From: Michael Straight <straight@email.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: (urth) New Sun miscellany
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 10:22:32 


On Thu, 18 Jun 1998, Peter Westlake wrote:

> You took the words right out of my mouth! It seems to me that any
> puzzles in BotNS ought to have answers in BotNS, subject only to
> modification by things we find out later in UotNS. 
> I think
> we should answer questions about BotNS first with reference to
> that book alone - as we would have had to for several years in
> real time - and then apply the extra knowledge from UotNS. If the
> answers come out differently, that in itself is interesting.

A fascinating, but at best difficult exercise!  Some might argue it is
impossible, that having read Urth, there are some possibilities we just
won't be able to see in BotNS anymore.  I can't imagine, for instance,
pretending anymore that the Urth is so old that the Sun is dying of
natural causes, even though I read the whole series without catching on
about the black hole. 

The best route might be to read reviews that predate Urth or remember
interpretations we had before we read Urth and in discussing them limit
the "evidence" to BotNS.

-Rostrum


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