{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3827", "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": 3827, "subject": "5HoC + The Long Sun", "messages": 3, "voices": 2, "first": "2003-01-31T17:16:23+00:00", "last": "2003-02-04T15:01:52+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2003-01-31T17:16:23+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HoC + The Long Sun", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I've been recently been re-reading the Fifth Head of Cerberus. I've been\nintrigued by the number of parallels between it and The Long Sun/Short Sun.\nI know this has been vaguely noted here before, but here's a starting list\nof the particulars I've noticed. I'm not saying TFHoC is in TBotLS universe\n(except the one which is Wolfe's mind) but that TBotLS, in a sense, the\nstory readdressed.\nI suspect the reason David Hartwell suggested the title for \"The Long Sun\"\nto be \"Starcrosser's Landing\" is that he saw the parallels as well.\n\n1.\nSpiral staircase in the library and \"The Other Eye\"\n=\nThe Whorl and whorl imagery\nNote: This similarity could have something to do with concurrent themes\nrelating to genetics, but of course, LS/SS also incorporate sun imagery and\nthe idea of a hopeless trap (hmmm... maybe some of this 'hopeless trap'\nstuff in Fifth Head as well)\n\n2.\nThe tall library itself so like a ship with a spiral staircase (a whorl) in\nthe center with a sunbeam \"axis\", and the book therein entitled \"The Mile\nLong Spaceship\"\n=\nThe league-upon-league-long spaceship named \"The Whorl\" with a beam of light\nfor an axis.\n\n3.\nAbos (aliens) have notably white skin (incidentally, has anyone already\npointed out that Phaedria also is noted for her white skin?)\n=\nInhumi have such white skin that Quetzal must wear makeup to cover it.\n\n4.\nAliens that cannot help imitating and taking on human identity.\n\n5.\nMr. Million is a Ten Nine Unbound Simulator\n=\nChems are also \"unbound\" simulators (OK I know this one is weak, but....)\n\n6.\nMr. Million's face is the scanned image and mind of a man long dead. He is,\nin a sense (as are all the heirs of Cave Canem), a ghost. =\nHe is basically a walking Sacred Window, an interface to the \"god\" of Cave\nCanem.\n\n7.\nThe dead influencing/dominating the living (Persephone-like).\nIn the Whorl and Cave Canem are ruled by such \"dead men.\" This is especially\ntrue if one believes as I do that Mr. Million is the one running things and\nthat Maitre and #5 are simultaneously the subjects of **his** experiment.\n\n8.\nHeavily founded on themes and concepts of imitation and identity.\n\n9.\nIntelligent Trees\n\n10.\nTwin planets that are green and blue\n(twin planets are a natural motif for the shared themes of imitation and\nidentity but why green and blue?)\n\n11.\nCave Canem, a whorehouse whose nickname means 'Beware of the Dog' and run by\na 'pack' of Wolfs\n=\nOrchid's in a city built over a labyrinth filled with vicious dog-monsters\nthat are identified by the soldiers as the 'real' gods of the Whorl.\n\n12.\nAn undercurrent theme from the book of Revelation." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "cilluff1 at optonline.net", "address": "cilluff1 at optonline.net" }, "date": "2003-01-31T21:52:50+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) 5HoC + The Long Sun", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "James Wynn wrote:\n\n<>\n \nI recently read it for the first time, after having already reading the\nUrth/LS/SS cycle, and thought that FHOC seemed like a \"dry run\" for the\nUrth cycle. Of course, many of parallel themes (the nature of identity is\na biggie) that they share appear in many Wolfe works, so his predilicition\nto explore such themes could account for it, but, as you pointed out, there\nare too many factual similarities simply to chalk it up to \"well, Wolfe\nwrites about identity a lot.\" I don't think they are the same fictional\nuniverse per se, but that the Urth cycle seems to be a full fleshed-out\ntreatment of the ideas (both philosophical and plot-wise) that Wolfe\nutilizes in FH.\n\n<<>>\n\nNot to deny your parallel, but to expand on it, but the parallel that\nstruck me was the similarity between the \"Are the colonists of St. C/St. A\nreally Abos but we have forgotten\" line of FH and the \"are the Neighbors\nreally evolved or somehow dualized humans/is Blue or Green really Urth\"\ndebate. \n\n<<>\n\nI actually really like that one, and it does add to the feeling that St.\nCroix/St. Anne are some of the planets early colonized in the first wave\nout from earth/urth.\n\n<>\n\nThis definitely foreshaddows the scanning of Typhon & Co. and Silk. This\nis a great example (as are the twin planets, the pre-chems) of why I think\nWolfe had these great ideas for a story that he used in FH and which he\nthen fully explored in the Urth cycle. \n\n<>\n\nThat's a great take on Mr. Million. You also then beg the question, what\ndoes it mean to be alive, or to die? Is Mr. Million the same \"person,\"\ndoes he survive, i.e., still live, post-surgery, or does he die, to be\nreplaced by something else with his memory? The same can be asked of\nSeverian, Horn, and Silk. \n\n<<<11.\nCave Canem, a whorehouse whose nickname means 'Beware of the Dog' and run by\na 'pack' of Wolfs\n=\nOrchid's in a city built over a labyrinth filled with vicious dog-monsters\nthat are identified by the soldiers as the 'real' gods of the Whorl.>>\n\nFWIW, here are a few others I thought of. The machines that guard the\nprison camps foreshadow the Taluses of the LS. The inquisitors of Dr.\nMarsch seem like the Ayuntamiento. And Mr. Million foreshadow's Lemur &\nCo., humans who transplant their minds into machines, as distinguished from\n\"mere\" chems, whose identities are created by man.\n\nThe plot devices and metaphysical questions that the two works share in\ncommon definitely make me think that FH is Wolfe's first run at these ideas\nand that the LS/SS books are his full exposition.\n\n- Shell " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2003-02-04T15:01:52+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) 5HoC + The Long Sun", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Shell responded to Crush:\nOf course, many of parallel themes (the nature of identity is\na biggie) that they share appear in many Wolfe works, so his predilection\nto explore such themes could account for it, but, as you pointed out, there\nare too many factual similarities simply to chalk it up to \"well, Wolfe\nwrites about identity a lot.\"\n\nCrush answers:\nBut LS/SS and FH share more than the theme of identity, but also\n**imitation**. I think the similarities might give us some clues about what\nmages are important to Wolfe when working with such a theme (although, for\nthe most part I don't understand what they are).\n\n\nCrush also said:\n<>\n\nShell responded:\nThat's a great take on Mr. Million. You also then beg the question, what\ndoes it mean to be alive, or to die? Is Mr. Million the same \"person,\"\ndoes he survive, i.e., still live, post-surgery, or does he die, to be\nreplaced by something else with his memory? The same can be asked of\nSeverian, Horn, and Silk.\n\nCrush answers:\nWell that's more on the whole identity theme isn't it? Marsch insists on\naddressing Maitre and #5 as though they are one person, which he asserts\nthey are: \"one personality\". So Maitre doesn't exactly \"die\" when #5 kills\nhim. The Original may have recognized this since his main conscious purpose\nseems to have been immortality.\n\nSince you appreciate my \"take\", I'll explain why I believe it.\n1. It seems rather coincidental to me that Tante Jeanine would die (to the\nultimate advantage of #5) within a couple years of inheriting Cave Canem.\n\n2. In #5's dream Mr. Million is steering the ship.\n\n3. In #5's dream he warns Tante Jeanine to \"stay away\" from Mr. Million\nbecause he might \"hurt\" her.\n\n\nShell adds:\nFWIW, here are a few others I thought of. The machines that guard the\nprison camps foreshadow the Taluses of the LS. The inquisitors of Dr.\nMarsch seem like the Ayuntamiento. And Mr. Million foreshadow's Lemur &\nCo., humans who transplant their minds into machines, as distinguished from\n\"mere\" chems, whose identities are created by man.\n\nCrush piles on:\nNice. Here are some more:\n1. Sol is in the Lizard's Tail constellation.\n =\n Horn and Nettle settle on the \"tail of Lizard Island.\n\n2. V.R.T. is constantly \"practicing his hand\" in his journal.\n =\n The chem at the Sun St. mantaeon does the same.\n\n3. The Shadow Child tells Sandwalker that the abos were originally \"mostly\nlong\"\n (this could mean they were like the trees but I don't think so. I think\nthey were like the giant red luminous worms Dr. Marsch reports seeing)\n =\nOf course LS/SS has serpentine aliens.\n\n-- Crush." } ] } ] }