Newt's main referent

Considering when EXODUS FROM THE LONG SUN was being written (1994-5), Councillor Newt has a pretty obvious real-life referent: Newt Gingrich, elected Speaker of the US House of Representatives after the unexpected Republican congressional election victories of November 1994. From what we see of Newt, the resemblance is pretty profound... --Nick Gevers.

Good call, Nick. Some major convention (WorldCon, I guess) was held in, I think, Atlanta in the 80s and Newt, for reasons that I think had to do with Bruce Sterling, was the banquet speaker. Though I'm not much of a conventioneer, I attended this (my parents lived in Atlanta) as a friend of Lucius Shepard, and, though I never met him there, I'm pretty sure Wolfe was on hand. I'd only barely heard of Gingrich at that point. But, among the more politicially minded, there was much furor, and a contingent, including Lucius (but not me), ostentatiously walked out of the banquet as Gingrich was introduced. Can't remember much about the speech or the evening otherwise except that both were boring--but that you expect. Gingrich seemed more menacing later, but that was the explicit SF connection. (Sorry to be so vague on particulars, but I've sort of accidentally attended a few conventions or parts of them; the only ones I remember well are those I'd planned in advance, and this was a last-minute thing--if it wasn't Atlanta I apologize, but it was somewhere else I just happened to be for other reasons.) -alga

Also, at the time, Newt was one of the most famous science-fiction writers in America (along with William Shatner and, arguably, Stephen King). -Rostrum

From: rostrum

No, I'm almost certain that this was before his novel was published, though it was in the works, and Sterling would have known of it. I can't remember the name of the novel, so can't check it out against dates--there's a lot of Newt stuff on Amazon. Just wanted to note that I thought Nick was on the right track. (But sf die-hards can surely check the con date--if I am correct that it was a WorldCon--the Newt pub date and the Wolfe pub date). -alga

According to http://web2.iadfw.net/tharvia/charts/worldcons.gif, there have been two Worldcons held in Atlanta. One of them was in 1986 and so fits pretty well with what you've described. Gingrich's SF novel, 1945, was published in 1995.

Blattid bleated:

That feels exactly right. Lucius Shepard would not have been at a DragonCon, nor would Wolfe, nor Sterling, nor is there a banquet. (I, on the other hand, did go to at least one, maybe two--the Atlanta connection.) And the LS books began to appear in 1993, which means that they were most likely beginning to be drafted just about then or shortly after. Kudos again, Nick--and I feel pleased to have put a jigsaw piece in place! (With help from Blattid.) -alga