more thoughts on Red Star

maa32 · 12 Feb 2001, 15:10 · from urth-v0030.mbox · original

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From: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Subject: (urth) more thoughts on Red Star
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 15:10:14
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Thanks for the response, Nigel.  Another big part of the novel Red Star=20
involves a problem with putting aside individualism.  The least=20
individualistic earthman (Leonov) the martians can find to show their socie=
ty=20
to cannot adapt to it and goes slightly crazy, behaving homicidally,=20
possessively, and jealously.  Perhaps the clone has too much individuality,=20
like Leonov when he is faced with a culture in which everyone is the same. =20
CJ Cherryh's novel sounds like a much nicer fit to the story itself.  (I=20
haven't read anything by her even though I have a copy of Kutath and Chanur=
's=20
Legacy lying around somewhere.  Is she worth reading?  If so, is there a go=
od=20
place to start?)

As an aside, I have always wondered about that part in The Book of the New =
Sun=20
(but right now I can't remember whether it is at the end of Claw or the=20
beginning of Sword) in which Severian meets this old woman (man?) in a hut =
and=20
she talks to her son about the tall stranger who came through with a staff=20
when he was just a boy.  Does anyone know what I'm talking about, and if we=20
are to assume that the tall stranger was someone in the text like Palaemon?=20
(the description does sound like Horn, but that is reading too much into a=20
slight detail.)  Sorry this is so sketchy, just one of those unsolved=20
mysteries.  I'll look for the exact place later.
Marc Aramini

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