{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3631",
    "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": 3631,
    "subject": "Free Live Free round table part 4",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2002-12-01T17:40:54+00:00",
    "last": "2002-12-01T17:40:54+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0212-2300@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com"
      },
      "date": "2002-12-01T17:40:54+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Free Live Free round table part 4",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Roy wrote:\nThere's no way to tell what year it is after Barnes stepped through the\nbackdoor gizmo and entered the kitchen; we are given no clues, beyond the\nimproved Candy and Stubb. (Who adjusted the controls of the gizmo in the\nwall, set it to jump how far in which direction?)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "My impression was that the house gizmo is not adjusted, it is set to a\nfixed time, which might be less of a year A.D. than it is a span of years\n(for example, going from 1942 to 1952 was a setting of \"plus ten years\")."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "The plot is full of unavoidable logical holes, no matter how hard Wolfe\ntried to plug them. He avoided one time-travel complication by not allowing\ntwo versions of Free to exist simultaneously, but allows two instances of\nthe same portable gizmo at the same time. The one in the backdoor is the\nsame one Whitten took with him when he deserted on Jan. 24, using the\nbackdoor gizmo, that he later used (while bringing it with him) to get back\nto the future when he left the frontier for good, then concealed in the wall\nin the backdoor."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "There may be holes, I don't assert otherwise.  But honestly, the story\nisn't really a time travel story, in the sense that everything is laid out\nlike \"Time Tunnel\": it is Oz with some sfnal trappings.  I'm just trying to\nget a grip on how the gizmos seem to work -- to assemble a model based on\nthe few clues we have in the text.\n\nI don't recall any suggestion in the text that inanimate objects were\ndisplaced when a future version arrived on the scene, or that objects were\n\"folded\" onto themselves, and so I do not see any prohibition for having\ntwo gizmos (the same gizmo of two different ages) in the same timeframe."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "It had never occurred to me before that Barnes might have left the _High\nCountry_ via the B-17, but you may be right. I had always assumed that he\nwas just the last to show up for a scheduled meeting of the quadrumvirate in\nFree's kitchen. In fact, you must be right, because both he and the boy are\nstill ragged. And that answers your question: it's after daylight on the\nsame day as the predawn talk in the cockpit. Barnes just collected his kid\nfrom Sandy Duck before going to the house."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I agree it is likely that it is Jan. 22 or maybe 23.  If this is the case\nthen it adds a bit more pressure to the Jan. 24 desertion date, maybe.\nBecause Whitten could and probably had to adjust the house gizmo (unless it\nleads straight back to 1809 already): to do this he would probably have to\nbreak open the wall."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "The trio who left the _High Country_ together went somewhen together and\nhave had time to meld differing versions of themselves into improved models."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Right, which brings us back to how the gizmos seem to work.  Applying the\nlogic I've been using, if duffle-coat Whitten could have seven subjective\nyears in a few objective hours, then sure, the trio could do the same.\n\nBut where did the big gizmo send them?  Apparantly the gizmo can send a\nperson anywhen -- the trick is that the gizmo doesn't travel with the\ntraveller, and if a traveller goes to a timeframe where a gizmo does not\nexist, then the traveller is stuck in time.  So duffle-coat deserter,\ntaking the portable gizmo through the house gizmo (same gizmo, different\nages) to 1803, establishes a link to travel.  Still, the gizmo is a time\nmachine, not a teleporter: so the trio would end up in an earlier timeframe\nof High Country and need the B-17 to take them down.\n\nSo there are two separate time-travel circuits: the airplane-access High\nCountry one (1942-1983) and the house one (1809-1983), with ground access."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "I never read the OZ books, and I'm not going to, but I've seen the old\nmovie. In an earlier post you mentioned the movie, the classic one, but I\ndon't think that's the same movie Candy is referring to on the last page of\nchapter 57, with her remark about \"Whores of a different color, remember?\" I\ndidn't see that version, so I'll refrain from comment. <g>"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Sure, you kidder: she's just punning on the \"horse of a different color\"\nscene of the classic musical movie, but this joke of Candy's has deep\nechoes in the text.  The way that Mrs. Baker confuses the identities of the\ntwo women (and the two men); the way that Ozzie's dream does the same; the\nway that Stubbs says they are sisters under the skin when Candy wants to\nborrow tweezers in the hotel room and the witch shows her how to use\nclamshells."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "I don't know about Free being or becoming in some sense his house; after\nall, the four couldn't save it, it was partially demolished, and has no real\nfuture."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I don't know about that.  It was _partially_ demolished in a timeline that\nmay soon be rewritten, if the four are now reunited in the kitchen of\nsummer 1982, but this is a _victory_ for the four in that it was not\ncompletely demolished (at the very least they have access to the house\ngizmo since it wasn't lost in a total demolition).  If they follow the\nWhitten doctrine, they will go along with repeating history until they\nreach the juncture point (Jan 24, 1983?) at which point they are free to\ndeviate: halt the demolition, begin the repair work, etc.\n\nFree-as-house is mainly in chapter 3, but with the notion in mind, many of\nFree's \"otherworldly utterances\" take on new meaning.  Just as when Free\nsays he expects to \"see his daughter soon,\" he is not exactly talking about\nseeing her in heaven (that is, it is not a euphemism for \"death\"), he is\ntalking about her coming in and kidnapping him.  Really quite literal!\nFree-as-house seems validated by the fact that Free causes the roof tile to\nfall (chapter 3)."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "You can't stop \"progress\", and that freeway isn't going to move\nsomewhere else. Free got his greatest desire when he went to the frontier,\nsort of, just as the four got theirs, sort of. It just turned out that what\nthey got didn't turn out to be quite what they wanted or needed, sort of.\nCandy and Stubb, at least, in the epilogue, got some degree of personal,\nphysical benefit from their \"second chances\". What did Free get? He was too\nold to get the most out of his frontier days by the time he got there. When\nhe spoke to the four in the cockpit he told them that he didn't \"know who\nyou four are\", but that he knew he would let them live with him at the end\nof his life. He knew because Kip reported to him after she killed him. So\nwhat? They were still strangers to him, who did nothing for him. The crisis\nabout demolishing the house was contrived. Free's apparent poverty wasn't\nreal. (He told them he used time travel to make plenty of money.) All\nhe had to do was move to another house and take the gizmo with him. Buy\nhimself a pair of glasses; have his cataracts removed. But he didn't do any\nof those things, whether because he was a fatalist who didn't think he could\n(or should) avoid death in the basement, or because he didn't care."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "This is a valid interpretation, of course, but I find it fits better with\nthe \"dreary Kansas\" landscape of the early part of the novel, rather than\nthe numinous and wonderful happy \"Oz\" ending.  Granted I'm not sure where\nin time the kitchen is, or if Free is the building, or how the four might\nchange the world outside the building (self-help gurus?) if they will do\nsuch a thing at all (that is, I am skeptical that the witch's prophesy\nabout the quadrumvirate will prove to be 100% accurate in all surface\ndetails: it could well be a microcosm rather than the whole of America),\nbut the ending seems happy to me, and somewhat happier than the grim\nhappiness at the end of THE CITADEL OF THE AUTARCH (where one suspects that\nSeverian will somehow bring the New Sun that will also wipe out most of\nhumanity on Urth).\n\nWhat do the companions do for Dorothy in Oz?  They help her get home (and\nthey inadvertantly help Wizard Oz return to the real world).  It really\nseems to me that the four are doing the same for Free, in a novel which is\nclearly patterned upon Oz.  Perhaps they help him become home.\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}