{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3858",
    "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": 3858,
    "subject": "Full of Hot Air (Q1, pt. 2)",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2003-02-19T16:54:31+00:00",
    "last": "2003-02-19T19:10:17+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0302-2957@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com"
      },
      "date": "2003-02-19T16:54:31+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) Full of Hot Air (Q1, pt. 2)",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "The question came up:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "1) There is a GW short story about a hot air balloon.\nWhat is it called (or even about)?  I believe it is in\nEndangered Species but I am far from certain.\nIn the introduction, GW says something about a writing\nexercise -- what if something was invented much\nearlier than it was?  Any other story fit this general\n\"writing exercise\" format?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I think what you mean is more \"thought experiment\" or \"extrapolation of a\ntechnological advance and how it would change society\" -- when I first saw\n\"writing exercise\" I thought of Wolfe's writers' workshop stories, like\n\"The Bellman's Wonder Ring\" (oops, that might be an article), \"Alphabet\"\n(in SFTOH), and maybe one or two others.\n\nThe thought experiment type, though . . . hmmm. \"The Packerhaus Method\"\ncomes to mind (=hey=, that's in SFTOH, too!), where in the intro, iirc, he\nlabels it as such a story.\n\nAs for \"Straw,\" which I named before but did not say more: it is about\n\"what if hot air ballooning had been invented in the middle ages?\"  It is a\nneat story, with an almost Urthly feel to it (medieval setting, strange\nweapons with common-seeming names, etc.).\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0302-2961@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Straight",
        "address": "straight at email.unc.edu"
      },
      "date": "2003-02-19T19:10:17+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) Full of Hot Air (Q1, pt. 2)",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0302-2957@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "In the introduction, GW says something about a writing\nexercise -- what if something was invented much\nearlier than it was?  Any other story fit this general\n\"writing exercise\" format?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I'm blanking, but feel certain I've seen Wolfe defend some other\ntechnological anachronism in one of his stories with, \"well, they could\neasily have had/done such a thing back then.\"  Maybe in the Soldier\nseries?\n\n-- Rostrum"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}