{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6591", "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": 6591, "subject": "The Beast from Severian's dream", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2014-08-01T11:42:02+00:00", "last": "2014-08-02T11:43:30+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "marcobadie at katamail.com", "address": "marcobadie at katamail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-01T11:42:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The Beast from Severian's dream", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "My first\npost to the Urth list.\n\nI’m a\nitalian reader of Gene Wolfe, starting from the ?80.\n\nFor many\nyears I have lurked this list acquiring ?from others large knowledge.\n\nNow I would\nlike to add at this list a little bit di wolfean lore from me, hoping it is something\noriginal, new...\n\n\n\nI have posted\non Facebook an image from a cover of Le Scienze (italian version of Scientific\nAmerican), painting the winged beast depicted at Chapter XV of The Shadow of the\nTorturer: Baldanders. It’s for an article on pterosaurs; please, note that the\nlargest of pterosaurs was QUETZALcoatlus\nnorthropi: wingspan 10?11 m (33?36 ft).\n\nThis is the\nlink: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=498029966987233&set=a.498029900320573.1073741827.100003407033067&type=1&theater\n\n\n\nThat is the\nrelevant text (Severian is dreaming):\n\nI bestrode\na great, leather-winged being under a lowering sky. Just equipoised between the\nrack of cloud and a twilit land we slid down a hill of air. Hardly once, it\nseemed to me, the finger-winged soarer flapped her long pinions. The dying sun\nwas before us, and it seemed we matched the speed of Urth, for it stood\nunmoving at the horizon, though we flew on and on.\n\nAt last I\nsaw a change in the land, and at first I thought it a desert. Far off, no\ncities or farms or woods or fields appeared, but only a level waste, a\nblackened purple in color, featureless and nearly static. The leathern-winged\none observed it as well, or perhaps snatched some odor from the air. I felt\niron muscles beneath me grow tense, and there were three wing strokes together.\nThe purple waste showed flecks of white. After a time I became aware that its\nseeming stillness was a sham born of uniformity - it was the same everywhere,\nbut everywhere in motion - the sea - the World-River Uroboros - cradling Urth.\nThen for the first time I looked behind me, seeing all the country of humankind\nswallowed in the night. \n\nWhen it was\ngone, and there was everywhere beneath us the waste of rolling water and\nnothing more, the beast turned her head to regard me. Her beak was the beak of\nan ibis, her face the face of a hag; on her head was a miter of bone. For an\ninstant we regarded each other, and I seemed to know her thought: You dream;\nbut were you to wake from your waking, I would be there.\n\nHer motion\nchanged as a lugger's does when the sailors make it to come about on the\nopposite tack. One pinion? dipped, the?\nother? rose? until?\nit? pointed? toward?\nthe? sky, and?\nI? scrabbled? at?\nthe? scaled? hide?\nand plummeted into the sea. The shock of the impact woke me.\n\n\n\nPlease note\nthe magazine’s date: Avril 1981!\n\nFirst\nedition of The Shadow of the Torturer: 1980!\n\nThe\ncorridors of time, of course!\n\n\n\nLast but\nnot least, thanks to Marc Aramini for his wonderful posts!!!\n\nDa: \"Urth\" urth-bounces at lists.urth.net\nA: urth at lists.urth.net\nCc: \nData: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 01:00:25 -0700\nOggetto: Urth Digest, Vol 120, Issue 1" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Send Urth mailing list submissions to\n\turth at lists.urth.net\n\nTo subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit\n\thttp://lists.urth.net/listinfo.cgi/urth-urth.net\nor, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to\n\turth-request at lists.urth.net\n\nYou can reach the person managing the list at\n\turth-owner at lists.urth.net\n\nWhen replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific\nthan \"Re: Contents of Urth digest...\"\n\n\nToday's Topics:\n\n 1. Re: short story project so far (Greg Bates)\n 2. Re: short story project so far (Marc Aramini)\n 3. Question about Books of the Short Sun - the (atrocious)\n Kindle edition (Akimon Azuki)\n 4. Re: short story project so far (Mo Holkar)\n\n\n----------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nMessage: 1\nDate: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 21:03:36 -0400\nFrom: Greg Bates \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSubject: Re: (urth) short story project so far\nMessage-ID:\n\t\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=\"utf-8\"\n\nAll I can say is that I've really enjoyed reading this series so far, and\nI'd be all for putting it in a book format!\n\n\nOn Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 1:36 PM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Well, I am about 33 percent done with Wolfe's published stories after this\nnext one, \"The Doctor of Death Island\" ... I plan on skipping two numbers\nand returning to \"The Eyeflash Miracles\" and \"Seven American Nights\" after\nI consider them a bit more.\n\nI would really like to tear through the 80s more quickly than the 70s, and\nit should be possible since Wolfe's time on long novels and series vastly\nreduced the length and allusive depth of his short fiction. ... However, I\nfeel that 7 American Nights and probably Cabin on the Coast in the early\n80s marked a shift away from SF tropes to more fantastic ones, which are a\nbit less easy to mark \"objectively\" - some stories might actually have\nunresolvable mysteries, though I don't think anything written before 1980\nactually does.\n\nThe write-ups I feel are least satisfactory are \"The Green Wall Said\",\n\"The Blue Mouse\", \"Paul's Treehouse\" - though I think the garment district\nuprising in \"A Criminal Proceeding\" and mentioned briefly in \"Operation\nARES\" can explain who is actually rioting in that story, \"Hour of Trust\"\n(what is the name of the company running everything, whose symbol is gold\nstamped instruments? That write up gave me more problems than you would\nthink) \"The Island of Doctor Death an Other Stories\", and perhaps the Thag\nstories.\n\nI am most satisfied with \"The Changeling\", \"Many Mansions\" - (those houses\nare luring people in and are merely dressed up as familiar, tempting human\nhouses with mimicry, and might even be planting something, human-alien\nsymbiotic style, inside people through the strong drink), \"The HORARS of\nWar\", and \"Trip, Trap\" write ups.\n\nI already know exactly what type of essays I will be finishing up on Long\nSun, Latro, and Home Fires, but the rest will take some time and I might\nnot return to New Sun until the majority of the short fiction and shorter\nnovels are done.\n\nAll considered the project might be close to 2,000 pages or so when I am\ndone.\nOf course it would need hefty revision and citation, but lately I have\nconsidered perhaps trying to publish it upon completion - short essays on\nthe long fiction in front which would be my own thesis based developments,\nnot comprehensive looks at all, and the story analysis section after that.\nA traditional publisher would never touch it, I imagine, and it would be\nfar too big for a small or university press, but perhaps an ebook would\nwork. Anyone think that would be viable? Should I even, say, try to split\nit in half? Just thought I would see what you guys thought, as this has\nbeen a WHOLE lot of work, even though I love it.\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-01T21:24:18+00:00", "subject": "(urth) FW: The Beast from Severian's dream", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "----------------------------------------" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: severiansola at hotmail.com\nTo: urth at urth.net\nSubject: The Beast from Severian's dream\nDate: Fri, 1 Aug 2014 17:18:36 -0400" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Marco Badie: I bestrode\na great, leather-winged being under a lowering sky. Just equipoised between the\nrack of cloud and a twilit land we slid down a hill of air. Hardly once, it\nseemed to me, the finger-winged soarer flapped her long pinions." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I would want to note that Severian also dreams of undines and later encounters a\n\nreal one. He also encounters such pterodon creatures that he rides in his dream in\n\nhis encounter with Hethor and Agia as they take him from the battlefield." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The corridors of time, of course!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Absolutely! Wolfe meant us to understand these corridors from such passages in the\n\nfirst four books of BotNS, but mostly we didn't. So he had to explain it better and\n\nand clearer in Urth Of The New Sun.\n\n\nWhat I want to ask is how Hethor, who brings the pterodons, might be related to the\n\ncorridors of time?\n\n\nHe, like Father Inire, is a mirror master who can summon strange creatures. He, like\n\nFather Inire is of alien origin. He, like Father Inire, is a twisted little guy....\n\n\nFrom his mumblings, we can determine that Hethor was a crewman who rose to First Mate\n\nstatus on a certain ship but was expelled for mutiny.\n\n\nOn Tzadkiel's ship, we find a group of mutineers named \"jibers\" and someone who looks\n\nlike Hethor is found among them.\n\n\nTzadkiel is a archangel. Would an expelled mutineer who found himself on Urth be\n\nconsidered as a \"fallen angel\"?\n\n\nFamulimus and Barbatus are aliens but are highly likened to angels who visit Urth\n\nbut do not reside there.\n\n\nWhat status might this give Father Inire and The Cumaean who are aliens but do\n\nreside on Urth? \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<53DCCEE2.2000103@bindweed.com>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2014-08-02T11:43:30+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The Beast from Severian's dream", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 01/08/2014 12:42, marcobadie at katamail.com wrote:\n\nI have posted on Facebook an image from a cover of Le Scienze (italian \nversion of Scientific American), painting the winged beast depicted at \nChapter XV of The Shadow of the Torturer: Baldanders. It's for an \narticle on pterosaurs; please, note that the largest of pterosaurs \nwas*_QUETZAL_*coatlus northropi: wingspan 10--11 m (33--36 ft).\n\nThis is the link: \nhttps://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=498029966987233&set=a.498029900320573.1073741827.100003407033067&type=1&theater" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The scene definitely has a Wolfean look to it!\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] } ] }