{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3633", "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": 3633, "subject": "Free Live Free, corrections and notes", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2002-12-02T06:14:16+00:00", "last": "2002-12-02T07:50:05+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-12-02T06:14:16+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Free Live Free, corrections and notes", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I said before that Dr. Makee made it sound like he'd known Free for\ndecades. Nope, only a few years according to my hc (207). Let's say that\nFree moves into the house in 1980.\n\nOne of the details that might point to the city being Chicago is the\ntunnels under downtown (286).\n\nOTOH, there are cities with a 38th Street going North/South: Kansas City,\nKansas (nice Oz tie in: any major city in Kansas!); Omaha, Nebraska\n(maybe); St. Joseph, Missouri; Philadelphia (but one chapter is \"I'd Rather\nBe in Philadelphia,\" implying it ain't in Philly, and the Philly street is\nnamed North 38th).\n\nAnother intersection mentioned is 44th and Dennis (280).\n\nI was thinking that the building might have to be standing in 1819, because\nof how Wolfe's timeline compresses timeframes. A building like that in\n1819 rules out a lot of the midwest, except for maybe St. Louis and\nIndianapolis. But maybe the 1819 building is not right. The building was\ndefinitely built in the 19th century.\n\nAnyway, if the building timeframe has always been, say, 1980-1982, and Free\nvisited periodically from 1807-1818, adjusting it so that he never\noverwrote himself (11 years of frontier life interspersed with up to 36\nmonths of 1980s life), then that starts to make some sense until the whole\n\"1819\" thing crops up (that point where he leaves the frontier and puts the\ngizmo in the wall).\n\nMaybe it would be fixed if it were written: \"Free leaves 1819 for 1979,\nwhere he puts the gizmo in the wall.\" Because then it would be there for\nhim to use from 1980-1982. But if he is keeping himself in realtime after\ninstalling the gizmo in the wall in 1979 then he would implode everytime\nhis frontier-visiting self came in . . . no, wait, the visitor would\nimplode, because the realtime Free is older . . . hmmmm.\n\nIn any event, another detail: Free supposedly has not been time-travelling\n(all this talk of not knowing where the ticket is; too old to use it;\netc.), yet Whitten did implode after being on the ground for a while, which\nimplies that Free had been elsewhen from Nov 1982 to Jan 1983 until the\nmoment of Whitten's implosion on Jan 14.\n\nOTOH, if the house isn't standing there in 1819, then, because it is a time\nmachine and not a teleporter, the gizmo would deposit a person out in a\nfield. (Which is another reason for suspecting it to be in a midwest\nlocation, since Free is on the expedition, etc. Then again, he hid the\ngizmo in a Kentucky cave for at least a while.)\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-12-02T07:50:05+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Free Live Free, corrections and notes", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "mantis wrote:\nOne of the details that might point to the city being Chicago is the\ntunnels under downtown (286).\n\nOTOH, there are cities with a 38th Street going North/South: Kansas City,\nKansas (nice Oz tie in: any major city in Kansas!); Omaha, Nebraska\n(maybe); St. Joseph, Missouri; Philadelphia (but one chapter is \"I'd Rather\nBe in Philadelphia,\" implying it ain't in Philly, and the Philly street is\nnamed North 38th)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm going to try to work out a personal chronology for Whitten/Free from the\ntime he set up camp at the Magic Carpet until his death. I think we're\nroughly in agreement on the basic facts. But I think you're looking in the\nwrong place for the city. It's not in the Midwest, if it exists at all; it's\non the East Coast. I have only the Tor paperback, so I don't know the HC\npage number, but on the second page of chapter 59 Free looks out the window\nof the cockpit and sees the \"tossing waters of the Atlantic\".\n\nThe _High Country_ doesn't stray from protected US airspace--that's why it\nwas built. It seems to circle, more or less; at least it doesn't seem to\never be out of a short-range flight of the shuttle B-17, and the B-17 takes\noff and lands from the old military base near the modern airport. And the\nFlying Carpet is near the airport. The flask and the matches point to New\nYork City. I don't think that is the city, but the city is probably close to\nNYC. The television commentator said it was a major US city. It's definitely\nnot Philadelphia. It's far enough north to get cold and have snow. If the\nshuttle used in 1942 operated under the same conditions as in 1982-3 (never\ntoo far from _High Country_), then that plane landed at Langley Field,\nVirginia. The high and mighty aboard the _High Country_ probably wanted to\nstay close to the center of government power in Washington DC. The city, if\nit exists, should be between there and NYC, as I see it.\n\n-Roy" } ] } ] }