(urth) Gummed-Up Works or Got Lives?

[Gerry Quinn]

From: António Pedro Marques 

> Curious bit here: I've never got the 's&s' feeling from any of the Sun 
> books, not even NS. 

Same here.  If you’ve read Vance (say) beforehand, you’ll know what’s going on (of course in _The Dying Earth_ magic did rather dominate tech, but at the same time the environment is recognisable).  And Wolfe tells us very quickly anyway in the graveyard scene, where “there was a a shot” and we are instantly informed that Vodalus is using some kind of energy pistol. 

It’s not really about the tech versus magic thing anyway, so much as the foregrounding of a way of thinking about the world.  Vance’s magic is a kind of technology, even in Lyonesse.  Conversely, Moorcock can go on all he wants about power rings or whatever, but he’s still writing swords and sorcery.

I guess Wolfe might leave an option for the Increate or his chief minions to interfere with the physical underpinnings of the world – but for all lesser beings at least, magic is a name for technologies we don;t understand.  The Cumaean says as much.

- Gerry Quinn
 
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