Subject: (urth) Thecla's fourth book

From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2003 23:21:21 +0000

Andrew Bollen wrote:
>    I know there was some discussion of this, sometime,  but I can't find
>it on a quick search. Sev fetches four books for Thecla -  Wonders, a book
>of devotions, something to do with heraldry, and another one.  Hope I've
>got that right - anyway, I recall that three of the books were  described
>in at least some detail, but one wasn't, which in Wolfe world usually
>means we're supposed to ask questions about it.  Thoughts?

The hidden book is (Canog's) THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN. (See Wolfe's essay in
PLAN[E]T ENGINEERING for more details.)

=mantis=

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From: Don Palumbo <enpalumb at earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2003 17:00:56 +0000

Andrew,

That's really interesting, especially as the content of THE BOOK OF THE NEW 
SUN is already inside The Book of the New Sun in that we get the text of 
Dr. Talos' play, which is explicitly based on it, for about twenty pages at 
the end of CLAW, so it would be especially neat if this book itself was 
also inside the book.  The dozens of other tales within tales in BNS are 
the best examples of numerous other instances of the nod to fractal 
structure that Wolfe is giving, here, in basing BNS on Campbell's monomyth 
(that Severian's companion through most of CLAW--which is the "Belly of the 
Whale" episode in the monomyth--is named Jonas is another 
big-but-not-so-subtle nod), which also has a remarkably thorough fractal 
structure (but not a whole lot of people know it).

So, is there any evidence in the text of the tetralogy itself that this 4th 
book in THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN?

And where exactly can I find this essay in PLAN[E]T ENGINEERING?

--Don Palumbo

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From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2003 15:03:33 +0000

>And where exactly can I find this essay in PLAN[E]T ENGINEERING?

I will answer the last part: PLAN[E]T ENGINEERING is a book published by
NESFA Press in 1984.  The first essay in this book is "Books in THE BOOK OF
THE NEW SUN."  That is the essay I referred to.

=mantis=

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