{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4016", "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": 4016, "subject": "Dinner & the Long Sun", "messages": 4, "voices": 3, "first": "2003-06-03T16:13:01+00:00", "last": "2003-06-05T22:27:44+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Rex Gatch", "address": "rexgatch at verizon.net" }, "date": "2003-06-03T16:13:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Dinner & the Long Sun", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thanks for the replies. I might have also asked what are the similarities\nbetween Harry Harrison and Gene Wolfe.\nWhen you see needlers, chems, taluses and floaters you might be tempted to\nthink you were in a Stainless Steel Rat book. His use of 50's / 60's sf\nstandards has always complicated my reading of the LS books.\n But back to Dinner at Deviants Palace. If you haven't read the book then\nthere will be some major spoilers here.\nSPOILER SPACE\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIt is I think the first Powers book I read. Its set in a post Apocalyptic\nCalifornia unlike most of his later output which is set in the present or\npast. It has several typical Powers themes - the hero becomes progressively\ninjured throughout the book, it is set in California, the fantastic becomes\nreal etc.\n I'll try and summarise the plot, as best I can.\nThe protagonist is a professional musician who used to be a Redeemer ( some\none who rescues and deprogrammes members of the Jaybush Cult).\n He is persuaded out of retirement in order to try and redeem the girl with\nwhich he was once in love.\n The book follows his quest to find the girl during which he finds out that\nthe Jaybush Cult is far more sinister and powerful than it seems.\n The Jaybush cult is run by the Jaybush who is \" a psychic vampire from\nouter space\" .\n Jaybush recruits people into the cult in two ways, firstly by preying on\nvulnerable people in the fashion of modern day cults and secondly through a\ndrug called Blood.\n Blood is a reddish brown powder.\n The book also features Hemogoblins who are vampiric creatures who take on\nthe characteristics of the human on whom they feed.\n There are also Trash Men who are humans reduced almost to the point of\ndeath by the cult, who are then Cyborged to extend their usefulness.\n So there is the summary which I'm afraid doesn't do much justice to the\nbook. When I reread it after reading the LS books the drug Blood really\nleapt out at me. Its affects are not identical to Rust - it is more of a\nsoporific than a stimulant. It turns out that Blood is made from the blood\nof the most degenerate members of the cult whose minds and spirit have been\nconsumed by the Jaybush through his perverted Communion.\n Rust is never really explained in the LS books. It may be that GW intended\nfor it just to be a drug, such as Beggar's root and it has no more\nsignificance than that. However I am fairly sure that it is likened to dried\nblood at some point in the text though I can't find a quote here.\n Thematically the books share the idea that blood is memory, and I wonder\nwhether there is a Rust - Blood connection. They also explore in very\ndifferent ways imposed religions, vampirism and mechanical/human hybrids.\n This isn't conclusive and the books are very different in many ways but I\ncertainly felt that it was possible that GW was influenced by Powers in some\noblique way.\nI fairly sure that the above is going to sound tenuous to any one who hasn't\nread Dinner At Deviant's Palace but I'm hoping it might spark some\nconnections about the role of Rust. For those of you who have read it I'll\nbe interested to hear if it also reverberated with you or this is just my\nown feeling.\n\nAmbergris" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Jordan", "address": "jbjordan4 at cox.net" }, "date": "2003-06-03T18:27:40+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Dinner & the Long Sun", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I won't bother with spoiler space. Fair warning.\n Dinner presents LACity (sp?) as a new Jerusalem, with walls and \ngates, as in the book of Nehemiah. Also a new Eden appears, with Satan (the \nspace vampire) at its center. Alcohol (the wine of the Lord's Supper) keeps \nthe protagonist sane enough to deal with \"satan.\" Also remember the \nBiblical prohibition on consuming blood; only the blood of Jesus is \nallowed, and that by means of a symbol. IIRC, once again as in so many of \nPowers's books, the protagonist receives wounds in all the stigmata places. \nHe's out to redeem a \"bride\" (the church). Except for being out to save a \nwoman from the clutches of evil, however, I don't see any of this in Long \nSun. Viron is more like Judea as a whole than Jerusalem in particular (the \nayuntamiento being the Jewish leaders; etc.).\n I can't recall many details of the narrative. It does not appear \nto me that there is much of Dinner in Long Sun, save as you point out maybe \nthe connexion between a character named Blood and the drug Rust, which sure \nlooks like an allusion to dried blood to me after reading your post. Blood \nis red because of iron, after all. Doesn't Blood promote the use of Rust; \nisn't he partly a drug lord?\n I think you may be right about an oblique allusion or influence. \nBut so far, it may just be a coincidence -- they're both Catholics of \nsorts, and writing in the same genre about the same kinds of religious \nthings -- or a deep memory of Powers surfacing unaware in Wolfe's writing.\n\nNutria" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Che Monro", "address": "flirt at technologist.com" }, "date": "2003-06-05T01:37:48+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Dinner & the Long Sun", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 12:13 PM 3/06/2003 -0400, you wrote:\nThanks for the replies. I might have also asked what are the similarities\nbetween Harry Harrison and Gene Wolfe.\nWhen you see needlers, chems, taluses and floaters you might be tempted to\nthink you were in a Stainless Steel Rat book." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "When you set out to burgle a manor you don't just knock on the front door. \nUnless you're Jim DiGriz, the Stainless Steel Rat, that is.\n\n\"Talus Repair? Hello? I'm here to fix the malfunctioning robot.\"\n\n\"We have no malfunction here,\" the steel voice replied from the other side \nof the gate.\n\n\"Ah, but you would think that because you're malfunctioning.\"\n\n\"But I'm not ma...\"\n\nThat was when the bomb went off.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nChe\n\nChé Franz Joseph Monro -- http://www.chemonro.com\nche at chemonro.com -- flirt at technologist.com " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Rex Gatch", "address": "rexgatch at verizon.net" }, "date": "2003-06-05T22:27:44+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Dinner & the Long Sun", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "When you set out to burgle a manor you don't just knock on the front door.\nUnless you're Jim DiGriz, the Stainless Steel Rat, that is.\n\n\"Talus Repair? Hello? I'm here to fix the malfunctioning robot.\"\n\n\"We have no malfunction here,\" the steel voice replied from the other side\nof the gate.\n\n\"Ah, but you would think that because you're malfunctioning.\"\n\n\"But I'm not ma...\"\n\nThat was when the bomb went off.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nChe\n\nChé Franz Joseph Monro -- http://www.chemonro.com\nche at chemonro.com -- flirt at technologist.com\n\n\nYes. Nicely done.\n I do wonder how what your age and what you've read before influences your\nreading of things. My reading started in the 70's and a lot of authors I\nread then had published back in the 50's.\n Consequently I found reading Neuromancer thrilling in a genre breaking way\nthat I'm sure I wouldn't if I was 18 now. I've done some reading of classic\nbooks that date well before me and I've not managed to experience the thrill\nthat their contemporaneous readers would have done.\n So back to my original point does Wolfe introduce certain things like\nNeedlers to introduce a sense of familiarity, or because he has a fondness\nfor them or because he's trying to lull us into a false sense of\ncomprehension.\n I still have major problems with Vampires who fly through space and 19th\ncentury foundries producing taluses. As we know that GW is a stickler for\naccuracy - does this mean that these are clues to some deeper reading of the\ntexts or simply meant to be accepted as written. The Horn/Nettle authorship\nof the LS books is another issue I struggle with\n Ambergris" } ] } ] }