{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/usenet/7",
    "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'"
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  "archive": "usenet",
  "thread": {
    "id": 7,
    "subject": "THE CITADEL OF THE AUTARCH and THE CASTLE OF THE OTTER",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1983-02-11T01:23:06+00:00",
    "last": "1983-02-11T01:23:06+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<bnews.sdchema.405>",
      "from": {
        "name": "sdchema!donn",
        "address": "sdchema!donn"
      },
      "date": "1983-02-11T01:23:06+00:00",
      "subject": "THE CITADEL OF THE AUTARCH and THE CASTLE OF THE OTTER",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Gene Wolfe's tetralogy THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN is now complete with the\npublication of THE CITADEL OF THE AUTARCH.  CITADEL follows the\nex-torturer Severian, shocked by his loss at the end of the previous\nvolume (THE SWORD OF THE LICTOR), as he wanders northward and becomes\nembroiled in the war with the Ascians.  It rapidly becomes apparent\nthat the war is more than just a struggle for territory, but its full\ncomplexity does not become apparent until a series of not-quite-\ncoincidences leads to Severian's accession to the position of Autarch\nof the realm.  The book concludes with Severian's regal return to the\nCitadel in which he was born and raised as a torturer, where he\nresolves to attempt to bring forth the New Sun, just as the former\nAutarch tried to do, but failed.  The book also explains more of the\nbackground to the peculiar Christian/Hindu mythology, and even provides\na science-fictional rationale for some of it.  All in all an excellent\nbook and worth buying in hardcover (as I did).  Most of the important\nthreads of plot from the previous volumes are wrapped up, but alas we\ndo not find out whether Severian succeeds in his final task; if this\nmatters to you, then you will want to read the (projected) sequel THE\nURTH OF THE NEW SUN when it comes out.\n\nIf like me you would like to know even more about the world of THE BOOK\nOF THE NEW SUN, there is yet another book, THE CASTLE OF THE OTTER\n(Ziesing Bros.: Willimantic, Connecticut, 1982, 117pp.).  The title of\nthis book derives from a mistaken announcement of CITADEL in Locus\nmagazine; Wolfe couldn't resist using the name because he knew the\nperfect epigram for it (from THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS).  Wolfe explains\nwhy he wrote the book:  \"When a writer has the gall to do an entire\nbook, even a very small one, about the writing of a previous book, it's\nmore or less customary for him to announce that he's acting in response\nto innumerable and insistent demands.  Unfortunately, I'm not...  Why\ndo it, then? Out of a sort of blind optimism.  Every writer worth his\ntwo-cents-a-word hopes, in some little corner of his mind at least,\nthat somewhere out there, there are a few people who will do more than\nread his book, pitch it away, and reach for the next one -- people who\nwill read and reread, study the cover, perhaps, in search of some clue,\nshelve the book and later take it out again, just to hold.  There was a\ntime when I could put the palm of my hand flat on the front of a\ntattered paperback called THE DYING EARTH and feel the magic seeping\nthrough the cardboard:  Turjan of Miir, Liane the Wayfarer, T'sais,\nChun the Unavoidable.  Nobody I knew had so much as heard of that book,\nbut I knew it was the finest book in the world.\"  Needless to say,\nTHE DYING EARTH by Jack Vance and its sequel THE EYES OF THE OVERWORLD\nare among my absolute favorite books and there are more than a few\nsimilarities between NEW SUN and DYING EARTH...  an interesting bit\nof trivia.\n\nMore trivia in THE CASTLE OF THE OTTER:\n\t* NEW SUN originated as an unpublished novella called THE FEAST\n\t\tOF SAINT CATHERINE.\n\t* The story grew from a novella to a novel to a trilogy to finally\n\t\ta tetralogy...\n\t* NEW SUN as a whole went through two drafts before the first\n\t\tvolume came out, in a situation not unlike THE LORD OF\n\t\tTHE RINGS -- Wolfe wanted to be able to change the first\n\t\tbook on the basis of plot events in the last book...\n\t* There is a chapter \"Words Weird and Wonderful\" that glosses\n\t\tall the strange words in THE SHADOW OF THE TORTURER on a\n\t\tchapter by chapter basis.\n\t* There are also chapters on writing, on publishing, on warfare\n\t\tin Severian's time and also a chapter containing a set\n\t\tof jokes as told by various characters from NEW SUN.\n\nYours trivially,"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}