From: David_Lebling@avid.com
Subject: (whorl) OBW Various
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 09:54:26 



Length of _Whorl's_ voyage.  I recall a remark by Marble, in the scene where she
is remembering the mustering of the chems before departure, where she mentions
how old she is.  I don't have the book handy, so I can't be sure, but that would
provide an upper bound for the length of voyage.

The Writing of TBotLS.  Speculations on how Horn might have had help writing
_The Book of Silk_ seem to forget that he did have help, from his wife Nettle.
He also describes how they reconstructed scenes where they weren't present, by
inventing "typical" dialogue that led to the outcomes they knew.  I might also
mention that the style in TBoS is quite different from that of OBW, and I
attribute that to Nettle's influence.  Horn, on several occasions, laments that
without her organizational ability, the present work will be inferior.  This is
not to say that I don't agree that Something Is Up with respect to who Horn
actually is...

On Black Holes.  David Alan Groce captures one half of my BH worries (plot
kludgery and retroactive undermining of earlier books), and Jim Jordan the other
(Severian showing up on the _Whorl_).  Severian, after _Urth of the New Sun_, is
so nearly a _deus ex machina_ plot device that his appearance would be very
dangerous.  But this isn't what I worry about (Wolfe can pull that sort of thing
off typing with one finger).  What I dislike is series where you feel more and
more constricted because it begins to appear that there are really only about a
dozen Real People in the universe.  Heinlein fell into this in his later novels,
as well as the _deus_ stuff.  What eventually happens is that every new
character you meet turns out to be a previously introduced character, or related
to one.  I suppose "All You Zombies" is the ultimate one of these, but it's a
short story.  Anyway, I'll shut up about this now.

Distant Possibility.  I'm very impressed by Jim Jordan's (possible) explanation
of the changes in Horn's attitudes depending on which (possible) personality is
doing the writing.  I too had noticed that at times he seems genuinely
remorseful at his adultery, his "failure," and so on, and at others not.  I had
tentatively attributed this to mood shifts and the presence or absence of
Seawrack and later her songs.  Now I'll have to take another look.  The whole DP
idea is very interesting: there's a whole lot of plot between the end of the
"past" and the beginning of the "present" OBW plot threads in which it (or
anything else) could happen.

Spoilers.  While I can forgive Kevin his post, I hope we don't get any more like
it from Those In The Know.  Wolfe did say that Sev and his sister would appear
in the trilogy, so most of what KJM spilled wasn't too much of a spoiler, but
please, in the future, keep it zipped.

     -- Dave Lebling
     (aka vizcacha)



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