{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/351", "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": 351, "subject": "Multiple choice", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "1998-02-05T20:45:32+00:00", "last": "1998-02-05T20:45:32+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice Turner", "address": "al at interport.net" }, "date": "1998-02-05T20:45:32+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Multiple choice", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Derek," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I imagine that there is quite a long gap between the two eras,\nbecause Severian mentions that rats in the library smear the covers of\nthe books in their own crude writing" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I took, and take, this as metaphoric.\n\nCRC," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " My question is this: why would Ymar go and take the test in Yesod if\nhe\nhad met the Conciliator?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Most interesting question! Never occurred to me!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "1) Canog did not finish his BotNS until after Ymar took the test." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "2) Canog finished his BotNS before Ymar went to Yesod, but its contents did\nnot become part of common knowledge until long after the test." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Either of the above would be, IMO, Wolfe's answer, should you ask him." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "3) Ymar believed that the Conciliator was *his* future self." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Unlikely, unless, as several recent posts seem to be leaning toward, such a\nthing is possible (of course in one sense Ymar truly is there with\nSeverian)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "4) Ymar did not know that castration was 'punishment' for 'failing' the\ntest\nand figured he had nothing to lose." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I simply cannot believe this. The hierodules played absolutely fair with\nSeverian, and there is no reason whatsoever to think that they would not do\nso with anyone else. I vote for some version of the first two.\n\nNutria," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Park'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." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "When I read this book, I was heavily struck by how much it was influenced by\nFIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS (the whole book, certainly not just the novella). It\nseemed to me, in fact, to have been written almost as an answer, or a\nvariation, to that book, with similar Australian (not South African) images\nand themes. I was extremely touched by its take on imperialism and striving\n\"to be white\" and casual, thoughtless racism, which Park has\nmagnified---amazingly well, I thought---into a meditation on plastic\nsurgury, drugs like Prozac, the Michael Jackson phenomenon and other quite\nsophisticated notions into the old human-alien sci-fi encounter. Like Wolfe,\nhe has clearly read Kipling and absorbed the halfbreed (DiSouza) perplexity\nof many of the stories.\n\nI haven't read the trilogy, but would recommend this book highly. Having\nsaid that, I must tell you that I sent it to mantis, who wasn't at all\nimpresssed!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Terry Bisson:\n\nI 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." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Bisson isn't a bit religious, and was chosen to finish the novel only\nbecause he is a publishing-savvy pro. PIRATES OF THE UNIVERSE is a recent\nnovel. Bisson is a stylist, humorous writer, who comes off best in short\nstories---and he will be at Disclave if any of you are tempted!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Lebling wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On geography, to CRCulver: The action of the tetralogy takes place in\nSouth America, and yet there is a great river that flows southwestward\nover a plain, and great mountains to the north and east of the plain.\nThis isn't _our_ South America." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Er, ahem, for some of us it doesn't take place in -any- South America. But\nthat's an argument for another time!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Having said that, I think you're right anyway that 50 million\nyears is just too damn far in future. My money is on any\nnumber between two to nine million." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sounds just right! \n\n-alga-" } ] } ] }