Games, Minds, and Mind Games

David_Lebling · 26 Feb 1997, 11:09 · from whorl-v0003.mbox · original

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From: David_Lebling at avid.com
Subject: (whorl) Games, Minds, and Mind Games
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 97 11:09:50
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[Posted from Whorl, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]

mantis,

I co-wrote _Zork I_, _Zork II_, _Zork III_, and _Enchanter_ with Marc
Blank.  I wrote _Starcross_, _Spellbreaker_, _Suspect_, _The Lurking
Horror_, and _Shogun_ on my own.  All were published by Infocom (which I
was a founder of).

I'm glad you liked _Starcross_.  I had a lot of fun writing it, and
tried to get the physics right.  The ship in it was a _lot_ smaller than
the _Whorl_, though.  Other than end-cases like ringworlds and Dyson
spheres, I think the _Whorl_ is the largest generation ship I know of.

alga,

If I read you correctly, you think my quote from Marble supports
mantis's triune M/M/R.  I think it's just the opposite, but shows how
thoroughly mixed Marble and Rose are, like a left brain/right brain
thing.  Marble is saying, "without you I would have been left alone with
Rose," and Rose is saying, "without you I would have been left alone
with that chem."  It gets mixed together so she says both, and adds
"_We'd_ have gone mad!"  You have to work to tease out what's a Marble
thought from what's a Rose thought.

There's a surprising amount of Multiple Personality Disorder going
around.  I think Henry Rathvon is right when he says _Long Sun_ is about
Mind (among other things).  There's a very interesting comment (in
_Exodus_, I think) where Silk wonders if chems actually _do_ have souls
(they obviously have Minds), and there's the ongoing dichotomy between
chems, who are very humanlike, and taluses, who are less so.

     -vizcacha
     (david_lebling at avid.com)

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