5HoC + The Long Sun

cilluff1 at optonline.net · 31 Jan 2003, 21:52 · from urth-v0302.mbox · original

This is the message as the crawl holds it, before anything here touched it. What the conversation shows has been through ingest: transfer encodings decoded, attachments dropped, quote markers repaired, and the archiver’s ? resolved into quotation marks and dashes. Those repairs are judgements and some of them are wrong, which is what this page is for. Email addresses are obscured here as they are everywhere else on the site, so it is before our repairs rather than byte for byte.

From: "cilluff1 at optonline.net" <cilluff1 at optonline.net>
Subject: RE: (urth) 5HoC + The Long Sun
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 16:52:50 -0500
Message-ID: <urth-v0302-2872 at digest.urth.net>
X-Urthmirror-Source: http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0302/2872.txt.shtml
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

James Wynn wrote:

<>
=3D20
I recently read it for the first time, after having already reading the
Urth/LS/SS cycle, and thought that FHOC seemed like a "dry run" for the
Urth cycle=3D2E  Of course, many of parallel themes (the nature of identity=
 =3D
is
a biggie) that they share appear in many Wolfe works, so his predilicition=
=3D

to explore such themes could account for it, but, as you pointed out, ther=
=3D
e
are too many factual similarities simply to chalk it up to "well, Wolfe
writes about identity a lot=3D2E"  I don't think they are the same fictiona=
l=3D

universe per se, but that the Urth cycle seems to be a full fleshed-out
treatment of the ideas (both philosophical and plot-wise) that Wolfe
utilizes in FH=3D2E

<<<Abos (aliens) have notably white skin (incidentally, has anyone already=
=3D

pointed out that Phaedria also is noted for her white skin?)
=3D3D
Inhumi have such white skin that Quetzal must wear makeup to cover it=3D2E>=
>=3D
>

Not to deny your parallel, but to expand on it, but the parallel that
struck me was the similarity between the "Are the colonists of St=3D2E C/St=
=3D2E=3D
 A
really Abos but we have forgotten" line of FH and the "are the Neighbors
really evolved or somehow dualized humans/is Blue or Green really Urth"
debate=3D2E=3D20

<<<Mr=3D2E Million is a Ten Nine Unbound Simulator
=3D3D
Chems are also "unbound" simulators (OK I know this one is weak, but=3D2E=
=3D2E=3D
=3D2E=3D2E)>>

I actually really like that one, and it does add to the feeling that St=3D2=
E=3D

Croix/St=3D2E Anne are some of the planets early colonized in the first wav=
e=3D

out from earth/urth=3D2E

<<Mr=3D2E Million's face is the scanned image and mind of a man long dead=
=3D2E=3D
 He
is,
in a sense (as are all the heirs of Cave Canem), a ghost=3D2E =3D3D
He is basically a walking Sacred Window, an interface to the "god" of Cave=
=3D

Canem=3D2E>>

This definitely foreshaddows the scanning of Typhon & Co=3D2E and Silk=3D2E=
  T=3D
his
is a great example (as are the twin planets, the pre-chems) of why I think=
=3D

Wolfe had these great ideas for a story that he used in FH and which he
then fully explored in the Urth cycle=3D2E =3D20

<<The dead influencing/dominating the living (Persephone-like)=3D2E
In the Whorl and Cave Canem are ruled by such "dead men=3D2E" This is espec=
i=3D
ally
true if one believes as I do that Mr=3D2E Million is the one running things=
 =3D
and
that Maitre and #5 are simultaneously the subjects of **his** experiment=3D=
2E=3D
>>

That's a great take on Mr=3D2E Million=3D2E  You also then beg the question=
, w=3D
hat
does it mean to be alive, or to die?  Is Mr=3D2E Million the same "person,"
does he survive, i=3D2Ee=3D2E, still live, post-surgery, or does he die, to=
 be=3D

replaced by something else with his memory?  The same can be asked of
Severian, Horn, and Silk=3D2E   =3D20

<<<11=3D2E
Cave Canem, a whorehouse whose nickname means 'Beware of the Dog' and run =
=3D
by
a 'pack' of Wolfs
=3D3D
Orchid's in a city built over a labyrinth filled with vicious dog-monsters=
=3D

that are identified by the soldiers as the 'real' gods of the Whorl=3D2E>>

FWIW, here are a few others I thought of=3D2E  The machines that guard the
prison camps foreshadow the Taluses of the LS=3D2E  The inquisitors of Dr=
=3D2E=3D

Marsch seem like the Ayuntamiento=3D2E  And Mr=3D2E Million foreshadow's Le=
mur=3D
 &
Co=3D2E, humans who transplant their minds into machines, as distinguished =
f=3D
rom
"mere" chems, whose identities are created by man=3D2E

The plot devices and metaphysical questions that the two works share in
common definitely make me think that FH is Wolfe's first run at these idea=
=3D
s
and that the LS/SS books are his full exposition=3D2E

- Shell=3D20

--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web=3D2Ecom/ =3D2E



--=20

An unofficial mirror of a public mailing list · about & removal requests · download the archive · before the list · original archive at urth.net