Subject: (whorl) TBOTSS as fantasy

From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 10:46:21 +0000

on 2/14/01 6:08 AM, William Ansley at wansley at warwick.net wrote:

> I was also bothered by the impossibly large size of the (big)
> godling. Wolfe should make up his mind, is he writing science fiction
> or isn't he?
 
I think he isn't, actually.  I think RTTW, and TBOTSS as a whole, are more
fantasy than science fiction.

Allan Lloyd already pointed out other fantasy-like aspects of the books: the
Neighbors, who are more like helpful elves than sfnal aliens, have
unexplained powers, and can be called up by a magic ring; and the astral
travel, which can be FTL.  To which I would add the long-distance of Horn's
spirit into Silk, without the rationalizations supplied in TBOTLS for
possession via windows; and the inhumi's absorption of human's intelligence
by drinking their blood.

More than this, the whole feel of the series, to me, is more like
pre-Tolkien fantasy, where one fantastic episode followed another with no
attempt at rationalization or systematization [1], than like science
fiction.

In other words, having written two series which were science fiction with a
fantasy-like veneer, Wolfe has followed them up with a third series of
fantasy with a science fiction veneer.

--Adam

[1]  This is just a generalization; I'm sure there are exceptions.  And it's
not mine, but I don't remember where I got it from.

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---

From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 00:23:40 +0000

>possession via windows; and the inhumi's absorption of human's intelligence

[...]

>fantasy with a science fiction veneer.

But they're all the same series! I assume you mean that NS/UNS* and 
LS are the SF disguised as fantasy and SS is the fantasy disguised as 
SF.

No one forced Wolfe to write LS as a series loosely (and, before SS, 
uncertainly) linked to NS and UNS. Likewise, he did not have to write 
SS, as a direct continuation of LS and a series that also makes the 
link between LS/SS and NS/UNS all but certain. Wolfe choose to do so 
however. If he also choose to make the LS (and NS/UNS) SF and SS 
fantasy, I think he is being terribly unfair to his readers.

I am certainly not alone in reading SS as SF. All the arguments and 
discussions about the orbital mechanics of the Blue/Green system 
become meaningless if SS is fantasy. Robert Borski's reason's for 
saying he thinks the inhumi are lying when they say they can travel 
through space from Green to Blue and back are moot. The inhumi can 
fly through the vacuum just as easily as H. P. Lovecraft's beasties 
if SS is a fantasy.

Why does Wolfe bother to put in so many SFnal details, if we are 
supposed to read SS as a fantasy, To pick just one specific example, 
in OBW on pp. 52 - 53, Horn and Sinew are discussing weapons.

----------------
[Sinew: ] In that book you and Mother wrote, you have one of the 
soldiers tell somebody his slugs are made of some stuff I never heard 
of.

[Horn: ] Yes, depleted uranium.
----------------

Why does Wolfe bother with this passage, if all he wants to do is 
apply a veneer of SF to the book? Why wasn't the stuff Sinew never 
heard of pixie dust or duralloy or neutronium?

I can't say you are not right, because I don't know what was going on 
in Wolfe's mind, But, if you are right, I think Wolfe did a grave 
disservice to his readers and has made it impossible to seriously 
consider NS/UNS/LS/SS as a cohesive whole, which is surely what he 
wants; else why did he link the books so strongly?

William Ansley

* NS  = TBotNS = The Book of the New Sun (series)
   UNS = UotNS  = Urth of the New Sun (novel)
   LS  = TBotLS = The Book of the Long Sun (series)
   SS  = TBotSS = The Book of the Short Sun (series)

---

From: Alex David Groce <alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 01:57:41 +0000

I don't think SS is fantasy.  Or at least, I suspect it's not meant to
be read that way.

The reason it is problematic is that the narrator makes use of
abilities that are as strange as Severian's and we don't understand
why he has them or what their implications are.  In Severian's case,
we (sort of, at least) grasp the mechanisms (the corridors of time,
etc.).  Also, it's easier to buy an almost apotheosis as SF with
cosmic temporal metaphysics as underpinning than to understand what
appears to be a curiously limited yet amazingly powerful ability
granted by enigmatic people we learn a good deal less about than the
hierodules.

Basically, SS looks like fantasy until we have further understanding
of the role of the Neighbors.  I'm willing to bet that if we can get
that, it will be much easier to "buy" what Silkhorn does (as a use of
the corridors of time, it makes considerable sense).  But I, at least,
don't think I understand much about the Neighbors at all.

The godling seemed vaguely unneeded, and I'm willing to believe that
Wolfe used it as an impressive piece of stage setting (though I'd like
to have some better justification), but the Neighbors are central to
all three books, and I don't think they exist just "to be cool" or
give Silk comic book powers to show us how necrotic Urth really was.

--
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32
--
Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)
Ph.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department
8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce

---

From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 22:13:03 +0000

on 2/18/01 11:23 PM, William Ansley at wansley at warwick.net wrote:

> I am certainly not alone in reading SS as SF.

Certainly not; I read it that way myself until about a week ago.  It was
reading Allan Lloyd's letter that gave me the idea of seeing it as fantasy,
and I saw that it could provide a rationale for several of the features of
SS that had annoyed me.  And I don't exactly mean to say that SS is not SF,
or at least I don't now; see below.

> All the arguments and
> become meaningless if SS is fantasy.

I remember these discussions well because I participated in them.  But they
never came to a conclusion; and there's no indication of whether Wolfe ever
worried about making the orbital mechanics seem plausible.

> Robert Borski's reason's for
> through space from Green to Blue and back are moot.

Right; and there's no suggestion in the books of any alternative means for
them to travel from Green to Blue, which strongly suggests to me that they
do fly, despite the scientific implausibility and lack of any
rationalization thereof.

> supposed to read SS as a fantasy,
[example snipped]
> heard of pixie dust or duralloy or neutronium?

"Veneer" may have been the wrong word to use.  Certainly I didn't mean to
deny that the books take place in the future of our Earth, and involve such
SF tropes as a space colony seeded by a generation starship, self-aware
artifical humans, and so on.  A better way to put it migh have been that the
Short Sun books used the vocabulary of science fiction (for the most part),
but arranged it according to the syntax of fantasy.  Whether that makes them
"really science fiction" or "really fantasy" is a matter of taste.

> wants; else why did he link the books so strongly?

I think it's difficult to consider the universe of the books as a cohesive
whole, because of the implausibilities I and others (including you) have
pointed out in the Short Sun books, which don't mesh well with the other
books.  But I'm not sure that you can't consider the books themselves, as
works of literature, as a cohesive whole.  After all, if I'm correct it
wouldn't be the first time Wolfe has switched genres in the course of a
series.  I'm referring to the series of linked short stories that starts
with "The Dark of the June" (iirc) and ends with "Thag."  The first story is
definitely science fiction, the last is definitely fantasy.  What Wolfe's
purpose in doing the same thing here would be, and whether he pulls it off,
are things I would have to think more about.

Alex David Groce wrote:
 
> why he has them or what their implications are.

That's one reason; I gave others in my original post.
> don't think I understand much about the Neighbors at all.

This is a possibility, of course: that there will turn out to be an
explanation for the Neighbors and their powers that makes them plausible as
aliens.  But I'm dubious; similar enigmas in earlier books have proved
remarkably resistant to the best efforts of explicators, as this list shows.

> give Silk comic book powers to show us how necrotic Urth really was.

No, I certainly don't think that.  But I also don't think that they play the
same role as alien species in "real" sf.

In any case, I probably need to think this whole thing out further.

--Adam

---

From: James Jordan <jbjordan at gnt.net>
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 08:56:29 +0000

This is not really a "fair" question. Wolfe is on record as saying he 
believe in ghosts, that he believes that gods (angels) ran the world before 
Christ came, etc. Thus, for him, the "fantasy" elements in his SF novels 
are just part of reality. He's sticking with reality, as he comprehends 
reality. It's not a case of Arthur Clarke's dictum that any highly advanced 
science will look like magic to the uninitiated, though that's surely part 
of it. It's also that Wolfe believe that some kinds of "magic" are real.

Patera Nutria