From: "Kevin J. Maroney" <kmaroney@crossover.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) UOTNS
Date: Sun, 07 Nov 1999 14:13:39 

At 10:21 PM 11/6/99 -0500, alga wrote:
>The legend is that [_Urth of the New Sun_]
>it was written at the express order of Dave Hartwell, who said that the
>series was too truncated and confusing without a wrap-up. If that is true
>(and I have my doubts), hooray for Hartwell.

I asked David Hartwell about this a few months ago, and meant to report
here. Here's his version:

David, John Douglas (then Hartwell's assistant editor at Timescape) and
Wolfe were dining together to discuss _Citadel of the Autarch_, which Wolfe
had just delivered to them. Both David and John agreed that the book was a
triumph, but that they felt that it really should show, on camera, the
ceremony in which Severian became Autarch. Wolfe, in Hartwell's terms,
immediately started adding up words like a calculator, and then declared
that he'd be delighted to show it, but that it would take an additional
50,000-100,000 words to do justice. 

All agreed that adding this much material to _Citadel_ would be
problematic, and on the spot they agreed that it should be an additional
novel. 

So _Urth_ was written at David (and John's) suggestion. 

-- 
   Kevin Maroney | Crossover Technologies 
   kmaroney@crossover.com | (212) 777-1190


*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/