Subject: (urth) Hues, HORARS

From: Robert Borski <rborski at coredcs.com>
Date: Sat, 11 Jul 1998 20:10:34 +0000

A couple of people have suggested that "All the Hues of Hell" is somehow
related to "Silhouette," but I'd like to suggest it's the fugue sequel to
still another story--"The HORARS of War." (Fugue here means
reflective/refractive, not necessarily directly related; cf. the four
"island" stories in THE WOLFE ARCHIPELAGO. Yet another operative
description might be "Shadow Play.")

Consider the follow correspondences, obversed and otherwise.

"War is hell." 

The Egg = the command bunker.

Polyaris = the ornithopter (like "Polaris," a weapon of war).

Brenner = Jansen (both names are Dutch, but in Hues it's Jansen who
"deviates" from his "programing" rather than 2910.)

Lieutenant Kyle = cyborg Kappa Upsilon Lambda 23011 (aka "Kyle;" note too
how 23011 recalls the serial numbers of the HORARS.)

Shadow world = the mud of HORARS and 2910's eclipsed vision ("There's a
sort of black stuff all around the sides when I see.")

Both stories share Nativity imagery. From HORARS "A star in the east for
men not born of women" to Marilyn's alien/immaculate conception. (Both
share a lot of other religious imagery, which is probably why some
people--perhaps rightly--see links between "Hues" and "Silhouettes.")

Pinocchio and Punch, the robot tanks, in HORARS, play off of Shadow Show,
the ship in Hues. (Who is Gepetto in each?)

And lastly, there's Marilyn's attraction to cybernetic Kyle. Is this what's
driven human Jansen insane--his wife's potential sexual dalliance with
robot Mandingo? This is echoed by 2910's opinion that more psychological
damage could be done to the humans in his outpost by dropping propaganda
shells that de-emphasized "the distaste they were supposed to feel at being
'confined with half-living flesh still stinking of chemicals'" and instead
"played up sex."

Is HORARS ("whores") the deranged Freudian dream of Jansen? Is "Hues" the
battle-psychosis-abetted nightmare of Brenner? Or do I have dreams and
dreamers reversed? And what are both stories *really* about?

Robert Borski (who also believes "Eyebem" may be part of the same story
cycle)

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/