(urth) _Urth_: Superflous?

Jack Redelfs jackredelfs at gmail.com
Wed Oct 25 13:21:59 PDT 2006


Dan'l:
> I think this is unfair to one of GW's most powerful
> moments. "I took off my boots and threw them into
> the water, so as not to walk shod upon sacred ground."

Oh, it certainly was unfair, I just have a penchant for
irreverence. It's a great scene, and it moved me
immensely the first time I read it, but I guess it's true what
they say: familiarity breeds contempt.

> Have you read _Urth of the New Sun_? It defines rather
> clearly where the power actually came from.

It's been years. The power comes from the White Fountain, I
seem to recall, but I cannot recall whether it is specific to the
Conciliator or not. I'm stil curious about the "Sev-as-aquastor"
angle.

> who, if anyone, besides me finds BotNS more satisfying without the
> fifth volume?

I partly agree with you. It was an excellent book, taken on it's own
merits, but, although I always felt that Severian was the Conciliator
somehow, I found his on-screen turn as the Conciliator to be quite
underwhelming. I just expected more. He carreer as Conciliator
lasted for, 1 day, was it?

Still, I really enjoyed the Hierogrammates, the explication of
Apu-Punchau and the re-enactment of Dr. Talos's play. To sum,
I'd be willing to trade _Urth_ for an extra Latro book, but it's
still Wolfe in top form.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20061025/d244d15a/attachment-0003.htm>


More information about the Urth mailing list