Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 16:09:23 +0200
From: Christopher Culver 
Subject: (urth) Dating Pandora

Adam Stephanides wrote:

>The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (iirc) said there had been speculation
>that PANDORA was actually written early in Wolfe's career.  Can anyone
>confirm or deny this?
>

I wouldn't be too surprised. We have Larry Leif the returned Vietnam 
veteran, who's nonetheless young enough to have a sister in high school, 
so that makes me suspect the story is late-1970's. Nonetheless, Holly 
listens to tapes instead of records (unless Wolfe changed that when he 
submitted the story to Tor), so it could be early to mid-1980's.

I always thought that Wolfe's turn-of-the-90's trilogy of fantastical 
works (DOORS, CASTLEVIEW, PANDORA) were written quickly by a writer 
trying to get a little rest from complicated drawn-out sagas like the 
BotNS and the Soldier series. So, people disappointed in Pandora because 
of their lightweight nature shouldn't just try to automatically conclude 
that it was written earlier in Wolfe's career. Nonetheless, having a 
young Vietnam veteran in the book does complicate things...

Christopher Culver


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