Frostfree

Urthers -- Now that "Frostfree" has been published in Shadows of the New Sun and some of you have had a chance to read it, perhaps it would be helpful to mention that the story was originally commissioned for an essay collection I edited in honor of Jim Jordan (Patera Nutria). To you, Jim is known as a guy who interviewed Wolfe on a couple of occasions and who provides comments on this list. To the rest of the world, Jim is known primarily as a theologian and biblical scholar, and the essays in the collection were along those lines. But Wolfe did agree to provide a story, which turned out to be "Frostfree." Due to some mixup and confusion, we ended up not being able to publish it in the collection. Still, it might perhaps give an extra twist to your interpretation to think of it as a short story designed to honor Jim, which raises the question whether Wolfe intended there to be a theological angle to the story (among other things: Is Frostfree a mechanical nun-refrigerator from the future, working in some way for the salvation of this guy, who is so cold-hearted only a fridge could help him?). Jim himself, on his first reading of the story, thought it was Wolfe's version of Kuttner's "The Twonky." John