Amazing Proof! 5HC and B/UNS Were Written by THE SAME GUY!

Peter Stephenson · 18 Apr 1999, 14:28 · from urth-v0025.mbox · original

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From: Peter Stephenson <pws at ibmth.df.unipi.it>
Subject: Re: (urth) Amazing Proof! 5HC and B/UNS Were Written by THE SAME GUY!
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 16:28:05 +0200
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"Mitchell A. Bailey" wrote:
> Amazing Proof! 5HC and B/UNS Were Written by THE SAME GUY!

Francis Bacon, presumably?

> I don't really see a dissertation out of this so far, but, what the
> heck, I wasn't an English major. Let's see... thesis: The exultants are
> actually very tall Shadow Children....<g>

That's not so silly... I mean, it's not true, but what is truth?  It's
plausible in a sort of Borskian sense: the stature of the exultants
suggests a certain heroic quality, in the classical mythological sense,
while the Shadow Children are explicitly woven into myths, so they have
that thematic connection.

By the way, I noticed at Easter that 5HC has just reappeared in a new
edition in the UK, in a series called something like `Science Fiction
Masterworks'; according to amazon.co.uk it's published by Millenium on 22
April 1999 (now that's science fiction for you), ISBN 1857988175.  You can
see the cover art (strange in a not very Wolfean way) at
http://www.amazon.co.uk/uk-covers/1/85/798/817/1857988175.l.gif
(Amazon US doesn't have this edition, just the 1994 Tor reprint.
Amazingly, at current exchange rates this is 4p *more expensive*!  Possibly
a world first for a British edition.)

It's number 8 in the series; many of the others are older works, and I
haven't read a lot of them yet, but given the evidence that at least one of
the first eight is a real masterwork, it's probable I should.  (To that end
I bought no. 5, `The Stars My Destination' by Alfred Bester.)

corncrake

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