World-building in short stories
The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 28 Jun 2003
https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4053

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Nicholas Gevers — 28 Jun 2003, 07:43

Interesting comments regarding "Semley's Necklace". It
strikes that me that one quite famous novelette--Jack
Vance's "The New Prime"--builds not one world but six,
each in a dense vignette. That story dates from the
Fifties. Vance had the cheek to make contemporary
Earth one of the six, a place no less exotic and
bizarre than the rest.

--Nick Gevers.

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Michael Andre-Driussi — 28 Jun 2003, 15:52
  follows, by subject match Nicholas Gevers

> Nick Gevers wrote:
> It
> strikes that me that one quite famous novelette--Jack
> Vance's "The New Prime"--builds not one world but six,
> each in a dense vignette. That story dates from the
> Fifties. Vance had the cheek to make contemporary
> Earth one of the six, a place no less exotic and
> bizarre than the rest.

Yes, I did think of "The New Prime," which is an interesting story for a
number of reasons.  But as you say, the worlds are very sketchy -- this is
not detrimental to the story at all . . . in a way, this is a Vancean
approach to Le Guin's technique in "Semley's Necklace" in that Vance
presents several all at once, but he is making them from Vance-scratch
rather than using sf and fairy tale stock.  (Granted that "Vance-scratch"
involves a patented blend of sf and fairy tale stock!)

I do like the story.  It has some unusual twists, even for Vance.  It would
seem to follow what I said about "Moon Moth": every social detail/world has
a direct crucial bearing on the story and the conclusion; it is longer than
a short story.

=mantis=


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