time looping — Urth Net

jonathan mann10 Jul 2003, 00:54original as archived

time looping

↰ answers Michael Andre-Driussi · by quotation

mantis wrote

1 quoted line

Time travel "message to self" loop thingie. In Heinlein you have DOOR INTO SUMMER. In movies you have either "Groundhog Day," where the narrative hero is going through every loop from beginning to optimized end; or something like "Donny Darko," where it is the final loop only and thus more like DOOR INTO SUMMER (and Severian's Narrative).

There's also FREE LIVE FREE, in which the loops 'optimize' the person being looped. Never let it be said that Wolfe underexplores a theme. Maybe there's more than one Wolfe, and different books with similar themes are by different versions. Actually, I just came up with a more serious idea: couldn't the looping be analogous to the auctorial drafting process? We already know that Wolfe goes through a lot of drafts, each of which 'optimizes' and ties the books more closely together. What if each iteration of this added another iteration to Severian? [Delurking now. Animal or animal products, right?]

James Jordan10 Jul 2003, 14:40original as archived

↳ follows jonathan mann · by subject

3 quoted lines

Actually, I just came up with a more serious idea: couldn't the looping be analogous to the auctorial drafting process? We already know that Wolfe goes through a lot of drafts, each of which 'optimizes' and ties the books more closely together. What if each iteration of this added another iteration to Severian? --jabiru

COOL! Just like something Umberto Eco would do. I don't know about adding another Sev, but the rest is a neat thought. Nutria