{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4284",
    "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": 4284,
    "subject": "Thoughts before diving in...",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2005-01-03T11:30:32+00:00",
    "last": "2005-01-03T11:30:32+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<1f761737050103113047c9c3ef@mail.gmail.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes",
        "address": "danldo at gmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2005-01-03T11:30:32+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Thoughts before diving in...",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I finished \"It\" this morning and ... h'mmm. I'm not sure exactly what\nI think. I mean, I really _really_ like these books*, but I can't\nexactly say why.\n\nI think, though I'm not sure, that I found the ending somewhat\ndisappointing. It doesn't exactly fall apart, but it _comes_ apart -\nit's always under the writer's control, but still, a coherence is lost\nthat I can't quite put my finger on. Part of it (I think) is that in\nthe last fifty pages or so, the camera is, as it were, pulled way\nback: narrative time flows much more swiftly.\n\nThis is different from the gaps and skips-ahead that are typical of\nWolfe and that dot TWK. Rather, it isa sudden jump back from\nconstantly close narration and observation to wide-angle storytelling\nwith only brief scenes of actual narration, and very little\nobservation.\n\nWas it Alga who claimed that she felt that the last book of _Short\nSun_ felt as if Wolfe had lost interest? I have something of that\nfeeling about the end of _The Wizard_.\n\nPlus, the final-final bit reminded me rather uncomfortably of the\nfinal-final bit of Heinlein's _Job_, or even \"The Unpleasant\nProfession...\"\n\nStill, all told, I think TWK far and away the best fantasy novel I\nhave read in many, many years.\n\n* As indicated by the (rather gushing) quote from my NYRSF review of\n_The Knight_ on the bacover. I was both delighted and embarassed to\nfind it there: it makes up, somewhat, for having been quoted out of\ncontext on a Piers Anthony book some years ago, to make it sound like\na slam was a praise..."
        },
        {
          "kind": "sig",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer\nFreedom has no barcode.\n     --J.G. Ballard"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}