This Week in Google Alerts: reviews of _The Land Across_, _Peace_, _Shadows of the New Sun_

Marc Aramini · 19 Nov 2013, 02:05 · from 2013-November.txt.gz

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From: marcaramini at yahoo.com (Marc Aramini)
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 18:05:07 -0800 (PST)
Subject: (urth) This Week in Google Alerts: reviews of _The Land Across_,
	_Peace_, _Shadows of the New Sun_
In-Reply-To: <CAMwO0gw40kmfV2cn4wxM2PMgkZQLvLyDyX1hePJkb7PUZ7gFOQ at mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAMwO0gw40kmfV2cn4wxM2PMgkZQLvLyDyX1hePJkb7PUZ7gFOQ at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1384826707.87895.YahooMailNeo at web160701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Yeah it's always been obvious to me that Gene knew exactly what was going on when he wrote his work, and that he approaches it scientifically, and was clear when he wanted to be and cryptic when he desired.? This is why the term "modernist" fits him so well - that absolute truth never makes the texts fall apart completely, but joins them together.? I have asked him if he has to figure out his old stuff again and he indicated that he did, but that everything after say Soldier of Sidon is still very clear.



On Monday, November 18, 2013 4:33 PM, Gwern Branwen <gwern at gwern.net> wrote:
  
. One of the things I asked him was whether, underneath his frustratingly unreliable narrators, if anything in his books was ambiguous to him as he wrote them or if he always knew the "absolute truth" as to what was happening. He said, "Of course I know! To do otherwise would be cheating." As a follow-up I asked if he always provided enough clues and context to figure it out. He said that he always tried and always believed that he did, but that he was, he supposed, fallable and occasionally buried things a little too deeply. He also admitted that, particularly for his older books (and I'd been re-reading Peace when I asked this) he didn't always remember the exact details and that looking back, he often had to re-interpret his own clues. He didn't offer to make it easy on anyone by telling the straight story inside the book or in interviews and usually restricted himself to simple answers to direct questions - not a lengthy exposition on why he wrote
 somthing the way he did.    
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