{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4519",
    "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": 4519,
    "subject": "TWK: The books",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2005-12-01T02:30:32+00:00",
    "last": "2005-12-01T02:30:32+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<002d01c5f61f$376c7140$883ec6d8@rclackey.stic.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Roy C. Lackey",
        "address": "rclackey at stic.net"
      },
      "date": "2005-12-01T02:30:32+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) TWK: The books",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Very thoughtful, James."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "2) A mysterious complex central character that is, for some undefined\nreason, destined to conquer all comers and rise to a predetermined glorious\nfate (it is unlikely Able would have been beaten in hand-to-hand combat\nwith\nanyone at that remote pass even before he went to Skai: \"the sea\" would\nhave\n\"risen\" within him and he'd have wiped out all comers); when I say\n\"destined\", I mean it much more strongly than would be applied to, say,\nConan the Barbarian."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I quite agree.\n\n[snip]"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "I think Tor Publishing recognized this when they were creating buzz about\nthe book. They were claiming this was Wolfe's first entry into juvenalia\n(and thus something \"new\" from Wolfe). That was simply not true.This is not\na book \"for kids\". This book is not going to end up in any Middle School\nlibrary, any more than any of the Sun cycle novels are, or the Latro\nstories-- much less than FIFTH HEAD."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I wonder how well TWK actually sold, and if there was a significant drop in\nsales of the second book relative to the first. If I were young, I don't\nthink I would have bothered with the second book, and I had/have more\npatience than most. There really isn't much of a surface story there; not\nwhat I would call a \"page turner\", and, from what I know of today's youth\nand their short attention spans, I don't understand how anyone -- the author\nor the publisher -- could have believed the book could be successfully\nmarketed as YA. And those efforts made to appeal to young people might well\nturn off more mature buyers. I know I don't normally buy YA books.\n\n[snip]"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "And I\nthink many people have become resigned (which they had not regarding NEW\nSUN\nwhen this list started) to the fact that some Wolfe mysteries will never be\nresolved--so why wrestle with it as much?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Sad, if true. Without the mysteries, how much is left? Too much of what\nmakes the plots tick, to say nothing of any deeper understanding, is bound\nup with the puzzles, and that seems to be more the case with each new book.\nWho really reads Joyce? At what point does an author become a victim of his\nown cleverness?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Consequently, while Wolfe will likely continue to produce novels that are\nread by other fiction writers, I don't think Wolfe *can* break out\npopularly\nwith another novel until he produces something like \"The Silmarillion of\nthe\nNew Sun\". Having Wolfe EXPLAIN something...that would be new. But that\nmight\n*spoil* the books for people who have been crazy about them up 'til now--\npeople cannot possibly like Wolfe's explanation as much as their private\ntheories of what is going on."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "That's what Wolfe tried with THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN, and many readers\n*didn't* like it -- including some on this list -- for precisely the reason\nyou gave. When an author tries to communicate one thing and the reader\nunderstands something else, then one or the other has failed.\n\n-Roy"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}