Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2002 09:29:50 -0500
Subject: (urth) Pre-historic Briah
From: Adam Stephanides 

on 4/19/02 5:03 PM, James Jordan at jbjordan4@cox.net wrote:

> JJ: Is Briah our universe? Or is that a universe that resurrected saints
> have set up in the world to come as part of the cities that they made?
> GW: No. I thought of it as a long past universe. Something that we are
> repeating rather than something that we are.

Wolfe said this?  I'm quite surprised, even shocked.  I'm pretty much of an
intentionalist, but (without having reread all the books) this strikes me as
a pointless complication with no textual warrant.  The Appendix to SHADOW
(the only one I have on hand at the moment) even says that the book takes
place in the future.  Of course, the "author" of the appendix could be
wrong, but again this seems like a pointless complication.  And didn't Wolfe
say in another interview that the Commonwealth was South America?

But then, I'm beginning to think that Wolfe's books do have a lot of
pointless complications.  Another reason for disliking them, in addition to
those catalogued by Nigel Price.

--Adam


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