Latro

Dan Rabin · 14 Nov 2006, 06:44 · from 2006-November.txt.gz

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From: wolfe-lists at danrabin.com (Dan Rabin)
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 22:44:45 -0800
Subject: (urth) Latro
In-Reply-To: <62843A33-CC7F-4A20-A2E4-DED361B783D8 at tcnj.edu>
References: <433905.64816.qm at web32403.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<62843A33-CC7F-4A20-A2E4-DED361B783D8 at tcnj.edu>
Message-ID: <p06230904c17f101016b5@[209.157.132.35]>

At 12:26 AM -0500 11/14/06, Matthew DeLuca wrote:
>Well I'm reading Soldier of Sidon right now. Frankly it may be 
>Wolfe's best work with Latro yet. I'm glad he wrote this like Wizard 
>Knight, he doesn't use a lot of confusing sentences and vocab. 
>Hopefully we can create a good discussion on this work within the 
>near future.

I'm done with my first reading, and I'm ready to join a discussion 
once enough other people are done so that we can be free with the 
spoilers.

This is going to be fun.  We've got the charisma of ancient Egypt to 
lap up, somewhat like the appeal of dinosaurs to children (our 
knowledge of both relies on impressive reconstructions of a hidden 
past).  Then there's the Darkest Africa thing to contend with.

Non-spoiler stuff: all three Latro books have the name-lists at the 
end, whereas the Long and the Short have them at the front, where 
some entries are slight spoilers.  I've always assumed that Wolfe 
chose the positioning of this matter, but it's conceivably a choice 
made by the editor or even the book designer.  Does anyone think this 
is important enough to ask Wolfe about?

Also, the "translator's" notes in the New Sun books, whose narrator 
never forgets, are at the ends of the volumes, whereas those of the 
Soldier books, whose narrator cannot remember, are at the beginning. 
This fits the general pattern of inversions between the two series, 
but also solves a technical problem: the construction of Latro's 
situation makes foreshadowing within the body of the novels 
immpossible, so the "translator" can plant a bit in the forewords.

   -- Dan Rabin

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