{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/683",
    "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'"
  },
  "archive": "whorl",
  "thread": {
    "id": 683,
    "subject": "Black Hole Series -- I hope not!",
    "messages": 3,
    "voices": 3,
    "first": "1999-10-12T16:04:56+00:00",
    "last": "1999-10-13T08:26:10+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0010-0096@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "David_Lebling",
        "address": "david_lebling at avid.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-10-12T16:41:28+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Black Hole Series -- I hope not!",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Lots of the speculations engendered by Kevin Maroney's hints (and some before\nthat -- it isn't his fault) revolve around what I call the Black Hole Series\nphilosophy.  That is, Urth is Green (or Blue), Blue is St. Anne, Silk is\nSeverian, Seawrack is Merryn, Horn is Silk's cousin, Horn is Severian's second\ncousin twice removed, Marble is Jonas, and so on, until every detail of the\nauthor's earlier works is sucked into the black hole of the current one.\n\nIn these sorts of series, it turns out everyone is related to everyone else, all\nthe mysteries are cleared up by connecting them with chains of infodump to all\nthe other mysteries, gods fly down from the ceiling on wires, galactic\nconspiracies are exposed, and the whole enterprise is revealed to be a shaggy\ndog story.  Asimov's attempt to spot-weld the Robot stories to the Foundation\nseries is the Milli Vanilla poster-child-classic of this genre, and Niven's\n\"Down in Flames\" is the intentional _reductio ad absurdem_.\n\nWith all due respect to those who are speculating along these lines, that isn't\ngonna be what Wolfe is doing here.  He's too good a writer for that.\n\nI hope.\n\n     -- Dave Lebling\n     (aka vizcacha)\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0010-0098@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Jim Jordan",
        "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net"
      },
      "date": "1999-10-12T16:04:56+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (whorl) Black Hole Series -- I hope not!",
      "in_reply_to": "<whorl-v0010-0096@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "\tHope you're right. To be honest, the business of Severian's showing up in\nthe current series has always struck me as kind of hokey, and it will\nrequire Wolfe at his best to convince me. Of course, I know he will, and\nI'll be happy.\n\tI keep thinking that we've really got two huge trilogies going here. The\nfirst consists of TBNS and TUNS, which leaves the story of Severian\nhanging, and projects a third book (book series) left to go. And now it\nappears that the current trilogy is going to leave us hanging, as Horn\nseems to be left hanging, which might project a third and final set of\nbooks to round out the Silk story.\n\tOh, stupid me! Scratch that. I was thinking that OBW was written by\nsomeone at the end of his own journey, but the next two volumes will carry\nthe total story forward, and perhaps round things out fully.\n\tBut I'm not counting on it. Since when has Wolfe ever left us feeling that\nit's all been told? \n\t(He'd better not die anytime soon).\n\nNutria\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0010-0107@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Straight",
        "address": "straight at email.unc.edu"
      },
      "date": "1999-10-13T08:26:10+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (whorl) Black Hole Series -- I hope not!",
      "in_reply_to": "<whorl-v0010-0098@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "On Tue, 12 Oct 1999 David_Lebling at avid.com wrote:\nWith all due respect to those who are speculating along these lines, that isn't\ngonna be what Wolfe is doing here.  He's too good a writer for that.\n\nI hope."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Here! Here! Huzzah! Amen! Me Too!\n\n-Rostrum\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}