(urth) Looking for an Interview ...

[Antonin Scriabin]

Ah, you are correct.  I had only seen the first interview you posted, and
thought the interviewer had added Saints Anne and Croix to the list.  I tend
to think that you are correct in your assessment that "Wolfe has other
reasons favoring the Blue/Green pair (it's not just planets), and explaining
them, he thinks, would reveal too much of his "secret sauce"."  Of course it
is Wolfe's prerogative to keep his motivations / reasons for writing certain
things to himself, but it would be nice to know!  Part of Wolfe's appeal are
the puzzles to begin with ... so at the end of the day, I am fine with there
being a sense of mystery to how his stories are set up.

On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 11:33 AM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

>  Nothing so emphatic. I think you are conflating two interviews:
> http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/intgw.htm
>
>  James Jordan: I might as well at least *ask* one of the $64,000
> questions, so I'll just go for broke. (Hmm. I've gotta be very precise here.
> Okay, here goes:) Which of the following, if any, are physically (not in
> some merely literary or symbolic sense) the same planets as Blue and Green,
> in the same order?:
>
> Ushas and Lune
> Urth and Lune
> Lune and Ushas
> Lune and Urth
> Two Urths
> Two Ushases
> Two Lunes
>
> Wolfe: None.
>
> And this:
> http://www.sfsite.com/03b/gw124.htm
>
> Nick Gevers: When I began reading *Short Sun*, I, like many others, was
> struck by the new work's resonance of location with earlier novels [*The
> Fifth Head of Cerberus*; *New Sun*]. Twin worlds, with respective blue and
> green associations: St Croix/St Anne; Urth/Lune; Blue/Green. Not that these
> are literally the same planets; but why this repeated pattern? (I should add
> that Joan Gordon, and I myself, have speculated on an allusion in *Short
> Sun* to Kim Stanley Robinson's colour-sequenced *Mars* novels...)
>
> Wolfe: At the time I first brought in Blue and Green, I didn't know about
> Stan's books. Nothing of that kind was intended.
>
> Gevers: [Trying again:] Can your readers usefully view *The Fifth Head of
> Cerberus* as being set in the same science-fictional universe as *New Sun*,
> *Long Sun*, and *Short Sun*? Why does Fifth Head's pattern of blue/green
> sister worlds recur so tantalizingly in Urth/Lune, Blue/Green?
>
> Wolfe: I don't know.
>
>
> When Wolfe says he "doesn't know", he is surely answering the first of
> Gever's two shot : "Can readers *usefully* view tFHoC as set in the same
> universe as Severian and Silk."
>
> I simply refuse to believe that Wolfe doesn't know why the Blue/Green
> pattern recurs. And following this line leads to the conclusion that Wolfe
> is deliberately dodging the question. Two conclusions open to us are:
>
> 1) Blue is St. Croix thousands of years later. Problem: No Neighbors as
> such nor Mother make obvious appearances in tFHoC.
>
> 2) Wolfe has other reasons favoring the Blue/Green pair (it's not just
> planets), and explaining them, he thinks, would reveal too much of his
> "secret sauce".
>
> J Wynn
>
>
>
> On 8/3/2011 8:15 AM, Antonin Scriabin wrote:
>
> Hello!  I just finished *The Fifth Head of Cerberus*, and loved it.  It is
> one of the best science fiction stories I have read ... it isn't very often
> I feel completely immersed in a world, but reading this book really made me
> feel like I was wandering through some eerie, mysterious realm where nothing
> was as it seemed.  Absolutely fantastic.
>
> Anyways, I remember reading in an interview with Wolfe in which he said
> that Saint Croix and Saint Anne were *not* the Green and Blue planets in
> the *Short Sun* books.  Does anyone have any idea where I can find that
> interview?  Thanks!
>
> -K
>
>
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