Short Sun blog review

It's that time of the week again! --- "Notes on Gene Wolfe's "Short Sun" novels" http://www.tommoody.us/archives/2010/09/18/notes-on-gene-wolfes-short-sun-novels/ "The novels' not-so-big revelation is that the Neighbors brought the inhumi aboard the Ark and are studying human interactions with the vampires there, on Blue, and on Green. It's a twist on the cultural mirror idea. Humans want to meet an extraterrestrial species to understand what it means to be human. When the inhumi suck human or Neighbor blood they become like their victims. Thus they are not a true mirror--they become too much like us. The Neighbors want to see how human-influenced inhumi differ from Neighbor-influenced inhumi, so the Neighbors can understand themselves. This seems awfully complicated: wouldn't it be easier to just cut the inhumi out of the loop? Especially since the book's other not-so-big revelation is that the inhumi have a potentially race-dooming weakness: they must suck the blood of an intelligent species or remain forever in a pre-sentient, tadpole stage. Wolfe plays many unreliable narrator games with his protagonists. The ability to transfer cybernetic pieces of people into other people or animals makes for some confusion as to who is really talking and who is "riding" whom. Ultimately we don't care much. The novels leave too many holes for fans to fill in with theories. The decision to have the Ark narrative be set in the same timespace as the earlier "New Sun" stories, two multi-volume series back, seems like a nostalgic impulse Wolfe shouldn't have succumbed to. Surely a culture that could produce an Ark to travel between star systems is an energetic young one, not the miserable Byzantine world of the "New Sun" novels, set on an Earth so far in the future that the Sun has swollen to Red Giant proportions. Wolfe is a good writer but I wouldn't call his work literature so much as eloquent, intriguingly convoluted post-new wave SF. Wolfe's penchant for Melville-like parables and analogies exists within a pulp continuum where faith in technology sits comfortably with faith in the supernatural. Genre expectations are satisfied; the Ark we thought irrevocably broken will be repaired to colonize yet another group of worlds."

Yes, "ultimately we don't care much." Talk about unreliable---he could have been honest and said "I, Tom Moody." What I especially don't understand is how the reviewer can see that the Sun books are constructed of literary references a la Nabokov or Borges, like a hall of mirrors, but can't stop from dismissing them because the references are derived from "fanboy" science fiction. It is in all an extraordinarily undeveloped, unreflective, and immature analysis. (And there aren't any "laser swords," whatever that would be.) I like the Quetzal page though. --- On Tue, 9/21/10, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote: From: Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> Subject: (urth) Short Sun blog review To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net> Date: Tuesday, September 21, 2010, 10:05 AM It's that time of the week again! --- "Notes on Gene Wolfe's "Short Sun" novels" http://www.tommoody.us/archives/2010/09/18/notes-on-gene-wolfes-short-sun-novels/ "The novels' not-so-big revelation is that the Neighbors brought the inhumi aboard the Ark and are studying human interactions with the vampires there, on Blue, and on Green. It's a twist on the cultural mirror idea. Humans want to meet an extraterrestrial species to understand what it means to be human. When the inhumi suck human or Neighbor blood they become like their victims. Thus they are not a true mirror--they become too much like us. The Neighbors want to see how human-influenced inhumi differ from Neighbor-influenced inhumi, so the Neighbors can understand themselves. This seems awfully complicated: wouldn't it be easier to just cut the inhumi out of the loop? Especially since the book's other not-so-big revelation is that the inhumi have a potentially race-dooming weakness: they must suck the blood of an intelligent species or remain forever in a pre-sentient, tadpole stage. Wolfe plays many unreliable narrator games with his protagonists. The ability to transfer cybernetic pieces of people into other people or animals makes for some confusion as to who is really talking and who is "riding" whom. Ultimately we don't care much. The novels leave too many holes for fans to fill in with theories. The decision to have the Ark narrative be set in the same timespace as the earlier "New Sun" stories, two multi-volume series back, seems like a nostalgic impulse Wolfe shouldn't have succumbed to. Surely a culture that could produce an Ark to travel between star systems is an energetic young one, not the miserable Byzantine world of the "New Sun" novels, set on an Earth so far in the future that the Sun has swollen to Red Giant proportions. Wolfe is a good writer but I wouldn't call his work literature so much as eloquent, intriguingly convoluted post-new wave SF. Wolfe's penchant for Melville-like parables and analogies exists within a pulp continuum where faith in technology sits comfortably with faith in the supernatural. Genre expectations are satisfied; the Ark we thought irrevocably broken will be repaired to colonize yet another group of worlds."

This is the section which bothered me the most. Seems to ignore the possibility that The Whorl was created and sent during the heyday of the First Empire and misses the rather explicitly explained idea that the sun was reduced in intensity rather rapidly, and likely on purpose, at the end of this Empire. Makes me wonder about something. I think I've heard estimates the Whorl is at least 300 years old. Typhon was presumably alive on its launching and is still alive when Severian meets him strapped to his couch. Quite a lifespan. I don't think Typhon is human so it isn't a problem for me but I wonder what others make of this. A body transplant every 20 years or so to maintain life and youth? Or some other explanation.

Lee, The Whorl is at leasdt 300 years old internally -- it is at least a thousand years old in sidereal time. And Typhon is not "still alive" when Severian meets him; he is either dead or in some sort of suspended animation. Severian's presence revives him.

" I think I've heard estimates the Whorl is at least 300 years old. Typhon was presumably alive on its launching and is still alive when Severian meets him strapped to his couch. Quite a lifespan." Isn't Typhon dead when found by Severian, who then resurrects him? Typhon seems to have dried out after lying on the cold, dry mountain for 1000 or 2000 years (in contrast to Dorcas, who is soggy). Since the Whorl has traveled near the speed of light on its voyage, time has slowed down. So 1000 or 200 years can have passed on Urth, while only 300 years have gone by on the Whorl.

Exactly. You'd think the reviewer would have checked this before blogging, since he makes a point of it. Instead, he assumes all his assumptions are fact. Also, the sun is not a red giant in Severian's day, although I certainly assumed so on first reading, until it was explained. --- On Tue, 9/21/10, Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com> wrote:

This is the section which bothered me the most. Seems to ignore the possibility that The Whorl was created and sent during the heyday of the First Empire and misses the rather explicitly explained idea that the sun was reduced in intensity rather rapidly, and likely on purpose, at the end of this Empire.

I don't remember if our past discussions went into the technical details, but it's pretty unlikely the Whorl got any significant slowdown. Useful link: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3aj.html#relativity Notice that to get a slowdown of even 1/3, you need to get up to somewhere around 0.97 or 0.98 c. Given that we're talking an entire hollowed-out asteroid, and one which needs to slow down to rest at the end... Well, the energy requirements would be absolutely fantastic. (And I mean fantastic as in, you'd better have an entire other anti-asteroid made of anti-matter for propellant.) Dunno if Wolfe took all this into account, though.

Nor do I. However, this is assuming that the energy sources available to Typhon are limited to those we know and love in the 21st Century. The Whorl may be powered by zero point energy or even the infamous handwaving drive.

Sorry, I should have been more clear. I was not speaking of that encounter. I was speaking of the encounter in UotNS where Severian meets living monarch, Typhon, still strapped to his couch, presumably because Piaton still has some voluntary control over his muscles. I am interested in people's thoughts. I think maybe there is some presumption that The Whorl was sent right around the time of this encounter? Perhaps, as the blog suggests, it was meant to serve as a sort of Ark to preserve humanity in the face of impending destruction. (if so I can agree that Typhon and his ilk look upon humanity as Noah did his passengers, as animals) My not fully developed alternate idea would be more along the lines that Blue (and/or maybe Green) is a sort of home planet for Typhon and his parasite family. Perhaps the Whorl served as a way to send an excellent host species back the the Motherland for breeding and exploitation. (humans being a much better prospect than those pesky, advanced Neighbors). If so, The whorl could have been sent much earlier than the final days of Typhon's reign. Good question on whether time dilation was invoked so that 300 years of Whorl time equals 1000+ years of time on Urth. When people on Blue dream-travel to Urth, is there evidence either way that time travel is or isn't involved? Is it possible or likely that Silkhorn lives in the same exact time as young Severian?

In the Urth List Q&A, Wolfe said: /Q: About how far, really, is the New Sun series set in our future (or the future of the previous universe)? How much time elapses between Typhon and Severian?/ A: That is never specified in the books. My offhand guess is between 1000 and 2000 years. I would have to reread the books with care to perhaps trim the estimate up a little bit. However, since Dream-travel can involve Time-travel, all of this might be academic as far as the Rajan's visits to Urth go. ᚹ

From the Urth Q&A again: Q: /What was Typhon's purpose in launching the Whorl and was the Blue/Green [solar] system the intended destination?/ -- A: Knowing Typhon as I do, he probably had at least half a dozen purposes; but certainly one of the chief must have been self-aggrandizement -- to return human kind to the stars would be a very great thing indeed. Yes, the Blue-Green system was the intended destination. This answer would require some finessing given the evidence in the Book and Urth of the New Sun that human-kind is already spread across the heavens, that Typhon himself was born or reared extraterrestrially, and that at some point he was still free to leave. Perhaps he means returning Urth humanity to the stars. The self-aggrandizement must mean he wanted to wow the humanity left on Urth, not the humanity being sent. Because he deprecates his memory among the colonists. There is the possibility that Wolfe never really thought hard about why Typhon sent out the Whorl. ᚹ

I suspect that the sequence went something like this... 1. Wolfe decided to write what became tBotLS, a book about a generation ship that actually succeeds in getting its "cargo" to its destination. (Note that the series was originally called "Starcrosser's Landing," as indicated in the first HC edition.) 2. Possibly at the same time, he decides to write about "a good man in a bad religion." 3. The two collide in the story of Silk and his false gods. 4. Wolfe thought, "Wouldn't it be cool if the chief god was Typhon...?" and thus tied the whole thing to tBotNS. 5. Years later, someone asked him why Typhon sent out the Whorl, causing him to really think about it for the first time.

Since there must have been an ancient period of slowboat colonization of at least several nearby star systems---probably more than Typhon ruled---the mere sending of a colony ship for the first time in chiliads would have been a symbolic act of self-aggrandizement, like any attempt to associate a current regime with past empires. As such an act, it would have dwarfed the Holy Roman Empire, the Italian Renaissance, and the Mussolini's attempt to restore Rome, among others. --- On Tue, 9/21/10, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote: From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> Subject: Re: (urth) Short Sun blog review To: urth at lists.urth.net Date: Tuesday, September 21, 2010, 2:48 PM Jack Smith- Isn't Typhon dead when found by Severian, who then resurrects him? Typhon seems to have dried out after lying on the cold, dry mountain for 1000 or 2000 years. Lee- Sorry, I should have been more clear. I was not speaking of that encounter. I was speaking of the encounter in UotNS where Severian meets living monarch, Typhon, still strapped to his couch, presumably because Piaton still has some voluntary control over his muscles. I am interested in people's thoughts. I think maybe there is some presumption that The Whorl was sent right around the time of this encounter? Perhaps, as the blog suggests, it was meant to serve as a sort of Ark to preserve humanity in the face of impending destruction. (if so I can agree that Typhon and his ilk look upon humanity as Noah did his passengers, as animals) From the Urth Q&A again: Q: What was Typhon's purpose in launching the Whorl and was the Blue/Green [solar] system the intended destination? ? A: Knowing Typhon as I do, he probably had at least half a dozen purposes; but certainly one of the chief must have been self-aggrandizement — to return human kind to the stars would be a very great thing indeed. Yes, the Blue-Green system was the intended destination. This answer would require some finessing given the evidence in the Book and Urth of the New Sun that human-kind is already spread across the heavens, that Typhon himself was born or reared extraterrestrially, and that at some point he was still free to leave. Perhaps he means returning Urth humanity to the stars. The self-aggrandizement must mean he wanted to wow the humanity left on Urth, not the humanity being sent. Because he deprecates his memory among the colonists. There is the possibility that Wolfe never really thought hard about why Typhon sent out the Whorl. ᚹ -----Inline Attachment Follows-----

I'm a bit confused by his summary:

Wolfe is a good writer but I wouldn't call his work literature so much as eloquent, intriguingly convoluted post-new wave SF. Wolfe's penchant for Melville-like parables and analogies exists within a pulp continuum where faith in technology sits comfortably with faith in the supernatural. Genre expectations are satisfied; the Ark we thought irrevocably broken will be repaired to colonize yet another group of worlds."

I don't understand his distinction between "literature" and "genre" here. Because there's optimism about technology and optimism about faith, the books don't count as literature? So only cynical works count as literature? On the one hand, this seems to ignore the fact that there are all kinds of crises of faith and ambiguities about the cultural value of technology in the books, especially if the inhumi's "evolution" is considered technology from a different standpoint. But on the other hand, why does this just become "eloquent, intriguingly convoluted post-new wave SF" if it doesn't ultimately belittle technology and/or show that faith can't exist alongside that? I just find the line of thought here particularly weird. It seems to come down to: I didn't like the books' take on the themes, so I won't value it with the term 'literature'.

At that point, the answer really could have been "No, maybe it wouldn't actually", imo. When, on reading the books, it became apparent, my reaction wasn't that delightful feeling of opening up of possibilities and of ideational space, but more a wary sinking feeling. I was slightly mollified by the clever stuff that turned up on revisiting Urth, but even so I feel it would probably have been more conceptually satisfactory to have kept the worldspaces separate. But is that just me? Do the rest of you feel that it all ties together brilliantly? Mo # ~ # ~ # WolfeWiki -- a wiki about Gene Wolfe http://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/

Given the reoccurring themes of transformation and an autopsy of the nature of the human soul, it is useful that one of the Whorl's gods has been already been met by the reader in his/her original state. Other than that, Pas could have been anyone...unless Silk is a clone of someone else referred to in "New Sun" (ahem). In that case, "Long Sun" is like "Urth of the New Sun". It offers additional (perhaps vain) helps to divine the original story. Anyway, putting Typhon in the Whorl also gets Wolfe's publishers off his back about writing another Urth novel. ᚹ

I've never been a fan of this rhetorical strategy, and judging that we have all chosen to join a mailing dedicated to an SF author, I imagine that I'm merely speaking to the choir here. But separating the wheat from the chaff according to genre distinctions, to me, belongs in a now-discredited world of presumed canons and aesthetic distinctions based on assumptions that have never been critically examined. Hope my post-structuralist grad school confusion isn't intruding too obviously here. Two problems: why doesn't Wolfe qualify as literature--what is the definition of literature and according to whom? Doesn't this artfully use language in a way that provides insight into the human condition through the portrayal of well-drawn characters, however the fantastic the situation? And secondly, even if we accept the arbitrary division that literature refers to realistic and SF refers to (as yet) unrealistic (problematic for all sorts of reasons, but...yeah), who decides that only the realistic approach is legitimate? Can't SF arise to greatness on its own terms? Don't have time to get into this more, and I'm sure many blog posts, fanzine articles, and dissertations have already been and will be written on these topics. Regards, Matt

Wolfe himself has answered that eloquently. According to such clever 19th century definitions of 'Literature', the Odissey or Hamlet or pretty much anything in the history of Literature isn't 'Literature'.

I guess disagree with the "cool" proposition in the first place. I also disagree with Moody in calling the "return" to the Urth-Sun universe "nostalgic." Why should Wolfe create a new universe every time he writes a novel? What I find interesting about BotNS in the context of the Urth-Sun universe is that we see it all through Severian's telling. It's like peeping through a keyhole. But there is a whole universe out there that Severian does not know and that does not know Severian. Typhon is one of those phenomena, except for a brief time. So what if there is no legend of the Whorl for Severian to report? It had no role in his story, and is merely an inconsequential and inevitable part of the backdrop. We know Typhon ruled worlds and wanted to rule more. We know there had to be colonists. The universe is vast. Trying to find concordances between LS/SS and NS is useful and fun if it uncovers facts that are useful and fun, but NOT finding concordance is evidence of very little by itself. For me, it hardly needs to tie together at all, let alone brilliantly.

Typhon/Piaton would be the beneficiary of the natural mummifying process of the Andes' higher elevations, that have preserved so many Incan bodies and lesser remains for us to find. His pause in reference to this may be because of the negative associations with the primitive native people, or out of vain revulsion at what his ruler face must have looked like in that state. Typhon's age is a puzzle. He must have been fairly old for some organs to be beyond repair with the impressive technologies still available on Urth, but my suggestion that he looks like a conventional octagenarian turned out to have little support. Typhon's sub-venerable cosmetic age might be due to just that: cosmetic treatments, though as I recall it has often been the style among Hellenic and Roman era dictatorships to emphasize the late middle age of the ruler in coinage and statuary as a symbol of wisdom and stability. I wonder if the question of time frames might be addressed by tarting up my old PLANET OF THE APES hypothesis with a reverse plot-twist: Instead of Green and Blue being Lune and Ushas, maybe the conventionally driven Whorl was intended as some kind of round-trip sleeper mission for the benefit of Typhon's plans for the Urth, but the Outsider/the Yesodis redirected it to Blue and Green instead, so that it serves the Increate's purpose as a mission mission to the Inhumi and the Neighbors.

Lemur said: "A certain ruler, a man who had the strength to rule alone and so called himself the monarch, built our whorl, Patera. It was to be a message from himself to the universe." (LAKE, 298) The people on Urth would never see the Whorl, never receive the message. Typhon was raw ego. Mt. Typhon's sole purpose was to flaunt his face and gratify his ego. He did not deprecate his memory or that of his family among the colonists, he just changed the family names to reflect the new reality of their digitized existence as gods in Mainframe. On Urth they had been flesh and blood, and the first walking Cargo on the ship had known and remembered that, until their memories were tampered with. To go from royalty to deity is hardly a step down in status. -Roy

Jeff Wilson wrote: [snip]

The ship was never intended for a round-trip mission. The internal time that passed since launch was 332 years, as indicated by the date on that letter that Quetzal had sent out to all the manteions endorsing Silk as Calde. The infrastructure had been failing for decades; the retreating lake, messed up weather, the Long Sun on the fritz, few living civilian chems, few working glasses, etc. Hammerstone figured that Pas had planned for the ship and things in it to last for 200 or maybe 250 years. At the time he spoke, the ship had been cooling its heals in the Blue-Green system for at least thirty years, since the rebellion in Mainframe by the gods who didn't want their worshippers to go away and leave them. So much time had passed on Urth since Typhon died (unfettered, btw) behind his curtain on Mt. Typhon that Nessus had grown far beyond the part where Rigoglio had once lived, such that the neighborhood was in ruins and long abandoned. Wolfe said in the List Q & A that the Blue-Green system was the ship's intended destination. It wasn't designed to make a round-trip. -Roy

David Stockhoff wrote (22-09-2010 03:36):

I agree with everything - and IMO much more 'tying' would make it all feel a bit artificial. What next, turn the books into an annotated cross-referenced timeline and ditch the narration altogether? The narration is part of the work. We have Severian in 1st person, maybe a different Severian in 1st person, a Horn about Silk in 3rd person, and a Horn who is also Silk in 1st person. Not to mention all the storytellers. All these have their strengths and limitations, on purpose. I also don't think the intent of the books is for someone to uncover their 'secret'. They are full of materials amenable to decipering, but I don't think they are 'clues' as people like to refer to it. I think they obviously hint at more complex readings, but I don't think their reason to be is to point to one grand solution, which IMO is an impoverished way to look at it. They enable discussion, speculation and layering, and I think those processes, where enriching, rather than any specific result, are what matters. During tyhe Agia discussion I mentioned we all agreed everything Wolfe wrote was extraordinary, and had Jerry protest. I never got the leisure to reply to that message and will leave any ideas to the next time Agia appears, but I'd like to clarify, and I'll make use of Google's dictionary to do so, ex?traor?di?nar?y 1. Very unusual or remarkable. 2. Unusually great. that what I meant was the first sense. Of course my opinion of what I know of Wolfe's work is quite high, but the bit I had intended to mean we'd all agree on was that his writing is never ordinary - or, at least I've never met any work of his that followed customary patterns. In all of it there is a naturalistic care with the meta-diegesis that I just don't find almost anywhere else, and nowhere with the same coherence. I think that's an objective assessment.

Isn't this like saying that the Apollo lunar missions would never be seen by Americans or Soviets or the other nations it was intended to impress? It certainly isn't true for the Apollo missions. Why would it necessarily be so for the Whorl mission?

To go from royalty to deity is a step up. But have the new worshipers FORGET your deeds as royalty is something that would be done only by someone ashamed of his flesh-and-blood deeds -- unless it was absolutely necessary. Since Typhon probably does not fit the bill for the first category, he must be in the second. There is no evidence that the non-cargo passengers on the Whorl worshiped the Nine. They saw the for what they were -- system interfaces that had gotten buggy. Only the wakers and sleepers had their memories tinkered with AFAIK. So the system of gods was a practical issue, just as Lemur described it. ᚹ

James Wynn wrote (22-09-2010 16:04):

The Apollo missions wouldn't be as impressive if they hadn't really been shown to reach the moon. The landings on Blue/Green weren't televised back to Urth.

Let's try a different analogy. Do the governments of Pakistan and Iran need to use a nuclear weapon for their nuclear weapon projects to inspire patriotism? Imagine footage of the construction of Whorl...the carving of the asteroid, the building of the cities, the prospect of sending thousands of Urthlings to a distant planet that could be freely portrayed as a fertile Eden, a lucrative opportunity, and a Land of Adventure. The actual landing of the colonists was almost irrelevant. What mattered was the huge propagandist art based on the construction project and the /aspirations/ of its purpose. The Whorl would be a monument...the Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Mt. Rushmore to the third power. It would definitely capture the imagination of the masses and portray Typhon's rule as one of affluence, technology, and limitless power. In Lan Wright's "The Last Hope of the Earth" (which has far to many parallels to the LS/SS to be coincidental), the colonization project was the central support for Earth morale even though no one on Earth had seen any of the actual colonies. Typhon would not have been saddled with /their/ limitations. And to the extent that realities of the project was less than inspiring, the Whorl was far enough away that he could make stuff up. ᚹ

I agree. Point taken about the probable lack of television exposure as we know it, but an even better comparison might be to the Tower of Babel---whose building was an act of hubris, but which could be looked on with genuine pride by all who saw or heard of it. It's the kind of thing that cements the reputation of a king as a statesman, or an emperor as a god. Maybe the peasants of the time didn't know or care, but the important people would have seen what was going on and understood why it was important. No king can be overthrown who actually restores the glory of a national past. I wonder how much the glasses were able to transmit back home during the voyage, or if they were designed to do so at all. --- On Wed, 9/22/10, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

Let's try a different analogy. Do the governments of Pakistan and Iran need to use a nuclear weapon for their nuclear weapon projects to inspire patriotism? Imagine footage of the construction of Whorl...the carving of the asteroid, the building of the cities, the prospect of sending thousands of Urthlings to a distant planet that could be freely portrayed as a fertile Eden, a lucrative opportunity, and a Land of Adventure. The actual landing of the colonists was almost irrelevant. What mattered? was the huge propagandist art based on the construction project and the /aspirations/ of its purpose. The Whorl would be a monument...the Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Mt. Rushmore to the third power. It would definitely capture the imagination of the masses and portray Typhon's rule as one of affluence, technology, and limitless power. In Lan Wright's "The Last Hope of the Earth" (which has far to many parallels to the LS/SS to be coincidental), the colonization project was the central support for Earth morale even though no one on Earth had seen any of the actual colonies. Typhon would not have been saddled with /their/ limitations. And to the extent that realities of the project was less than inspiring, the Whorl was far enough away that he could make stuff up. ᚹ

James Wynn wrote (22-09-2010 16:44):

If you ask me, it's quite the reverse. The only thing that mattered would be the landing, otherwise it's just a massive waste of taxpayers' money. At least that's how I see people reacting to every huge speding in public works. Once it results in something, it's great. Before that, it's a white elephant in the making. I'm also not so sure people would be thrilled at the idea of their fellow urthlings being 'cargo'.

DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote (22-09-2010 16:58):

That reminds me of Helliconia and the Avernus.

2010/9/22 Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>:

That's a very modernistic/democratic approach ... people in feudal societies don't wonder where their taxes are going, they are grateful they aren't higher.

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote (22-09-2010 17:49):

Don't know... taxes used to go to tangible things or waste. The Whorl is not waste but isn't much tangible either. It's clearly something that is visible - like, say, a cathedral - but unlike a cathedral, it doesn't serve its purpose just by being there.

As far as improving the life of any Urthling or colonist, it was surely a tremendous waste. As a monument it was merely tremendous, which is what one desires of a monument. To repeat my analogy, the Pakistani and Iranian nuclear weapons programs will not improve the lives of any average citizen of those nations, nor have they so far. That is not why they are popular there (and they are). ᚹ

Also, the Whorl is not going to "just be there". It's going to leave and carry to the heavens the patriotic aspirations of the Urth. And Typhon becomes "The Calde Who Returned Us to the Stars". But since he died shortly after and Urth was soon divided into regions of alien influence, it all was irrelevant. ᚹ

James Wynn wrote (22-09-2010 18:16):

But a monument serves its purpose by being there. The Whorl wasn't meant to stay there.

And what popularity would they enjoy if they were sent to somewhere out of reach?

They are out of reach. They will never be used. They will never be seen. Their locations will never be known. They are pure ideals of their nations as Great Powers. They are far worse monuments than the Whorl. When the Whorl leaves orbit around Sol, in the minds of Typhon's subjects it has already arrived at its destination. Think of the propaganda films! Every painting of Typhon would portray him as a colossus straddling the cities of the Whorl, his head (only one I presume) surrounded by fabulous planets. Those left behind on Urth would greatly envy the lot of those lucky enough to be selected for the trip. Everything is anticipation and imagination. ᚹ

Indeed! --- On Wed, 9/22/10, Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com> wrote: From: Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com> Subject: Re: (urth) Short Sun blog review To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net> Date: Wednesday, September 22, 2010, 12:36 PM DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote (22-09-2010 16:58):

That reminds me of Helliconia and the Avernus.

James Wynn wrote: ____________

____________ If that were the scenario, then people should have been clamoring to go. Mamelta said: "We had to volunteer. They were--you couldn't say no." (LAKE, chap. 9, 251) ___________

actual landing of the colonists was almost irrelevant. What mattered was the huge propagandist art based on the construction project and the /aspirations/ of its purpose. The Whorl would be a monument...the Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Mt. Rushmore to the third power. It would definitely capture the imagination of the masses and portray Typhon's rule as one of affluence, technology, and limitless power.< ___________ There isn't the least suggestion in the Urth Cycle that the Whorl project even existed, not even when Severian was there while Typhon was still alive. If there had been a massive propaganda campaign to promote the project, it was a monumental failure. I realize that the lack of evidence for a propaganda campaign in the Urth Cycle doen't prove anything, but neither does your supposition of such a campaign prove that it existed. -Roy

This only means that the desire to go or stay was irrelevant. But it is simply not conceivable that there were not more people on Urth willing to go (people who would gladly have traded places those who were selected to be Cargo or Sleepers) than there were slots to go. But wanting to go was not the criteria. The Whorl was probably not such a bad place to live when it was first launched with plenty of chems to do the work. The use of cards as money might suggest that money wasn't even seen as necessary initially because the designers did not expect scarcity of basic essentials. Still, a young woman with prospects on Urth would probably not want to go. An established member of the ruling class would not want to go. I seriously doubt that any among Typhon's court were clamoring to go. They went out of duty or they went because Typhon (or some sub-ruler ordered to procure people with defined criteria) was ready to be rid of them. Members of the ruling classes rarely volunteer for war if there is a reduced chance of coming back to medals and accolades.

Two reasons: 1) Wolfe had not invented the Whorl when he wrote of Severian's encounters with Typhon. 2) Typhon died shortly after the Whorl was launched, and his empire was quickly divided between competing alien powers who had no interest in promoting Typhon as a Great Man who had Returned Humanity to the Stars. You know all this.

I never claimed that there was anything detailing Typhon's reasons for the Whorl Project. Wolfe has already implied that he didn't consider that question much himself. I was merely responding to the following:

I was trying to show that the Whorl would have been a useful monument to Typhon's ego for his subjects on Urth, even though I argue that it was not really much of a monument to his ego for those who left. Incidentally, there is a conversation between the Rajan and Hound that I think touches on some of this: "You're saying that everybody could have been asleep? All of us? No houses and no people, just trees and animals?" "No, I'm saying Pas must have considered that and rejected it as unworkable, or at least undesirable." Hound nodded. "He'd have had nobody to worship him." "That's true, though I'm not sure it was a consideration. If it didn't seem so impious, I'd say now that the Chapter and the manteions seem almost to have been a joke, that Pas made himself our chief god largely because it amused him. [snip the parable of the farmer meeting Pas in Mainframe] "Pas wished to mold and guide us; and for him to do it, we had to be awake. As our chief god, he was ideally situated, though the false memories given the sleepers may have been intended to serve the same purpose. Like the farmer we complain of storms, but Pas must have foreseen that there would be storms--and things far worse--on the new whorls. How could we cope with them if we never saw snow, or a wind storm?" One thing though. I have said that Typhon deprecated the memory of his Terrestrial achievements among the colonists so they would not remember who sent them and try to return. An obvious question would be, then why did he mess with the memories of the sleepers? ~ page 131 of RTTW pb. There's more as well, including an argument for why Pas's construction of the Whorl was not purely malevolent or egotistical ("Pas was made by the Outsider"). Remember that Pas could not be a god on the colonized planets. Even the Writings made it clear that the Nine were only gods on the Whorl. ~ u+16b9

Regarding humanity returning to the stars: this theme comes up quite a lot in the New Sun cycle - sometimes in those very terms, though at other times people say 'Men of Urth' or the like instead of 'humankind' . Vodalus, at least ostensibly, has it as his ideal. The Autarch says it can't be achieved until humans change - he has one idea of how they should change, while the Ascians have another. Malrubius seems to say that the New Sun marks the beginning of the process by which humans will return to the stars. How can we square this with the passages that imply that humans are already out there among the stars, left over from the first empire? Perhaps 'returning to the stars' should be taken to mean not just being on other planets, but actually travelling among the stars (under their own steam, rather than as crew on ships captained by Hierodules). It may be that the humans who are out there now are as isolated as those on Urth. We should also consider Severian's speculation that the people on other planets will have evolved away from the form we know; they may not now be what we would immedately recognise as human. Typhon: first, can someone point me to the evidence that he was not born/raised on Urth? I'm not sure what the source for this is. Typhon says 'I ruled this planet and many more'. Severian''s immediate thought is that he is lying. I'm not sure if there is anything in New Sun itself that proves he is telling the truth. When you take Long Sun into account, he must have had some space-travelling capacity to be able to launch the Whorl in the first place, but this might be restricted to the solar system. Even if you take 'many planets' seriously, I would think, say, twenty would count as many in this context, so he need only have ruled the solar system and a few neighbouring ones. As for the bit about the ships on which he might have left having gone, this suggests to me not a wide empire, in which ships would surely be constantly coming and going, but a once-for-all expedition, that once gone will not return. So it fits in quite well with the story of the Whorl, though of course the precise form the expedtion takes isn't made clear here. This may also link up with Valeria's story - when her family moved into the Citadel they were 'waiting to leave Urth with the autarch of their time' - again this suggests a specific expedition.

For me, it is based on the story of "Spring Wind". I was rather surprised to discover that it was at all controversial that "Spring Wind" referred to Typhon. But I suppose there is little about these stories that is not controversial. If it seems reasonable to you that Spring Wind = Typhon, then the obvious implication is that he is extra-terrestrial : Sword of the Lictor, Chapter 19 "On a mountain top beyond the shores of Urth there once lived a lovely woman named Early Summer. She was the queen of that land, but her king was a strong, unforgiving man, and because she was jealous of him he was jealous of her in turn, and killed any man he believed to be her lover. One day Early Summer was walking in her garden when she saw a most beautiful blossom of a kind wholly new to her. It was redder than any rose and more sweetly perfumed, but its strong stalk was thornless and smooth as ivory. She plucked it and carried it to a secluded spot, and as she reclined there contemplating it, it grew to seem to her no blossom at all but such a lover as she had longed for, powerful and yet as tender as a kiss. Certain of the juices of the plant entered her and she conceived. She told the king, however, that the child was his, and since she was well guarded, he believed her. It was a boy, and by his mother's wish he was called Spring Wind. [snip] Now it happened that the chances of war often brought Spring Wind to Urth, and there he came to know of two brothers who were kings.

Plus, the fact that he "chose to make Urth his capitol" at least opens up the possibility that he's from somewhere else, not to mention that the source of his powers is still unknown. How many Roman emperors were born in Italy once the capitol shifted east---even before then? Very few, if any. Diocletian never set foot in Rome. I am not sure about the example of Byzantium.

Such a propaganda campaign sounds more like Heinlein. Again, think of the thousands of slaves that would have been required to build the Tower of Babel or any other great wonder of the world. Think of how Australia was settled by the scum of Britain. This would have been little different. It was a project built on brute force.

I don't see anything in that story to suggest that Spring Wind was Typhon. It does appear that Spring Wind is extraterrestrial. He fought on Urth, and sometimes his armies caused devastation among humankind (and food for wolves), at least locally. But in the long history of Urth there must have been many such. Where is the indication that Spring Wind conquered or ruled the planet? What characteristics, other than his being a reasonably dominant warrior/leader, and some doubtful etymology, induce you to associate him with Typhon? - Gerry Quinn From: James Wynn Andrew Mason - Typhon: first, can someone point me to the evidence that he was not born/raised on Urth? I'm not sure what the source for this is. For me, it is based on the story of "Spring Wind". I was rather surprised to discover that it was at all controversial that "Spring Wind" referred to Typhon. But I suppose there is little about these stories that is not controversial. If it seems reasonable to you that Spring Wind = Typhon, then the obvious implication is that he is extra-terrestrial : Sword of the Lictor, Chapter 19 "On a mountain top beyond the shores of Urth there once lived a lovely woman named Early Summer. She was the queen of that land, but her king was a strong, unforgiving man, and because she was jealous of him he was jealous of her in turn, and killed any man he believed to be her lover. One day Early Summer was walking in her garden when she saw a most beautiful blossom of a kind wholly new to her. It was redder than any rose and more sweetly perfumed, but its strong stalk was thornless and smooth as ivory. She plucked it and carried it to a secluded spot, and as she reclined there contemplating it, it grew to seem to her no blossom at all but such a lover as she had longed for, powerful and yet as tender as a kiss. Certain of the juices of the plant entered her and she conceived. She told the king, however, that the child was his, and since she was well guarded, he believed her. It was a boy, and by his mother's wish he was called Spring Wind. [snip] Now it happened that the chances of war often brought Spring Wind to Urth, and there he came to know of two brothers who were kings.

And I was refering, in that line, to Lemur's comment: "A certain ruler, a man who had the strength to rule alone and so called himself the monarch, built our whorl, Patera. It was to be a message from himself to the universe." (LAKE, 298)

Wolfe's answer in the Q & A was: " Knowing Typhon as I do, he probably had at least half a dozen purposes; but certainly one of the chief must have been self-aggrandizement -- to return human kind to the stars would be a very great thing indeed." Lemur's comment speaks directly to the self-aggrandizement issue. The universe is a little bigger than Urth, and Urth itself would never receive that message. Therefore, the message Typhon sent to the universe by launching the Whorl was intended for a larger audience than the people of Urth, who already lived under his tyranical rule.

The list of characters in RTTW says Typhon was "the ancient tyrant whose personality became PAS". Whatever rehabilitation of character he may have undergone in Mainframe as Pas has no bearing on the fact that he was an egotistical tyrant when he was scanned and when he conceived, constructed, stocked and launched his "message from himself to the universe". -Roy

I'm not convinced he was rehabilitated at all. I have heard Wolfe say repeatedly that the best villain is someone who falls just short of being a hero. I think Pas is Wolfe's alternate take on Typhon. Severian's experience with Typhon is one POV. But Severian as The Destroyer of Urth was the POV of the sailors on the Time ship. Another take on Typhon IMO is William Ries. Refer to Gideon Chase's view on Evil. ᚹ

I think the etymology is not dubious at all. To me, it's a fairly overt reference. Not at all subtle. It's analogous to, say, having a story in the Brown book that refers to a black cloaked figure named The One Who Divides. Demanding more evidence than this from a story that didn't even overtly identify Severian as the Conciliator or the New Sun seems to be demanding something one would never expect to get. ᚹ

James Wynn wrote (23-09-2010 11:20):

I should emphasize that it's the actual etymology of 'typhoon' that is dubious, but that is no reason why it shouldn't be used in the story, or in fact it's one more reason why it should.

From: James Wynn Gerry Quinn- I don't see anything in that story to suggest that Spring Wind was Typhon. It does appear that Spring Wind is extraterrestrial. He fought on Urth, and sometimes his armies caused devastation among humankind (and food for wolves), at least locally. But in the long history of Urth there must have been many such. Where is the indication that Spring Wind conquered or ruled the planet? What characteristics, other than his being a reasonably dominant warrior/leader, and some doubtful etymology, induce you to associate him with Typhon? I think the etymology is not dubious at all. To me, it's a fairly overt reference. Not at all subtle. It's analogous to, say, having a story in the Brown book that refers to a black cloaked figure named The One Who Divides. Demanding more evidence than this from a story that didn't even overtly identify Severian as the Conciliator or the New Sun seems to be demanding something one would never expect to get. But typhoons ae not particularly associated with Spring (they occur year round and in fact it is in Spring that they are least frequent), so all we have is 'Wind', which is hardly a strong connection. Spring Wind has a son Frog, and the story is mostly about him. There is no reference to his father in the rest of the story. You'd think if Frog's dad ruled Urth and other worlds and had another family, it would have been mentioned somewhere. "Wind" and "fighting" don't add up to a definition of Typhon, in my view. (Wikipedia tells me there's a Marvel Comics superhero called Wind Warrior, for example.) Typhon's characteristic signature is a second head; he even keeps it when translated to digitised form. If Spring Wind had any indication of a second head, I'd have no problems with the identification. I don't agree with the concept that everybody in BotNS has to be everybody else in disguise. - Gerry Quinn

I don't think typhoons are at all relevant. The Greek monster Typhon was mostly characterized by being multi-headed and dragon/snake-like. But his Egyptian cognate, Typhon-Set was not quite as monstrous and very explicitly associated with hot desert winds and drought. Sirocco storms are most frequent in spring and autumn. I note that drought and hot winds are a part of the Long Sun story and perhaps serve a Pas/Typhon purpose. The Naviscaput story is explicitly associated by Severian with Abaia. By parallel I could see the possibility that Spring Wind is a benign name and story associated with Typhon and his origin. Gets a solid "maybe" in my book.

Not a strong 'Spring' association. And if we lose the 'typhoon' association, the wind connection is even weaker.

The drought (as well as any unexpectedly hot winds) is a consequence of the blockage of some of the Whorl's ventilation tunnels over time; it is an indication of the decrepitude of the Whorl. The Whorl as built by Pas/Typhon did not suffer from drought.

Certainly, Wolfe is inclined to put in such references. If there were strong associations between Spring Wind and Typhon, such as a suggestion of two heads, I'd credit it. But I think it's a stretch to read an identification into what we see here. - Gerry Quinn

A few points about the speed of the Whorl; 1. You have to travel very fast to get to any stars because of their great distance. To reach even the closest star in 300 years, you would need a speed of about 1.5% of light (10,000,000 MPH). You would need some fantastic source of energy to get the Whorl to even 1.5%, a source that will only be found in the future. Wolfe says the long sun is powered by nuclear fusion, but he doesn't tell us what propels the Whorl. I think that is because he knows that no such power source exists yet. 2. 95% of light speed requires even more energy, of course. But as long as we are tapping into an unknown power source, we might as well go as fast as we can. 3. A travel speed close to the speed of light explains why only 300 years have elapsed on the Whorl while 1000 to 2000 years have gone by on Urth. At 95% of speed of light, Whorl time would be 300 years for 1000 Urth years. At 99% of speed of light, Whorl time would be 300 years for 2000 Urth years. 4. Of course, it's more complicated than traveling the whole way at one speed. You have to accelerate the ship up to a high speed, and then decelerate to stop at Blue-Green system. The rate of acceleration has to be slow, or the cargo would be pressed against the back of the ship. Acceleration would have to be very low. At an acceleration of 1/100 G, it would take about 97 years to get up to about speed of light. You could then coast for 100 years, and then decelerate for 97 years, making a total time of about 300 years.