More 5HC Variant texts

Talarican wrote: I recall when I read the hardback library copy, I was struck by one particular passage that I was positive had been added from the older paperback version. It was in "A Story", where the Old Wise One was explaining to Sandwalker how the Shadow Childrens' "singing" worked. In the paperback version, as I recall, he said something like "Shake your hands. Now imagine your hands gone. That is what we shake. You may call it nothing, but what you think is nothing holds all things apart. When it is gone, all the worlds are born". I seem to recall the hardback version continued with another new sentence, not present in the paperback, which indicated this "birth" would follow the collapse of the universe. (so the Shadow Childrens' "singing" vibrates Einstein's Cosmological Constant, or Fred Hoyle's C-field? <g>)

Here is the 1976 Ace version (p. 95 in both the $1.75 and $2.50 version <g>): "That which you call nothing is what holds all things apart. When it is gone, all the worlds will be born. But now listen to me." Here is the Scribners 1972(?) hardcover edition (p. 88): "That which you call nothing is what holds all things apart. When it is gone, all the worlds will come together in a fiery death from which new worlds will be born. But now listen to me."

Here is the 1976 Ace version

Here is the Scribners 1972(?) hardcover edition

Looks to me like a classic typesetting error first time around, corrected later.