{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/342", "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": 342, "subject": "GW Reads...", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-02-03T22:53:44+00:00", "last": "1998-02-03T23:29:22+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "MBS", "address": "sablof_m at lsa.lan.mcgill.ca" }, "date": "1998-02-03T23:29:22+00:00", "subject": "(urth) GW Reads...", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I just read over the GW transcript. Interesting stuff.\nCan anyone give me more info about the authors he mentions at the \nend? I'll list them here for ya; reply private by email if ya prefer.\nOh and what do ppl think of Paul Park and why is he compared with \nGW's style? \nThanks.\nTerry Bisson, Patrick O'Leary, Nancy Kress, John Crowley, Ester M. \nFresner, Diana Wynn Jones.\nMaybe ppl have gone over thsi and I missed it.. hope not.\nEnjoy the day lots. " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "1998-02-03T22:53:44+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) GW Reads...", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 06:29 PM 2/3/98 EST, you wrote:\n\n[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]\n\nI just read over the GW transcript. Interesting stuff.\nCan anyone give me more info about the authors he mentions at the \nend? I'll list them here for ya; reply private by email if ya prefer.\nOh and what do ppl think of Paul Park and why is he compared with \nGW's style? " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tI'll start with a stab at these.\n\tPark's original trilogy was a lupine tour-de-force; very Urthesque:\n*Soldiers of Paradise,* *Sugar Rain,* and *The Cult of Lovingkindness.* The\nonly problem is that he really does not give enough information to figure\nmany things out, unlike Wolfe. The world of the \"trilogy\" (it's not really\nthat, but it is three linked books) seems to be populated by human beings\nand intelligent manlike canines. An enjoyable, if puzzling read. Perhaps\nPark needs his own Driussi! This is the set that Wolfe endorsed\nenthusiastically.\n\tPark's later *Celestis* is a horse of a different color. At one level, it\nis \"about\" white men in South Africa, but set on a far planet. The natives,\nwho have been \"raised up\" to be humans by medicine and technology, are\nreally pretty much animals. As one such person gradually reverts to its\n\"animal\" status, it is unclear whether it is becoming more then human, or\njust going insane. I found the book to be very ambiguous in perspective,\nthough a couple of reviews I read took sides with the aliens and read the\nbook as an attack on civilization.\n\tI doubt if Wolfe would be pleased with Park's latest fiction about Jesus\nChrist, the title of which escapes me. Wolfe is very orthodox.\n\n\nTerry Bisson:\n\n\tI only know \"Bears Discover Fire,\" an interesting retelling of some\naspects of the Eden and Prometheus stories. Really weird and fun. Right up\nthere with that wonderful old story \"Space-Time for Springers\" by Leiber.\nBisson also completed *St. Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman* by Walter\nMiller. Bisson evidently was close to Miller, who was a recluse. Miller was\na Catholic, like Wolfe, who did not hesitate to use theological themes in\nhis writing, as in his novella \"Crucifixus Etiam.\" Perhaps Bisson is also.\nDon't know.\n\n Patrick O'Leary, Nancy Kress, John Crowley, Ester M. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Fresner, Diana Wynn Jones." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tI can only discuss Crowley, whose writing is very literary and whose books\nare very deep. *Engine Summer,* which is the place to start, is a warm and\nbeautiful narrative with many layers and dimensions, and which, like\nWolfe's books, can be re-read several times. I have not been able to track\ndown *The Deep,* Crowley's first. *Beasts,* his second, is also a complex\ntale, and I need to re-read it to see why things are juxtaposed as they\nare. Wolfe loved Crowley's *Little, Big,* a long novel about men and\nfairies, which I'm only half through. Crowley's Big Opus is a quartet of\nnovels that begins with *AEgypt,* but which is not yet finished. I'm not\ngoing to plunge in until I can read them all. Crowley shows a good\nfamiliarity with the Bible; I suspect Wolfe likes him both for the depth of\nhis writing as well as for seemingly holding similar ideas. \n\n\tBest I can do for you on the people mentioned.\n\n\tWolfe loves Jack Vance; told me that none of Vance's works should ever be\nallowed to go out of print. He also likes Stephen Lawhead, an evangelical\nChristian fantasist, and has enjoyed Tim Powers (Eastern Orthodox Catholic)\nand James Blaylock (an evangelical). All of these are heavenly influenced\nby Chesterton and Lewis, as is Wolfe also.\n\tI understand, btw, that Wolfe will be attending the C.S.Lewis Centenary\ncelebration-conference sponsored by the Mythopoeic Society at Wheaton\nCollege. I plan to attend as well. Anyone want information?\n\nNutria" } ] } ] }