Urth Net
mantis on TBOTSS and fanfic
Hoo, boy.
Look here. I mean it!
1) TBOTLS is revealed near the end to have been written by Horn.
2) TBOTSS starts off with some revision to that--it wasn't just Horn, but Horn and his wife Nettle. There is also talk about the trials of publishing, from making the paper on up to the writing of the text in each book. TBOTSS is presumably being written by the narrator Horn alone this time, since Nettle is staying at home. Now it will be 100% Horn.
3) Deep into OBW (TBOTSS vol. 1) it is revealed that there are some editors involved.
4) Toward the end of TBOTSS it is revealed that the narrator wasn't so much Horn writing about Horn's adventure as it was Silk writing about Horn's adventure in absence of Horn (a switch on the situation in TBOTLS, where it was "Horn" [Horn/Nettle] writing about Silk's adventure in the absence of Silk). Then Silk leaves Blue and Nettle leaves, too.
5) Toward the end of TBOTSS it is revealed that some chapters were not written by the narrator Horn, and that these chapters were cobbled together by the editors (all born on Blue; two of them, Hoof and Hide, raised on/with/through TBOTLS).
Now then, the editors Hoof and Hide. They are intimately connected to TBOTLS, but not as primary creators. They are immersed in the matter; it is in their mother's milk, if you like. They are so steeped in the stuff that I liken them to "fans," even though they did not voluntarily get into it (and fandom is voluntary, ain't it?). Because of their unique position, they are compelled to step up to the bat and take a wack at completing the manuscript--and they do.
When H & H write about The Whorl, we know fully that they have never been there themselves, but ah--they =have= been there through the text of TBOTLS, just as we fans have. So again, H & H are equal to us readers in not knowing The Whorl at first hand and not knowing Silk at first hand.
So the writing by H & H, while buttressed by interviews, snatches of conversation, and editorial consensus, amounts to a patch written by fans, which is rather like a fan fiction in the broad sense (rather than the specific sense of "slash" or "Mary Sue"). Now their wives are not likely to be as steeped as the twins are, but they nonetheless have an influence on the shaping of TBOTSS, and since they don't have so many memories of the people involved, their source of inspiration will be TBOTLS.
TBOTSS is, therefore, part secondary creation--again, rather like fanfic in the broad sense. It is largely based upon characters and settings depicted in TBOTLS. Neither Horn, nor Nettle, nor even Silk is around to help them in this: nobody involved in the primary creation (TBOTLS) is available. All they have is their memory and the text of TBOTLS.
=mantis=
Sirius Fiction
Has Moved To
http://www.siriusfiction.com/
*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.