Subject: (urth) time bending headache

From: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 17:21:43 +0000

I (half in levity, I admit) yesterday said something about sending horn a year 
into the past into Silk's body to finish up the healing, possibly leaving his 
home on Blue and Silk's home at the same time.  This gave me such a headache 
that I got sick thinking about it: if Horn is transplanted into Babbie, then 
Horn can possibly be helping himself on the boat in Babbie, and he can see his 
own intelligence in the eyes of the beast.  The headache was only beginning.  
Could Horn/Silk be writing about the things that happened to Horn as they 
happened, or even slightly before?  ARGH.  That damn two year comment 
destroyed my life - and I've wondered about it before.  
On the con side of this (meaning it MIGHT just be a typo) is the following 
from In Green's Jungles: "'How long has your father been gone?'
About three ... Did you hear that, sir?'" (pg 407 SFBC BOTSS, toward the end 
of Chapter 19 IGJ)
How long does it take Silk to get from that point to Horn's home at last?  A 
long time?  What could Hide be saying besides three years?  Why did he get cut 
short?  Is it an important ommision?  Three months?  Three half years?  Three 
and many moons ago? Could it really be a typo about the two year business?  
The idea that Horn is in two places at once at least reconciles one argument 
against him being in Babbie: that he was already riding a beast with three 
horns when he died (or was injured mortally) on Green. (incidentally, a 
literal beast we never see at all - he is on a lander). But it makes me sick 
to think about that.

That makes the book much too vertiginous for me.  It really puts a new 
relationship between the random stuff Silk/Horn writes down and his confused 
and jumbled attempt at explaining a quest that may be contiguous with the time 
of composition.  It might be better just to ignore this clue in order to sleep 
OK at night.
This almost achieves the same disorientation for me as 7 american nights or 
the end of A Story in the Fifth Head of Cerberus.  
Marc Aramini

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 20:01:18 +0000

from In Green's Jungles: "'How long has your father been gone?'
About three ... Did you hear that, sir?'" (pg 407 SFBC BOTSS, toward the end
of Chapter 19 IGJ)
How long does it take Silk to get from that point to Horn's home at last?  A
long time?  What could Hide be saying besides three years?  Why did he get
cut
short?  Is it an important ommision?  Three months?  Three half years?
Three
and many moons ago? Could it really be a typo about the two year business?
<<

To answer your first question: All of the "contemporary" action of books 2&3
(as recounted by Silkhorn), and part of the contemporary action of book 1,
takes place in a single season, believe it or not. Silkhorn was back in New
Viron when he wrote:

    "Sunshine and a mild wind; winter is about over. So I pray. When it
began, I was in Gaon fighting the Man of Han; I would never have guessed
that when it ended I would be nearly home." (RTTW, 261)

By "nearly home" he means, of course, that New Viron is not Lizard. Three
"years" is the only word that makes sense in that quote. But the "nearly two
years" figure for his quest is made again on page 260. I dunno.

-Roy

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 14:30:45 +0000

On Tue, 9 Apr 2002, maa32 wrote:

> I (half in levity, I admit) yesterday said something about sending
> horn a year into the past into Silk's body to finish up the healing,
> possibly leaving his home on Blue and Silk's home at the same time.  
> This gave me such a headache that I got sick thinking about it: if
> Horn is transplanted into Babbie, then Horn can possibly be helping
> himself on the boat in Babbie, and he can see his own intelligence in
> the eyes of the beast.  The headache was only beginning.  Could
> Horn/Silk be writing about the things that happened to Horn as they
> happened, or even slightly before?  ARGH.

While I don't buy this theory (I think Wolfe would have done a little more
with the concept if this was truly going on), I think it's my favorite of
your theories.  The idea of Silk writing about Horn's adventures while
they're happening is pretty neat.

-Rostrum

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