April Fool's Day posts The Whorl list — 2 messages, 1 voices, 09 Apr 2000 https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/814 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. ============================================================================== Timothy Reilly — 09 Apr 2000, 06:21 > In urth.v028.n174, Steve wrote: > From: Redhaven1 at aol.com > Subject: Long Sun vs. New Sun > Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2000 21:53:23 EST > MIME-Version: 1.0 > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > Please don't crucify me. . . > > I got started on Wolfe when I was sick in the hospital. My parents > offered to pick up some books to help pass the time and I suggested a book > I > had heard of called The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. The only Wolfe > books Border's had were the last two books of the Long Sun series. Frankly, > I'm glad it was these two or I wouldn't be posting on this list today. I > loved Calde and Exodus and immediately began to try to read all the Wolfe > books I could find. I ordered the Book of the New Sun as a single volumn > from the book club I was in. Upon reading it I was extremely > dissappointed. > I didn't think it was near as good as the Long Sun. To me, it seemed like > a > strange, disjointed fairy-tale that kinda wanted to be sci-fi. I admit, > the > mood of the entire work was beautifully haunting, and when I get arround > to > reading it a second time I'll probably find a hundered things I missed, > but > in my view New Sun was the worst, Urth of the New Sun was little better, > and > Long Sun was best. Short Sun is shaping up to be the best yet. Well, > that's > my two bits. I just felt I had to defend the Long Sun, because it's what > got > me hooked. If I had started on New Sun, I don't think I'd be a Wolfe fan. > > -Steve Steve I've been trying to resist responding to your post, but then I thought to look at its date. Explains everything! If, on the other hand, it does not fall into the same category as Wolfe does Star Trek, I have to say your ranking of TBNS, UNS and TBLS is the precise opposite of mine (and some others' I notice...). However, much as I disagree with your views, your crucifixion for holding them just might be an overreaction. (Though it is _tempting_ to punish such heresy with appropriate severity. This sounds like Patera Incus - whatever happened to him?) _Fascinating_ idea to start TBLS in Vol 3. Maybe if I had I would've enjoyed it more. On the other hand maybe it's just hard for Australians to enjoy a series where a murderously malevolent goddess is named after a cute little marsupial like an echidna. (For those who don't know - or possess Lexicon Urthus - an echidna is similar to a big hedgehog, and even more harmless). It's as if the gods are named Pas, Scylla, Goofy, Tartarous... BTW, it occurred to me that this (Echidna's name) seems the only example of the naming convention of Vironese males=animals being applied to a god (and a female one at that), in the sense that as far as I am aware all the other gods are not named after animals (or anything else in particular). Anyone have any ideas why? Finally, one more reason to think that it is not Horn writing OBW is that, in comparison with TBLS, he has thankfully (miraculously? mercifully!) learnt how to write. Plus I suppose there's some symmetry if the author of the Book of Horn is infact Silk. Tim *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Timothy Reilly — 09 Apr 2000, 23:07 follows, by subject match Timothy Reilly Can I rush to correct a howler in my last post before anyone else does? An echidna is of course a monotreme, _not_ a marsupial. It accordingly lays eggs, just like the even more adorable platypus (a so far unclaimed potential Vironese name). (Marsupials like kangaroos and wombats have live young which they suckle in pouches). Echidnas also eat ants and roll into a ball when threatened. Does any of this sound like our fearsome goddess? I think not. Tim *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------