SINGLE Gene Wolfe literature universe?

Jeff Wilson · 11 May 2010, 01:40 · from 2010-May.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 20:40:08 -0500
Subject: (urth) SINGLE Gene Wolfe literature universe?
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Message-ID: <4BE8B578.2020005 at io.com>

On 5/10/2010 4:31 PM, Milton Jackson wrote:
> I don't see how it's unoriginal for Wolfe to set his works in the same
> universe if indeed that's what he did. It's not as if he's copying other
> writers if the Book of the New Sun and Soldier of the Mist, Soldier of
> Arete, and Soldier of Sidon all take place in the same universe at
> different times.

It has become increasingly common for big name SF authors to link 
together their various works as if they were intended to form a grand 
design from the beginning, lack of continuity or thematic unity be damned.

Even Heinlein, who really did have a grand design in mind fairly early 
in his career, went on to hook up stories unrelated to his Future 
History timeline in his later works, which were generally considered 
digressive and inferior to his previous actioners. Asimov's later 
Foundation sequels branched out to explicitly touch his Robot series and 
some former stand-alone novels, and the unruly vinculum kept growing 
posthumously, even.

GW certainly has thematic unity enough, but what's the point of hooking 
it all together? It's not like the stories aren't deep enough as it is.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
< http://ieeetamut.org >

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