adventure in an alien world.  He told me several months ago\nthat he would be giving little reports on NPR once he was in antarctica,\nbut I haven't managed to catch any of them, if they are happening.\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSirius Fiction\nHas Moved To\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}