From: Kieran Mullen <kieran@phyast.nhn.ou.edu>
Subject: (whorl) Holy Moses!
Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 16:29:12 


[Posted from WHORL, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]

>
>From: Alice Turner <al@ny.playboy.com>
>Subject: Go Down, Moses
>Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 16:32:56 -0400
>
>At 12:26 PM 6/27/97 -0700, you wrote:
>>    To me Silk has more of a Mosaic flavor to his character than Christic.
>>He leads his people out of bondage to a promised planet.  However, he
>>does not get to walk in the Land himself.  I mean, "Exodus"?  The burning
>>bush?  
>>
>>               Kieran Mullen
>
>What it the Moses role was played by Quetzal?

     He is never really seen as a leader of the people.  His image is
primarily serpentine, and therefore devilish in this mythology (IMO).
I don't think that Moses led the Hebrews through the desert so they 
could get eaten in the promised land :-).

     I also don't mean to press the point to strongly.  Symbolism is not
allegory.  We don't have a Mr.  Goodworks and a Ms.  Gossip running
around.  It also occurs to me that Wolfe's soteriology (story of being
saved) doesn't have to rigorously following the Biblical paradigms.

     Can anyone think of sf novels that follow other spiritual traditions
off planet?  I think it's in Simmons _Hyperion_, where he replays the 
story of Abraham and Isaac.  (There are lots of such novels that involve the 
Christian tradition).   By "follow" I don't mean simply that there are
Moslems or Buddhists on another planet.  I mean novels that use their
cosmology on an sf scale.

                   Kieran Mullen