{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/33", "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": 33, "subject": "Early Urth & Other Writers", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1997-05-15T14:20:56+00:00", "last": "1997-05-16T11:20:50+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Joel Priddy", "address": "jpriddy at saturn.vcu.edu" }, "date": "1997-05-15T14:20:56+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Early Urth & Other Writers", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "mantis,\n\nyou say that I should have said \"the earliest days of the White\nFountain\" instead of \"the earliest days of man's habitation of\nUrth.\" That was just me trying to cram extra information into a\nsentence in emulation of Mr. Wolfe .\n The point being that the earliest days of the White Fountain's\nexistence stretch back to the earliest days of humans on Urth,\nthis according to the Hierodules. I'm only belaboring this point\nto make sure I have it correctly, because I'm trying to get a\nsemi-solid picture of Severian's range and the history of Urth as\nit might relate to the Whorl. If I haven't misread this, and\nthere isn't a significant historical period on Urth previous to\nthe White Fountains creation, then Severian probably observed the\nlabor crews constructing the Whorl, and every other major\nachievement since the invention of agriculture.\n Otherwise, the Urth is a big place, and just because Apu's\npeople are at a stone-age agrarian level, doesn't mean that there\naren't other significantly developed human cultures on other\ncontinents. I think that sort of thing has been known to happen\n. Perhaps even a previous body-graft Typhon could be ruling\nsomewhere before relocating to that part of the Urth.\n\nOkay, enough of that.\nAs an aside, for people whose bedside table is getting empty, I\nthought I'd mention a couple books that appealed to the Wolfe fan\nin me that I haven't seen mentioned previously.\n\n _Fishboy_ by Mark Richard\nThis novel is a little less baroque than a lot of Wolfe is, but\nany of the characters and events could easily slip into any given\nWolfe novel without anyone noticing. It also has, hands down, the\nmost gorgeously written opening paragraph I've ever come across.\n\n _Immortality_ by Milan Kundera\nThis one may seem like more of stretch, but this is a novel that\nI found required the same sort of attention and contemplation as\na Wolfe book. In both cases, you want to make sure you haven't\nskimmed over even a single sentence if you want to make it to the\nending in one piece.\n\n_The_Luck_In_The_Head_ by M. John Harrison\nAll I know of Harrison is this one story, printed as a comic book\nby Dark Horse and Visual Graphics with uneven art by Ian Miller.\nIt's apparently from a collection of short stories,\n_In_Viriconium_, but I've had no luck in finding it. It's so\nWolfe-like that I suspect Harrison had just set down his copy of\n_Shadow_ and said, \"Now THAT's what I'm gonna write like!\"\n\nThomas Pynchon may or may not appeal to Wolfe-fans as a whole,\nbut I found the reading muscles I built up digging through the\nlayers of Wolfe's writing greatly enhanced my appreciation of\nPynchon.\n\nAll right, that's enough from me. Later, everybody.\n\nJOEL\ncephlathorax " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Richard Horton", "address": "rhorton at mdc.com" }, "date": "1997-05-16T08:32:30+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Early Urth & Other Writers -Reply", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Joel Priddy 05/15/97 09:20am >>> writes\nto recommend:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "_The_Luck_In_The_Head_ by M. John Harrison\nAll I know of Harrison is this one story, printed as a comic book by Dark\nHorse and Visual Graphics with uneven art by Ian Miller.\nIt's apparently from a collection of short stories,\n_In_Viriconium_, but I've had no luck in finding it. It's so\nWolfe-like that I suspect Harrison had just set down his copy of\n_Shadow_ and said, \"Now THAT's what I'm gonna write like!\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "M. John Harrison is a very fine British writer of SF and mainstream fiction. \nHe's probably best known in the States for his Viriconium books: _The\nPastel City_, _A Storm of Wings_, and _The Floating Gods_. There was a\nstory collection, as well, though I think the US title was different than the\nUK title: moreover, one or more of the novels is an expansion of some of\nthe short stories, and his whole publication history is a bit chaotic. I\nunderstand that several of his novels have been published in the UK but\nnot yet in the US. However, the Viriconium books all had paperback\neditions in the States, the later ones were published by Timescape, IIRC.\n\nHe's very good, very evocative, and, I'd say, very British. _The Pastel\nCity_ was published in about 1973, so it, at least, was not influenced by\nTBotNS. Definitely recommended, though, and certainly of the same\ngeneral orbit as Wolfe.\n\n-- Tusk" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jason Voegele", "address": "voegele.6 at osu.edu" }, "date": "1997-05-16T11:20:50+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Early Urth & Other Writers -Reply", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "While we're on the subject of other authors (and before we determine where\nwe're *supposed* to post these things), has anyone read Adam Lee's (AKA A.\nA. Attanasio's) THE DARK SHORE (Book One of The Dominions of Irth). You can\nimmediately see that this book bears at least a good bit of resemblance to\nTBOTNS. I haven't read it yet and what I'm wondering is this a cheap\nknockoff of The Book, or a more sophisticated \"metafiction\" about the book?\nAttanasio is a rather ambitious writer so I suspect the latter.\n\nJason" } ] } ] }