From: m.driussi@genie.com
Subject: (whorl) The R Tangent
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 97 03:29:00 GMT


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

Reply:  Item #1194454 from WHORL@LISTS.BEST.COM@INET02#

Protean `R,'

Re: "Orphans of the Sky," wasn't the two-headed mutie giant just
the second in command?  I.e., the hero's "Tonto," to show how the
pure strain hero could tolerate diversity.  <g>

I seem to recall that in Harry Harrison's CAPTIVE UNIVERSE, the
colonists were kept in a stable society modeled on that of the
Aztecs, and the guardian of the tunnel between the worlds (of
essentially cargo and crew) was a robot in humanoid form with two
snake heads on top.  Based on an Aztec god.  (Colonists deliberately
kept in the dark here.)  In Aldis's NON-STOP (aka STARSHIP) there
were mysterious ancient giants and aliens on board the ship, but it turned
out to be that the crew had grown steadily smaller in stature (fish in
a bowl?) so that their own ancestors were the giants; and the aliens
were really humans come onboard to study them, as the ship had
returned to Earth and been orbiting for some time.

Let's see, what else?  Delany's BALLAD OF BETA-2 is about an
anthropologist studying the empty generation starship
post-colonization.  There was an Infocom game called "Starcross" that
had some pretty neat elements.  Coney's THE HERO OF DOWNWAYS . . .
let's see, how does that one go?  Basically a hero is needed, so he's
grown from the hero-vat . . . in the end, was that even a generation
starship story?  (Can't remember.  Read it close to DARK UNIVERSE by
?? and I often confuse them.  One or both are quasi-generation
starship stories.)  Then there's Geston's THE LORDS OF THE
STARSHIP, where generations pass but the dingus doesn't even lift
off!  "The Starlost" pilot was novelized by Edward Bryant, I think?
THE DREAM MILLENNIUM by James White has the sleepers going through
"altered states" style evolutionary progression dreams, from primordial
sea up to the society they left, and there's that mysterious entity
onboard the ship.

Re: card currency used outside of Viron.  If you can find some text
to that effect, I'd be much obliged.  I myself don't know.

=mantis=

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