{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4531",
    "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": 4531,
    "subject": "Origins of Ascians",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2006-02-05T01:52:12+00:00",
    "last": "2006-02-05T02:57:25+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<6d9d379a0602041752j4fc2f98hc0189955c77d2106@mail.gmail.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Jordan Dennis",
        "address": "jordanden at gmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2006-02-05T01:52:12+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Origins of Ascians",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I would like to throw in another perspective on the origins of the Ascians,\nif I may.\n\nIn his interview with James Jordan, Gene Wolfe said that he owed a big debt\nto Jack Vance. Let me quote that passage of the interview --\n\n*----------------------------------------------------------\nJJ:* Was Jack Vance's style an influence on the style of the Severian\nnovels?\n\n*GW:* Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. A lot of that was my deciding to rewrite *The\nDying Earth* from my own standpoint.\n\n*JJ:* Wonderful book.\n\n*GW:* Yes it is wonderful. And of course when you read wonderful books\nsometimes you think, \"Gee, I would like to do that\"; and you go off and do\nit, trying to make it different enough that you are not really ripping off\nthe author, but rather writing something in the same vein using some of the\nsame ideas. I have never concealed a debt to Jack Vance and a debt to Clark\nAshton Smith as far as that goes. I think Vance is very much in the debt to\nClark Ashton Smith.\n*----------------------------------------------------------*\nThe entirety of the interview can be found at\nhttp://mysite.verizon.net/~vze2tmhh/wolfejbj.html<http://mysite.verizon.net/%7Evze2tmhh/wolfejbj.html>.\n\n\nI recently picked up the Orb trade paperback, Tales of the Dying Earth, but\nonly started to read it this morning, with the context of this discussion\nfresh in my mind, and something immediately jumped out at me.  On page 32,\none of the characters asked a magician to transport her to Ascolais. What if\nAscia and the Ascians were a permutation of Ascolais that Gene Wolfe meant\nas a sort of homage to one of his inspirations? That would be a good reason\nto explain why he was suprised when people began associating the Ascians\nwith Asians.\n\n\nAnyway, just a thought."
        },
        {
          "kind": "sig",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Jordan D. Dennis"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<026901c629ff$e4d98de0$0301a8c0@wdw.disney.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "James Wynn",
        "address": "thewynns at earthlink.net"
      },
      "date": "2006-02-05T02:57:25+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Origins of Ascians",
      "in_reply_to": "<6d9d379a0602041752j4fc2f98hc0189955c77d2106@mail.gmail.com>",
      "reply_link": "header",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "What if Ascia and the Ascians were a permutation of Ascolais that Gene Wolfe\nmeant as a sort of homage to one of his inspirations?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "eh.....I don't know. It seems a stretch since I can't think of any other connection beyond the name.  But I'm no one to talk since I've always suspected Ascolais is connected to the term \"akolasia\" meaning \"licentiousness\". \n\nBut wait until you get to the story of Cugel. The writing is soo subtly funny. And Severian is surely an homage to the shirtless, sword wielding Cugel.\n\nJ"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}