Fifth Head of Cerberus: Shadowchildren vs. Abos

E · 11 Apr 2008, 00:04 · from 2008-April.txt.gz

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From: euth82 at gmail.com (E)
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 20:04:17 -0400
Subject: (urth) Fifth Head of Cerberus: Shadowchildren vs. Abos
Message-ID: <ca4bdd8f0804101704r349a0ae3tb976358b08e515c0 at mail.gmail.com>

I found a transcript of a chat w/ Gene Wolfe

http://home.austin.rr.com/lperson/wolfe.html

Here is an interesting quote:
-------
LP: "'A Story,' by John V. Marsch."

GW: "'A Story,' by John V. Marsch," yes, which is not actually written
by John V. Marsch, but by the shadowchild who has replaced John V.
Marsch. (laughs) That's New Wave. But belonging to a literary movement
doesn't consist so much in using a certain set of techniques, as it
consists in running with a certain set of people, and only to a very
small degree did I run with that set of people. So as I said, I would
be very peripheral as a New Wave writer.
-------

So if Wolfe is being truthful, Marsch was replaced by a shadow-child,
not a humanoid abo.  Meaning that VRT is a shadow-child.

I know there was an unresolved debate about whether shadow-children
are the original abos or are the result of early space fairing humans
degenerating due to addiction to the drug found on the planet.

Anyway, this doesn't really clear that argument up, but if Wolfe is
truthful it certainly makes me think differently about the story,
because "VRT" was described as a human in Marsch's journal... but then
again, maybe VRT edited even the earliest parts of Marsch's journal to
simply say that VRT looked human to Marsch?

If what Wolfe says is true this also means the shadow-children
themselves (or at least VRT) can shapeshift... which we hadn't seen
discussed or mentioned before, it seemed that the shadow children
weren't able to do this in "A Story".

Might VRT be a shadow-child + abo hybrid, rather than human + abo hybrid??

Anyway this has left me more confused than ever about the abo vs
shadowchild vs settler conundrum but I certainly found Wolfe's quote
interesting and surprising.

Maybe you guys have other ideas about this.  Then again, Wolfe is
quoted as laughing after saying the VRT = shadowchild line...

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