From: "Nicholas Gevers" <potto@webmail.co.za>
Subject: (urth) The Book of the Short Sun
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 1999 07:23:01 +0200

Thanks to Michael for his introduction and to Robert Borski and Alice
Turner for their welcomes. Thanks also to all who've responded to the
"Nova Express" article. I've written a sequel article which has yet to
find a publisher; if anyone's interested, I can e-mail that to you.
Regarding my speculation that the inhumi may be a good deal more
sympathetic than most would believe (sorry for discussing this here,
but Whorl is inactive these days): first, my gratitude to Michael for
calling on the pitchforks to stand down; a speculative spoiler is not
a spoiler at all. And Michael, you say you know no more about the
content of Short Sun than the publishers do: but don't they have the
manuscripts of Volumes One and Two to hand? So what do you know? I
don't mind spoilers; you can tell me in private correspondence.
Second, the colonialism question: there's a rather useful commentary
on Fifth Head in a volume entitled "Science, Myth, and the Fictional
Creation of Alien Worlds" by Albert Wendland (Ann Arbor, Mich: UMI
Research Press, 1982). Something worth adding to secondary
bibliographies. I think it's a reasonable guess that, considering how
colonial guilt haunts both Fifth Head and TBotNS, a concern of Short
Sun will be the justice of anyone occupying someone else's territory
unasked (assuming, of course, that Blue isn't Ushas, in which case the
cargo are simply returning home). Wolfe does a masterful job of
keeping Quetzal's true intentions and moral nature ambiguous in Long
Sun; this is a foundation for SOMETHING remarkable.
//--------------------------------------
Nicholas Gevers
potto@webmail.co.za
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