Wolfe, "Book of the New Sun"

Donald Lindsay · 10 Aug 1992, 04:55 · from sf-lovers.1992.mbox

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From: lindsay+ at cs.cmu.edu (Donald Lindsay)
Subject: Re: Wolfe, "Book of the New Sun"
Date: 10 Aug 92 04:55:30 GMT
Message-ID: <sflovers-v17-411-11 at digest.sf-lovers>
X-Digest-Issue: SF-LOVERS Digest V17 #411
X-Urthmirror-Source: https://archive.org/details/sf-lovers-digest-vol-17b

davidba at carmel.technion.ac.il (David Ben_Ami) writes:
>However, the "distant future in Urth" doesn't seem very futuristic if
>there weren't the few mentions of fliers and other planets. it seems like
>a Medieval world with fancy Guild system.
>
>I guess it will be explained in the next books but still ...  What is
>the "New Sun", why is Earth called Urth (is it Earth?)?

An important point is that it isn't a series: it's one multivolume book
plus a sequel. Also, the SF book club put out "The Castle Of The Otter", a
collection of essays by Wolfe that explains a few things.

Big secret: watch for time travel. Specifically, keep your eyes out for
cause-and-effect reversals: the plot becomes much tighter if you notice
them. Wolfe doesn't hit you over the head with the clues, but you can
deduce many things - for instance, the hero's parentage.

The language: all words *are used correctly* if your idea of "correct"
allows obsolete words and obsolete usages. There are no made-up words.
Period.

As for high tech - the Urth has been through many cycles of high and low
tech. The destriers, for example, were created by DNA engineering, and
survived the low-tech times since they don't need tech to reproduce. The
basic tech idea is homage to Jack Vance: that the society has artifacts
it does not know the history of, and that the occasional person does have
access to history.

Don C. Lindsay
Carnegie Mellon Computer Science

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