{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3247",
    "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": 3247,
    "subject": "In defence of \"Operation Ares\"",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2002-05-09T23:55:19+00:00",
    "last": "2002-05-09T23:55:19+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0205-946@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Nigel Price",
        "address": "nigel.a.price at virgin.net"
      },
      "date": "2002-05-09T23:55:19+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) In defence of \"Operation Ares\"",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "Christopher Culver wrote:\nDoes anyone know where to track down\na copy of OPERATION ARES? It is supposedly\nan awful book, partly because of Wolfe's\nnot yet mature style and bad editing, but\nI'd like a copy to make my Wolfe collection\na bit more complete. Hey, I actually liked\n\"Copperhead\", so maybe I'll be thrilled at\nanything that has Wolfe's name on it."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I hope you find a copy, Christopher. Dobson, the UK publisher, who put it\nout in an incredibly drab and nasty hardback edition, were doing their best\nto shift the final copies out of their warehouse a while back and you could\nfind hardback copies going cheap in remainder bookshops all over the place.\nI simply ordered mine from my local bookshop in Cirencester and it cost less\nthan a paperback. I suppose that, if Dobson was successful, it may now be\nhard to find a new copy, but I see that a viable route to tracking down a\nsecond-hand edition has already been suggested.\n\nI too have heard the adverse comments on \"Operation Ares\" and yes, sure,\nit's not a masterpiece, but I'd really like to defend it. It's a while since\nI read it, but I enjoyed the book and thought that it was fascinating, both\nin its own right, and as an introduction to some of the themes that would\nappear again in Wolfe's later novels. For example, you've got an early\ntreatment of the political and spiritual decline of the West and the United\nStates in particular, this time dealt with in the near future, rather than\nin the infinitely distant future. If you like, Wolfe gives us hear a sketch\nof both Ascia and Urth in embryo. Then again there's an explanation of how\nexotic wild animals come to be running free in the Americas. In \"Operation\nAres\", the animals are from other continents rather than, as in TBotNS, from\nother worlds, but a similar principle may be thought to apply.\n\nMost interestingly, though, there's an early example of Wolfe writing about\na false religion which nevertheless may - possibly - be used by God and may\ncontain some grain of distorted truth amidst much error. This, obviously,\nwas going to be a major theme later on in the Long Sun books. Here, it's a\npopular but fraudulent Africanesque religious cult celebrating the inner\nbeast in humanity and featuring a certain amount of cynical sleight of hand\non the part of the cult leaders and, if I remember rightly, a former circus\nlion. Although the veneration of the latter is idolatrous, it also carries\nbizarre echoes of the role played by Lewis' Aslan, not to mention an\nalternative take on themes explored by Charles Williams in both \"The Place\nof the Lion\" (neoplatonic angelic entities manifesting themselves in the\nphysical word as archetypal animals)and \"Shadows of Ecstasy\" (African\nidolatry and beastliness invading a smugly complacent Britain). And there's\njust the chance that an appearance of the lion saves the life of an\nattempted suicide. (Did I get that right? If not, someone's bound to correct\nme.)\n\nThere's an attempted revolution against a corrupt government and all sorts\nof interesting things going on, and if there are infelicities in the style\nand structure, then I still feel that these have been exagerated and many of\nthe book's strengths overlooked.\n\nNigel"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}