Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 15:09:24 -0800
From: Michael Andre-Driussi 
Subject: (urth) DOORS: places and an accurate prediction?

In THERE ARE DOORS there's that scene at the map store where Green is
trying to buy a map of Overwood and the clerk mentions maps for
"Slumberland, Disneyland, Cleveland, and Heaven, Hell, and Limbo--all three
on one map."

Of course we like this progression of Slumberland, Disneyland, and
Cleveland, because it moves from what we take to be purely imaginary
(Slumberland), to a real place built upon imaginary things (Disneyland), to
a purely non-fantastical place (Cleveland).

But I've noticed that there is a "Cleveland" in fantastic fiction: in
William Morris's THE GLITTERING PLAIN this "Cleveland-by-the-sea" is a
village in Northern Europe.  Odd little detail, thought I'd share it.

Next up, a possible strange case of the "predictive powers" of genre.

Remember how Lara is a goddess of Love, and how copper things are hers, and
how, as a result of this, she is a sort of goddess of technology as a
sideline?  That is, she can appear on televisions, make them turn on, blow
them out, things like that.

THERE ARE DOORS was published in 1988.  IIRC, this was before the internet
became such a public phenomenon, and unless I'm mistaken, this was long
before it became clear that the primary use of the internet was and is . .
. pornography.

So it seems like Wolfe made an accurate prediction, in a Wolfean way.

=mantis=



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