{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2984",
    "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": 2984,
    "subject": "The Waif, A Traveler, and Shields of Mars",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2002-02-23T09:46:30+00:00",
    "last": "2002-02-26T22:42:38+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0202-212@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Nicholas Gevers",
        "address": "vermoulian at yahoo.com"
      },
      "date": "2002-02-23T09:46:30+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) The Waif, A Traveler, and Shields of Mars",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Various notes about GW short stories:\n\nI was asked for my comments on \"The Waif\"--well, this\nis what I said in the February LOCUS:\n\n\"...Decidedly more weighty is “The Waif” by Gene\nWolfe, that author at his magnificent subtle best, a\ntale of superstition and religious repression in a\nrustic post-holocaust community. A young boy acquires\na doppelganger from among a transcendent branch of\nhumanity that might as well be the Fairy Folk; he is\npersecuted; and the final intersection of two worlds\nis deeply shocking, part of an acute critical take on\nfaith that is doubly interesting coming from such a\nresolutely religious writer.\"\n\nWolfe has a new story in the anthology MARS PROBES\n(DAW, June, ed Pete Crowther.) Gene's own description:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "    The MARS PROBES story is \"Shields of Mars.\" \nIt's about a human and an \nalien who have grown up together and are the last\nworkers at an air plant in \na remote location that is about to be shut down."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "And a final point: I've just read a little-known Wolfe\nstory, \"A Traveler in Desert Lands\", which appeared in\n2000 in a limited edition anthology of stories set in\nClark Ashton Smith's Zothique. It's very good indeed,\na sort of alternate take on the analeptic alzabo\nnotion fom NEW SUN. A wandering ne'er-do-well enters a\nnecropolis inhabited by people who are either ghoulish\nor ghouls indeed, and becomes ensorcelled. The\nconclusion is shocking, very well executed. A\nquestion: does anyone know in what language \"Mahes\"\nmight mean \"golden lion\"? And how it might pair with\nthe Greek \"Endymion\"?\n\n--Nick Gevers."
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0202-238@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Jerry Friedman",
        "address": "jerry_friedman at yahoo.com"
      },
      "date": "2002-02-26T22:42:38+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) The Waif, A Traveler, and Shields of Mars",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0202-212@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "--- Nicholas Gevers <vermoulian at yahoo.com> wrote:\nVarious notes about GW short stories:\n\nI was asked for my comments on \"The Waif\"--well, this\nis what I said in the February LOCUS:\n\n\"...Decidedly more weighty is “The Waif” by Gene\nWolfe, that author at his magnificent subtle best, a\ntale of superstition and religious repression in a\nrustic post-holocaust community. A young boy acquires\na doppelganger from among a transcendent branch of\nhumanity that might as well be the Fairy Folk; he is\npersecuted; and the final intersection of two worlds\nis deeply shocking, part of an acute critical take on\nfaith that is doubly interesting coming from such a\nresolutely religious writer.\""
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "...\n\nAt first I didn't know what you meant by the critical take on faith, but\nyou're thinking of Bin's trust in Ariael and the townspeople's beliefs\nabout consorting with the Flying People, right?  (And the teacher's\nexplanation for why they hate the Flying People was so absurd that I\ndidn't see how even the kids could believe it.)  A reversal of the Long\nand Short Sun books, where respect for superior beings is a good idea,\neven if they call themselves gods.  I saw it more as morality: Ariael uses\nBin's best feelings against him.  The way he played on Bin's emotions\nreminded of the way Krait played on Horn's, to somewhat different--even\nopposite--effect.\n\nDid Ariael have any other purpose than to cause what he caused?  Why would\nhe want to do that?  Just for fun?\n\n\"Bin\" is presumably the future version of \"Ben\", but any takers for it\nalso being an alteration of Ban Ban Ca-Caliban, to go with Ariael?\n\nJerry Friedman"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}