(urth) Losing Imitation

[Gerry Quinn]

I shouldn't fret too much about it - I'm sure most authors, however much being questioned by enthusiasts for their works annoys them, would be more annoyed still if it all went away ;-)

Have you considered the possibility that "Urth is Green" has a metaphorical meaning?  That Green is what Earth/Urth can become if we lose our humanity?  It would seem to fit reasonably well with the themes Wolfe is exploring in the Short Sun trilogy.

- Gerry Quinn


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Marc Aramini 
  To: The Urth Mailing List 
  Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2010 4:26 PM
  Subject: Re: (urth) Losing Imitation


        Gerry, I have to comment on this whole mess.  i was in contact with Wolfe very frequently at about that time when the light started to turn on for Short Sun for me in 2002, and I sent him my ideas about trees hybridizing and Horn in Babbie but I said I couldn't find a way for the transport across space to zero in on Blue at that different time.  He sent me a letter written on a manuscript page from IGJ, but I still didn't see anything there.  So I sent him a Christmas card with a long haired man with a staff, and I drew a little face on the staff, and inside was a christmas tree, and I put scary teeth in the tree, and big eyes, and I asked if the astral transport through the distance of space that the ship in UotNS went through allowed blue to be Urth, and he sent his own Christmas card, and on the back, it said, no, no, no Green is urth.  

        And that's where I become the bad guy, because I first posted that Gene had told me something, Nick Gevers frantically convinced me to share it with him, he confronted Gene in disbelief, Gene told Nick he was joking because Nick's attitude to me when he heard it was "he's pulling your leg."  Gene never told me he was joking, he just told me he should have learned to keep his mouth shut by now.  But my problem, that they were planning on going to green, and wound up on Urth which I thought should be Blue, was solved by these words, and there is a mechanism for that mistaken transport in the text which was not there for Blue=Urth.

        Whether the discussion ever discovers what Blue or Green is, or whether they are connected, I believe what Gene told me, and I am very sorry that my inquiries led to him being so harassed.  

        In eschatology and genesis it states anything can emerge from the black hole at the center of the sun.

        --- On Wed, 12/29/10, Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie> wrote:


          He also said Urth = Green, and look at the trouble THAT'S caused!

          As you say, he made some comment to that effect.  But the book indicates otherwise, so I tend to believe he misspoke, though I guess theories about two groups of abos are tenable if one has some reason for believing that.

          - Gerry Quinn


          _______________________________________________
          Urth Mailing List
          To post, write urth at urth.net
          Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
       




------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  _______________________________________________
  Urth Mailing List
  To post, write urth at urth.net
  Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20101231/a7cc0eb8/attachment-0003.htm>