(urth) Travelling North aka miscellaneous thoughts on Wolfe

[Jerry Friedman]

From: Tony Ellis <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com>

>Jeff Wilson wrote:
>>How did Mary Shelly pick them out?

>I'm not sure if that was a rhetorical question or not, but anyway:

>Mary Shelley, famously, was inspired to write Frankenstein by a
>*dream* she had. At a villa on Lake (hint hint) Geneva. Dr Talos isn't
>saying events in his time influence events in ours, he's saying they
>influence our dreams.

>> What makes the ripples from the Frankenstein stone stand out from all
>> the rest?

>They don't, necessarily. Maybe we're all having dreams inspired by
>Urthian events, all the time. It's just that in this case the dream
>was recorded and that record  - somewhat miraculously - survived long
>enough for one of its instigators to identify it.

Again I think it depends on whether Urth is in our future or in a previous universe.

If it's in our future, then the story is relatively simple.  There was Mary Shelley's dream, which led to /Frankenstein/, which Dr. Talos somehow knows about and recognizes.  He assumes, maybe correctly, that he and Baldanders caused the dream backwards in time.

If it's in a past universe, as Mr. Wolfe has said, then there are three stories.  The one Dr. Talos knows is from Urth's younger days and may have been inspired by a dream.  He and Baldanders replay it, we don't know how faithfully.  Shelley's dream and /Frankenstein/ are an echo of those two stories in our universe.

Jerry Friedman