Gideon

John Watkins · 08 Jan 2009, 17:08 · from 2009-January.txt.gz

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From: john.watkins04 at gmail.com (John Watkins)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 12:08:26 -0500
Subject: (urth) Gideon
In-Reply-To: <321585EF-8690-40D1-A46C-31610603A7B5 at io.com>
References: <009401c97160$4fce77a0$cecc4a0c@rclackey>
	<496606E5.2060908 at gmail.com>
	<321585EF-8690-40D1-A46C-31610603A7B5 at io.com>
Message-ID: <93d4039f0901080908u245e8d12ka350b29137b7cc13 at mail.gmail.com>

 >
> He *is* described as a Guest on Earth on the very first page, and we *do*
> have a title for the book, you know.
>
> Now: if we take "Freedom" to be a stand-in for "Evil"--what does that tell
> us about the *previous* novel?

Nothing we didn't already know, really.  The freedom of the pirates is
pretty clearly used for evil.

I am wondering, however, what place An Evil Guest has in Wolfe's body
of work.  I think it's fair to consider Pirate Freedom and The Wizard
Knight as paired novels in a sense--boys' adventure stories featuring
protagonists from what is basically our world heading into a world of
genre, both of whom are heavily shaped by the moral choices they make
(in contrasting manners.)  Both stories also has sort of parallel
pieces in Wolfe's short fiction--Golden City Far and A Cabin on the
Coast.

An Evil Guest is different.  I probably need to read Memorare stat to
understand exactly what relationship it has with Wolfe's other works.

>
> Adam
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