contra Summa contra Marcus

Andy Robertson · 26 Mar 2002, 08:26 · from urth-v0203.mbox · original

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From: "Andy Robertson" <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Subject: Re: (urth) contra Summa contra Marcus
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 08:26:40 -0000
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <ddanehy at siebel.com>
>
> An analogy to an outside source, with no citation of the text at
> hand to invite compare with that outside source, hardly constitutes
> "textual evidence." If there's a controlling Biblical analogy, it's
> Moses.


On the scale of Silk's life, yes.    But here are multiple analogies here


> In favor of an analogy to the Ark, I suppose one could adduce Typhon's
> attempt to make himself God; against it, however, one might begin with
> the highly-minimalist nature of the Ark as vs. the inclusion of many
> cultures aboard the WHORL. Then, too, one can't help but wonder who in
> this analogy would play a role even vaguely analogous to Noah's ...
> Remora?

Mainframe Typhon/Pas and his wife and quarreling family

>
> Well, yes. So either we have a totally unexplained shift in huge
> portions of the animal kingdom, to a polyploidy that seems to
> have no significant ill effect but produces doubled limbs; or
> else, equally difficult to explain, beasts ranging from elephants
> to crocodiles undergoing mutations that cause their limbs to
> double. Either way, it requires a fair amount of explaining.
> Perhaps you'd like to hypothesize some weird retrovirus that
> does this?


OK.  Lets.



> > The life forms of Blue are nearly all near - analogs of Urth
> > forms, with the possible exception of the sea creatures. This
> > is not true of Green, where the animals are far more alien, but
> > even on Green the animals can eat and be eaten both by Blue and
> > Urth fauna.
>
> We might note that this is true of the fauna of a number of alien
> worlds in Wolfe texts, from the blue/green pair of FIFTH HEAD to
> the homeworld(s) of Hehehethor's monsters and the alzabo. I suspect
> Wolfe has some point in mind here, though just what it is has, so
> far, eluded me.


Hethor's monsters are far more alien to Urth than are any of the entities on
Green or Blue.


>
> Well, no: if you assume that Blue is more massive than Green,
> then it _must_ have proportionally greater tidal effects on
> Green than Green does on Blue.


Yes, but this means very little unless Green has world-oceans like Blue.
It doesn't (it has a world-forest instead, that is why it is Green).   Tidal
effects depend on the size of the body of water.

Earthquakes?   No.  The moon is solid from crust to core.

> > 3)  It is possible that Inhumi are native to Lune
> > and lived there when it circled round Urth.
>
> There is _nothing_ native to the Moon, but let that
> pass. (I find myself wondering about night-gaunts
> again, though...)

Ha ha.  By "native" I should have said "colonised Lune long ago".    But I
agree it is a stretch.


>
> This would be in the same way that Northern California
> has lower gravity than Vermont?

It's not proof,. but it tends in the direction.



My own beliefs on the Green/Blue   Lune/Ushas conundrum are complex.   It is
a beautiful idea, but I suspect that if it were true we would be seeing many
more direct signifiers.   There is no *compelling* reason to believe it.

What really runs behind it is the Blue World/Green World thematic duality
that seems to be a near constant of Wolfe's planetary fiction.    And it is
possible that Wolfe has no clear idea himself, or is leaving his options
open.


    hartshorn





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