Interlibrary Loan (no spoilers)

Evan Pickett · 19 Jul 2020, 04:14 · from 2020-July.txt.gz

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From: picketter at gmail.com (Evan Pickett)
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2020 21:14:28 -0700
Subject: (urth) Interlibrary Loan (no spoilers)
In-Reply-To: <6dfac7cbe336495cbdc86c7c19e002de at hwaet.com>
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I read it and (I think) kept up with it until the last ~3 chapters. Does
anyone know if the book was definitively finished, or was it finished
enough that the publishers want ahead? Not casting aspersion; just curious.
It felt like there was another 100 pages of material in the last couple
chapters, that just wasn't there. With Wolfe, it's hard to say if that's
intentional or not.

Evan

On Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 8:48 PM eb <eb at hwaet.com> wrote:

> I've almost finished it. I'm liking it a lot. To discuss.
>
> *******
> Eric Bourland
> eb at hwaet.com
> https://www.hwaet.com/ <https://www.hwaet>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From*: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <danldo at gmail.com>
> *Sent*: 7/18/20 11:01 PM
> *To*: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
> *Subject*: Re: (urth) Interlibrary Loan (no spoilers)
> I *have* read it - just finished a few minutes ago - and boy do I have
> thoughts, but most of them have to wait until the spoilage period has
> passed.
>
> I found it much easier going than *A Borrowed Man* - until the last four
> pages or so, where I suddenly had *no* idea what was going on, and most
> especially the last line. What the actual hell?
>
> Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
>
> *"Wherever you are, you find the sun, a blade of grass, the spirals of the
> dragonfly. Courage consists of staying at home, close to nature, which
> could not care less about our disasters. Each grain of dust contains the
> soul of something marvellous." -- *Joan Mir?
>
>
> On Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 7:44 AM Dave Lebling <dlebling at hyraxes.com> wrote:
>
>> Has anyone read this, and if so, do you have thoughts?
>>
>> I re-read *A Borrowed Man* before reading *Interlibrary Loan*. I had
>> found *A Borrowed Man* to be very opaque on first reading, and much more
>> reasonable on a second reading. (This is my normal pattern with Wolfe; each
>> reading produces more clarity.)
>>
>> I found the first reading of *Interlibrary Loan* to be even more opaque,
>> and also a bit disjointed. It was by turns weird, scary, and funny. I
>> believe it is actually hard SF rather than Fantasy, which seems to go
>> against a lot of reviews. It could have used another draft. It is extremely
>> sad we will never get one.
>>
>> Dave Lebling
>> _______________________________________________
>> Urth Mailing List
>> To post, write urth at urth.net
>> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>
> _______________________________________________
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