planetary problems

Thomas Bitterman · 29 Dec 2010, 02:08 · from 2010-December.txt.gz

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From: tom at bitterman.net (Thomas Bitterman)
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2010 21:08:43 -0500
Subject: (urth) planetary problems
In-Reply-To: <4D1A3B65.2010503 at gmail.com>
References: <438330.86404.qm at web81402.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<4D1A2670.2020003 at gmail.com> <4D1A3423.9070902 at io.com>
	<4D1A3B65.2010503 at gmail.com>
Message-ID: <AANLkTi=6sbKv7NRSUi1XH=1WUVJLtZcafAB+k2bHmkJ5 at mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 2:32 PM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>  Okay, there's also "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories" as
>>> well where a character in a short story reads a book of short stories,
>>> and they all know they are characters in a short story. But if someone
>>> is claiming that that is what is happening in The Book of the Short Sun,
>>> get ready for some aesthetic blowback. And I'll be puffing along side
>>> them.
>>>
>>
>> This happens in BotNS, so why not? Sev obviously is a character in his own
>> autobiography, and there are many examples of his character Severian
>> diverging from the narrator Severian as he consciously and perhaps
>> subconsciously omits certain items that remain directly or indirectly
>> referenced in other places. But he is also firmly convinced that he is a
>> character in a play, of which life on Urth and elsewhere is a collection of
>> plays put on for the benefit of an unknown audience, and he's not talking
>> about the Yesodis, by then whom he knows very well.
>>
>
> It's not really the same thing as what Thomas seemed to be implying
>

Let me amplify and see if that makes things clearer.  The original problem I
was looking at had to do with what the rules of astral travel were.  In
particular, the primary rule seemed to be that one could only go someplace
"close".  This sounds like a good rule, but it led places I found baroque,
so I thought I would see if there were some other way of interpreting the
idea of "closeness".

The first way is that "close" might mean "thematically close" or "mental-map
close".  That is, if two stories have similar themes, or similar characters,
or the like, then one could travel between them.  Kind of like "There are
Doors", but for stories, or maybe Heinlein's "Number of the Beast", but with
limited travel "distance".

The second way to be "close" is physically, but in a strange way.  I was
looking at my bookshelf and the Urth and Long/Short Sun books were right
next to each other.  Physically touching.  Normally I wouldn't bother
writing about it (it does sound funny), but the whole "Vernor Vinge shelved
in the Ws" thing rang a bell.  I suppose if we start seeing Tom Wolfe
characters in Gene Wolfe stories then we'll know something is up.
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