(urth) Lupiverse(s) was Re: The Wizard

[Jeff Wilson]

On 3/11/2012 11:16 PM, Craig Brewer wrote:

> So my real question here is how sure we are that Urth isn't just Earth
> in the future, our future? (And if I'm just completely overlooking
> something obvious, my apologies, especially if it's in _Urth of the
> NS_...that's always been the slipperiest one to me.)

I believe it was originally written that way, but the drowning of Urth 
makes it seem as if the G-d of Noah has broken His promise to never 
again destroy the earth by water. Narratively, aliens did it, but it's 
clear that the narrator understands the hand of God is behind all 
events, so it's still God doing the destroying. This would make it a 
blasphemous text, except that after URTH came out, Wolfe said he 
considered Urth to be in a previous creation cycle than our Earth, which 
sounds like butt-covering after the fact to me.

Not that I blame him. It would be a damn shame for such a magnificent 
story to be marginalized or even withdrawn because of an innocent 
mistake on the part of the author. Literature becomes great in spite of 
its flaws, not from their absence.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at clueland.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >