{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/691",
    "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": 691,
    "subject": "OBW Various",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-10-14T09:54:26+00:00",
    "last": "1999-10-14T09:54:26+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0010-0112@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "David_Lebling",
        "address": "david_lebling at avid.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-10-14T09:54:26+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) OBW Various",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Length of _Whorl's_ voyage.  I recall a remark by Marble, in the scene where she\nis remembering the mustering of the chems before departure, where she mentions\nhow old she is.  I don't have the book handy, so I can't be sure, but that would\nprovide an upper bound for the length of voyage.\n\nThe Writing of TBotLS.  Speculations on how Horn might have had help writing\n_The Book of Silk_ seem to forget that he did have help, from his wife Nettle.\nHe also describes how they reconstructed scenes where they weren't present, by\ninventing \"typical\" dialogue that led to the outcomes they knew.  I might also\nmention that the style in TBoS is quite different from that of OBW, and I\nattribute that to Nettle's influence.  Horn, on several occasions, laments that\nwithout her organizational ability, the present work will be inferior.  This is\nnot to say that I don't agree that Something Is Up with respect to who Horn\nactually is...\n\nOn Black Holes.  David Alan Groce captures one half of my BH worries (plot\nkludgery and retroactive undermining of earlier books), and Jim Jordan the other\n(Severian showing up on the _Whorl_).  Severian, after _Urth of the New Sun_, is\nso nearly a _deus ex machina_ plot device that his appearance would be very\ndangerous.  But this isn't what I worry about (Wolfe can pull that sort of thing\noff typing with one finger).  What I dislike is series where you feel more and\nmore constricted because it begins to appear that there are really only about a\ndozen Real People in the universe.  Heinlein fell into this in his later novels,\nas well as the _deus_ stuff.  What eventually happens is that every new\ncharacter you meet turns out to be a previously introduced character, or related\nto one.  I suppose \"All You Zombies\" is the ultimate one of these, but it's a\nshort story.  Anyway, I'll shut up about this now.\n\nDistant Possibility.  I'm very impressed by Jim Jordan's (possible) explanation\nof the changes in Horn's attitudes depending on which (possible) personality is\ndoing the writing.  I too had noticed that at times he seems genuinely\nremorseful at his adultery, his \"failure,\" and so on, and at others not.  I had\ntentatively attributed this to mood shifts and the presence or absence of\nSeawrack and later her songs.  Now I'll have to take another look.  The whole DP\nidea is very interesting: there's a whole lot of plot between the end of the\n\"past\" and the beginning of the \"present\" OBW plot threads in which it (or\nanything else) could happen.\n\nSpoilers.  While I can forgive Kevin his post, I hope we don't get any more like\nit from Those In The Know.  Wolfe did say that Sev and his sister would appear\nin the trilogy, so most of what KJM spilled wasn't too much of a spoiler, but\nplease, in the future, keep it zipped.\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."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}