Subject: (urth) All the Hues of Hell

From: Ron Crown <crownrw at slu.edu>
Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 09:30:42 +0000

[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

Alga mentioned a while back that The Island of Doctor Death and Other
Stories and Other Stories is coming out soon and would be fun to
discuss.  I've been reading a couple of Wolfe short stories reprinted in
David Hartwell's The Ascent of Wonder anthology and thought maybe a
discussion of these could jump start us with short stories.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

The first story is the one mentioned in the subject line.  For those of
you who haven't read it or may have forgotten it, the story is about a
crew of three, two humans and one mechanical being of some type (this is
one you have to suss out for yourself, BTW, though considering it's
Wolfe, the clues are fairly obvious), investigating while in orbit
around it a world of "shadow matter"(dark matter?).  While observing the
shadow planet they discover a humaniform being of some type, capture it
and bring it on board their vessel.  One of the human characters thinks
he is dead and that the vessel has actually reached Hell and its never
made clear (at least not to me) whether this character is actually dead
or (as the crew robot claims) insane.

Anyway, the main question for me is the ending.  The crew has a pet
macaw (named Polyaris; can anyone think of other Wolfe stories with
birds who figure importantly, Oreb is obviously one) who suddenly begins
a screech that signals "Danger! Fire! Flood! INVASION and CATASTROPHE!"
The shadow being then begins to change color from an original "dusty
pinkish brown" fading to gray and then white.  He then curls into a
fetal position.

At the same time the female crew member, who is carrying the male crew
member's child has not observed any of this but is touching her belly
and says "It moved [i.e. the fetus]! It just moved.  I felt life!"  End
of story.

The editors blurb compares this ending to the end of 2001 but it seems
to me there is a little more going on here, though as is usual with
Wolfe, I'm not sure what.  For one thing, there seems to be some sort of
parallel being drawn between the female crew member's pregnancy and the
crew's vessel (named the _Egg_) being fertilized (?) by the shadow
creature (representing a sperm? I'll have to go back and check the
description) coming on board the vessel.  The shadow being is kept in
some type of stasis field, not called that but referred to as a "yolk;"
this "yolk" only appears when the shadow being is brought on board.

And I haven't even mentioned the color imagery which is obviously of
great significance (see the title) but maybe this is enough to get some
discussion going.

BTW, the story is also found in _Endangered Species_.  The other story
in The Ascent of Wonder is "Procreation" but I'll leave that for another
time as this has gotten long enough already.

Ron Crown
crownrw at slu.edu

---

From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan at gnt.net>
Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 21:30:06 +0000

A bit more:

	Skip is from skipper, which he should be, but isn't, because the robots are.
	KUL 23011. I don't have a complete Greek dictionary, but like "aris," we
should see if "kul" means anything.
	23011 might mean 666, like this: 2x3=6, x1=6, x1=6. I would not suggest
this except for the use of 666 in "Fifth Head." In a story about hell and
antichrist, we might expect Wolfe to use 666, as he did in "Fifth Head."

Nutria

---

From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan at gnt.net>
Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 21:13:56 +0000

I'll bite.
	For one thing, the pregnant woman is named Marilyn, for Mary. 
	For another, it seems that humanity is now ruled by machines (the Director
and Kyle, for instance). That's bad.
	Moreover, it is clear that Kyle (largely a machine) wants Marilyn. Did he
kill Skip? The implications are that he did. Skip, or his ghost, says that
Kyle wants the shadow man; he and the Director do. 
	Is Skip right that the shadow man is a demon? There are hints that he is.
The shadow man has horns, which mystify robot Kyle.
	When the shadow man dies, Marilyn feels her baby move. Clearly, the shadow
man has moved into her womb. Antichrist is soon to be born. Compare the
*Fifth Head of Cerberus* original novella (part one of the triptych).
	The machine rulers of humanity have no perception of good and evil, or God
and demon. They simply worship all life, regardless of its place in the
scheme of things. Unwittingly, they have now introduced antichrist into the
world.
	The bird, Polyaris, realizes this. Poly means many, but Aris I did not
uncover. 
	Color imagery: The bright colors of Polyaris are true nature colors; the
shadow is invisible. It may be seen (rightly) as a series of hellish hues
(Skip), or appear as an angel of light (Kyle and Marilyn). 
	I'd take the title as the clue: This really is hell.

Nutria