What is _Urth of the New Sun_ about?

Mike Ward · 30 Dec 2003, 15:57 · from rec.arts.sf.written.2003.mbox

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From: Mike Ward <m at d.w>
Subject: Re: What is _Urth of the New Sun_ about?
Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2003 15:57:27 GMT
Message-ID: <HfhIb.258656$Ec1.8939941 at bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
References: <TW5Ib.559532$0v4.22734305 at bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> <20031229225953.13604.00001784 at mb-m10.aol.com> <87pte6ee6d.fsf at local.invalid>

Mark Jeffcoat <jeffcoat at alumni.rice.edu> wrote in
news:87pte6ee6d.fsf at local.invalid: 

> anomj7t7 at aol.com (AnomJ7t7) writes:
> 
>>>What is _Urth of the New Sun_ about?                                 
>>>        
>> It's been awhile since I read it,but it seems to me
>> an underlying theme was that Severian was supposed to 
>> be procuring some sort of nuclear device from an alien 
>> race that would 'restart' the sun which,of course
>> a million years into the "Urth's" future, was dying.
>>
> 
> My summary may contain spoilers. As the original post suggests,
> though, this is not necessarily a plot-oriented sort of book.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Severian becomes Autarch in _The Book of the New Sun_. The old
> sun of the world he rules is dying. In _Urth_, Severian travels
> to meet an alien being who will test him. If he passes the test,
> Severian will return with/as the New Sun (a white hole dropped
> into the old sun's center, to rejuvenate it with new matter). If
> he fails, there will be penalties.

Okay that's the stuff I sort of remembered and its becoming clearer now.

> 
> The first part of the book takes place as the space (kinda)-ship 
> is traveling: Severian has adventures, meets aliens, learns stuff,
> etc. This part is weird.

Yeah.  I mentioned have fuzzy memories about him on the space ship.  I 
think it's the fact that it was weird that makes my memories so fuzzy.

> 
> Then Severian reaches the heaven-ish kind of place. Wolfe draws
> a lot on a cosmology I usually think of as cabalistic (q.v. the
> "Tree of Life"), though I have no idea where this structure
> comes from originally. This part is weirder.
> 
> Severian brings the New Sun. Yay! ... But we're only about
> half way though the book. Severian's Grand Journey Through Time
> is next. You'll forgive me if I don't even try to recount any part
> of the plot here, 'cause not only do things get even weirder 
> and ridiculously complicated, but Wolfe also shows us scenes from
> earlier books through new eyes (and possibly in new versions of
> the universe), forcing us to re-interpret ... pretty much everything.
> This project will expand to fill any time you give to it, but
> you have to enjoy that sort of game.

That helps a little. I think part of my problem is that because he goes 
back to events from the BotNS that I confuse the events of the two books.

Mike

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