Thecla's fourth book

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 30 Sep 2006, 06:46 · from 2006-September.txt.gz

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From: danldo at gmail.com (Dan'l Danehy-Oakes)
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 23:46:05 -0700
Subject: (urth) Thecla's fourth book
In-Reply-To: <000c01c6e457$fd6e74c0$553ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>
References: <000c01c6e457$fd6e74c0$553ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>
Message-ID: <1f7617370609292346j7fd93cdbw53ca006e9cc2f8b3 at mail.gmail.com>

On 9/29/06, Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net> wrote:
> It seems to me that once the decision to
> write Book 5 was made, Wolfe was forced to flesh out to some degree what was
> present only skeletally in his mind. I think he found it necessary to make
> some changes to his original concept.
>
> One place where this is evident is the last line of CITADEL. Severian, just
> before leaving Urth for Yesod, wrote that he was writing in what would be
> "the last year of the old sun." That turned out not to be true. For whatever
> reason, in URTH Wolfe made life go on on Urth for another forty years before
> the coming of the New Sun and the flood.

True; but there is no way that Severian could have known that when he
finished writing his account. While I'm not arguing that Wolfe _did_ know,
if he did there would have been no reason for him not to end CITADEL in
exactly the same way.

Just pickin' nits like a good primate...
-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, writer, trainer, bon vivant
-----
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer
http://www.danehyoakes.com
Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open
sewer and die.
  - Mel Brooks

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