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From: "Kieran Cleary" <kierannwn@tinet.ie> Subject: Re: (urth) Re: Fate, undines and Autarc Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 14:55:45 [Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works] >I would be interested to know just how many versions of the BOTNS >are actually out there, and how they differ. I would imagine that the version that Thecla & Sev read is similar to the one Dr. Talos claims to have based his play on. That is, a colourful, mythic reworking of the "facts", which are more likely to be found in the Brown Book, purporting as it does to contain accounts of the original historical events upon which the mythological corpus of the time was based. I seem to remember Severian commenting that Thecla & himself were about to commence reading the section on the Conciliator in the Brown Book, but never get around to it. Now *that* could possibly have contained a closer approximation of the events as they happen in our BotNS. In any case, coming as it did from Ultan's library, which appears to extend in space and time beyond the boundaries of the citadel, it is perhaps not unreasonable to allow the possibility that the version of tBotNS which Thecla gets from the library relates an account from a parallel Urth, but one in which the New Sun also appears (Eata as New Sun? not sure of the spelling: Severian's old apprentice friend who he meets again in Citadel & features in his musings on alternative workings out of the story). lasrach North West Labs Finisklin Industrial Estate Sligo Republic of Ireland Tel. +353 71 69441 Fax. +353 71 69451 email: kierannwn@tinet.ie works ranjit@best.com whorl@lists.best.com