From: "Alice Turner" <akt@attglobal.net>
Subject: (urth) UOTNS
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 1999 22:21:32 

>
> From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Nicholas=20Gevers?= <vermoulian@yahoo.com>

> Re the necessity of URTH as a coda to TBOTNS: I
> personally see THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN as Wolfe's best
> single book, both for its rich eclecticism of focus
> and its superb flights of poetic language. To me, it
> completes and transcends THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN; in
> fact, I've at times thought of it as the best SF novel
> ever written. This may seem extravagant praise, but
> what other work of SF has come so close to the
> intensity of writers like Joyce?
> Maybe I'm using the wrong criteria...

I agree here. I have never understood the hostility toward this book. It
seems radiant to me, a truly beautiful, immortal book and entirely necessary
to the series. Tzad is wonderful, Juturna is wonderful, the connection with
Apheta may be strange and even distasteful to some, but there is magic in
it. The descriptions of the leaps among the sails of the starship are
unrivaled, except by perhaps some of  Cordwainer Smith. The legend is that
it was written at the express order of Dave Hartwell, who said that the
series was too truncated and confusing without a wrap-up. If that is true
(and I have my doubts), hooray for Hartwell.

-alga


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