{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/396",
    "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": 396,
    "subject": "\"Tracking Song\" bits and pieces",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-03-03T12:44:30+00:00",
    "last": "1998-03-03T12:44:30+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0007-0586@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "David_Lebling",
        "address": "david_lebling at avid.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-03-03T12:44:30+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) \"Tracking Song\" bits and pieces",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I found time last night re-read most of \"Tracking Song,\" and I found\nsome interesting stuff.\n\n* Does anyone else agree that the locale may not be Earth (or even\nUrth)? It's a world with two moons and trees that are very non-earthlike\n(unless I'm misreading Wolfe's description). The narrator thinks they\nare odd, as well. If it isn't Mars it's a world with two moons orbiting\nanother star than the Sun, or perhaps a very far-future Earth, I\nconcede. (If Larry Niven can make the Earth a moon of Jupiter, I suppose\nWolfe can add a moon).\n\n* Cim Glowing, who had a fairly close-up experience with the people of\nthe Great Sleigh, initially believes the narrator to be one of them, but\nthen is unsure. She thinks maybe he's one of the Wiggikki (she says he\nlooks like them) who has stolen the clothing of a sleigher. Dogs look a\nlot like wolves. (Of course, the Wiggikki think he may be a Ketin,\nbecause he has a hairy face).\n\n* Mantru remarks that the Min kidnapped Cim Glowing because they are no\nlonger very good at distinguishing the \"animals\" from the \"humans.\" The\nimplication is that the animals are getting more and more human as time\ngoes on. I think the narrator is a dog-man who is human enough to \"pass\"\nthe tests given by the Min and by Roller and the other robots.\n\n* There's less of the narrator eating processed food than I remembered.\nHe eats a bite of Lenizee doe, a snow monkey, and other meat. The\nLenizee is the only \"animal\" he eats, however, and he does so\nreluctantly. I'm nearly done with a re-reading and all he's eaten of\nprocessed food is some bouillon cubes.\n\n* The world where the action takes place is either coming out of a\nglacial period, or being terraformed. In either case, the people on the\nGreat Sleigh know what's going on, and are trying to educate the\n\"animals\" so that they will respond correctly.\n\nI can't say yet how any of this stuff impacts my theory, but hey...\n\nIn the previous discussion, someone said that the scene where the\nWiggikki take down Nashhwonk is based on a similar scene (in Jack\nLondon?) where a pack of wolves take down an elk.  True?  If so, which\nJack London?  I wonder if the whole skeleton of the story is similar to\nthat of some story of London's?  In many respects it reminds me of the\ntypical lost-dog story, though it isn't _The Call of the Wild_.\n\nAlso, what do you make of the epigraph?  The quote is from the _Aeneid_,\nand refers to the long wanderings of the Trojan survivors before\nreaching Italy and founding Rome (recall that Romulus and Remus were\nraised by wolves).  Who is doing the long and frustrating wandering\nhere? The sleighers? No. I think it's the \"animals\" who are becoming\nhuman.\n\n     -- viz\n     (david_lebling at avid.com)"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}