(urth) Re: Increate on trial

maru marudubshinki at gmail.com
Fri Apr 1 19:02:06 PST 2005


"Sister-list"?
Before my time- a little history please?

~Maru

David Kirby wrote:

> James Wynn wrote:
>
>> Personally, I've come to like the idea of a "futuristic novel" set in 
>> a vast distant future that occurs in the staggeringly distant "past" 
>> (if that's the proper word for something that occurs beyond multiple 
>> iterations of the collapse and rebirth of Time). 
>
>
> Actually, I like the idea, too. There are, uh, cycles within the Cycle,
> and this idea undergirds the vastness of that proposition.
>
>> Its just the sort of twisting Wolfe does all the time with his 
>> stories and characters. Maybe he didn't think of it until later but I 
>> don't find it especially undermined in the text (even the quote David 
>> Kirby mentioned since the Bang-Gnab theory Wolfe is playing with was 
>> similar to the parallel universe concept of String theory). I don't 
>> see it as a plot hole at all.
>
>
> From what I've read on this list and its now-deceased "sister" list, 
> it's also like Wolfe to say things that undermine conclusions that are 
> reasonably reached from basic readings of his texts. I suspect he does 
> this on purpose, to keep us digging, but that may be giving him too 
> much credit; he certainly enjoys readers' reactions to puzzles and 
> "Easter eggs" he places in the texts. Even if he does think everything 
> is crystal clear.
>
> And despite what I recall being the ascendency of the Bang-Gnab theory 
> in the early '80s, when NEW SUN was first published, doesn't current 
> thinking have it that the universe won't "Gnab" on us, won't 
> continually expand, but will reach a state of (very desolate) 
> steadiness? That's the assumption of Brian Greene's 2004 book, THE 
> FABRIC OF THE COSMOS; it is likely based on 2003 ideas and data, but I 
> don't recall seeing anything more recent.
>
> So maybe Wolfe *thought* he was correct when he talked about (or 
> "translated") the Bang-Gnab theory, but our (*cough,* *cough*) 
> *vastly* superior knowledge of the cosmos renders that assumption 
> incorrect.
>
> (I'm sure you're aware, by the way, that the parallel universe concept 
> of "hard" physics dates to the 1950s, quite a while before string 
> theory  came along in any form.)
>
>       -- David
>




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