Subject: (whorl) SF Book Club

From: BraveSaintCroix <bravesaintcroix at aol.com>
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 23:39:27 +0000

All,

    Whoo-pee, I finally feel like I have something worthwhile to contribute 
to this group- unless, of course, someone beats me to it.  I got the April 
catalogue of the Science Fiction Book Club today, and it has a one-page 
article/advertisement for the Book of the Short Sun.  Of course, as is the 
way of the SFBC, it makes the book sound terribly pulp-sci-fi-ish.  (. . . 
the inhumi, blood drinking aliens who take human form. . . )  It even seems 
to give away quiet a bit.  The last paragraph reads: "As his inability to 
find Silk weights heavily on his mind, Horn if further tormented by the fact 
that his new body bears a striking resemblance to the lost Calde.  In the 
end, he will have to answer a troubling question: has he truly failed in his 
sworn task, or has he become the very man he sought?"
    I'm not complaining though, because it also includes a "note from the 
author".  Gene Wolfe writes:  "At the end of the 18th Century, serious 
scientists denied that stones could fall from the sky.  At the end of this 
one, very few still insist that phenomena incapable of proof are beyond the 
realm of possibility.  We may doubt telepathy, ghost, and precognition- 
indeed, we should doubt them.  But we cannot rule them out altogether.  That 
phenomenon most often called astral projection plays a part in these books.  
(So does space travel, which most adults derided as utterly impossible not so 
long ago.)"  And here's what really got me: "Accept it for the sake of the 
story, and you may learn the identity of Master Malrubius's ghost."  (My 
emphasis.)  Wow.  That makes my head spin.  I didn't even think of that, and 
if I remember, no one on here has discussed it much.  Who then, was Master 
Malrubius's ghost?

-Steve 

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