Dating Pandora

Christopher Culver · 17 Apr 2002, 14:09 · from urth-v0204.mbox · original

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From: Christopher Culver <christopher_culver at yahoo.com>
Subject: (urth) Dating Pandora
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 16:09:23 +0200
Message-ID: <urth-v0204-639 at digest.urth.net>
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Adam Stephanides wrote:

>The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (iirc) said there had been speculation
>that PANDORA was actually written early in Wolfe's career.  Can anyone
>confirm or deny this?
>

I wouldn't be too surprised. We have Larry Leif the returned Vietnam=20
veteran, who's nonetheless young enough to have a sister in high school,=20
so that makes me suspect the story is late-1970's. Nonetheless, Holly=20
listens to tapes instead of records (unless Wolfe changed that when he=20
submitted the story to Tor), so it could be early to mid-1980's.

I always thought that Wolfe's turn-of-the-90's trilogy of fantastical=20
works (DOORS, CASTLEVIEW, PANDORA) were written quickly by a writer=20
trying to get a little rest from complicated drawn-out sagas like the=20
BotNS and the Soldier series. So, people disappointed in Pandora because=20
of their lightweight nature shouldn't just try to automatically conclude=20
that it was written earlier in Wolfe's career. Nonetheless, having a=20
young Vietnam veteran in the book does complicate things...

Christopher Culver

--=20

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