{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4053",
    "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": 4053,
    "subject": "World-building in short stories",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2003-06-28T07:43:56+00:00",
    "last": "2003-06-28T15:52:50+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0306-3546@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Nicholas Gevers",
        "address": "vermoulian at yahoo.com"
      },
      "date": "2003-06-28T07:43:56+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) World-building in short stories",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Interesting comments regarding \"Semley's Necklace\". It\nstrikes that me that one quite famous novelette--Jack\nVance's \"The New Prime\"--builds not one world but six,\neach in a dense vignette. That story dates from the\nFifties. Vance had the cheek to make contemporary\nEarth one of the six, a place no less exotic and\nbizarre than the rest.\n\n--Nick Gevers."
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0306-3548@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com"
      },
      "date": "2003-06-28T15:52:50+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) World-building in short stories",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0306-3546@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Nick Gevers wrote:\nIt\nstrikes that me that one quite famous novelette--Jack\nVance's \"The New Prime\"--builds not one world but six,\neach in a dense vignette. That story dates from the\nFifties. Vance had the cheek to make contemporary\nEarth one of the six, a place no less exotic and\nbizarre than the rest."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Yes, I did think of \"The New Prime,\" which is an interesting story for a\nnumber of reasons.  But as you say, the worlds are very sketchy -- this is\nnot detrimental to the story at all . . . in a way, this is a Vancean\napproach to Le Guin's technique in \"Semley's Necklace\" in that Vance\npresents several all at once, but he is making them from Vance-scratch\nrather than using sf and fairy tale stock.  (Granted that \"Vance-scratch\"\ninvolves a patented blend of sf and fairy tale stock!)\n\nI do like the story.  It has some unusual twists, even for Vance.  It would\nseem to follow what I said about \"Moon Moth\": every social detail/world has\na direct crucial bearing on the story and the conclusion; it is longer than\na short story.\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSirius Fiction\nbooklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/\n\neBay Auctions\nhttp://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=mr.sirius"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}