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

[Marc Aramini]

--- On Mon, 3/12/12, Jeff Wilson <jwilson at clueland.com> wrote:

> From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at clueland.com>
> Subject: Re: (urth) Lupiverse(s) was Re:  The Wizard
> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Date: Monday, March 12, 2012, 11:44 AM
> On 3/12/2012 6:50 AM, David Stockhoff
> wrote:
> > On 3/12/2012 1:39 AM, Jeff Wilson wrote:
> >> 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 story to be marginalized or even withdrawn because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.
> >> 
> > When you say "originally," do you mean during the
> writing of the first
> > volume? Where in the narration do you think the idea
> evolved that Urth
> > may be in the past?
> 
> I think it was during the writing of *all* the volumes I-IV
> and URTH, with the past iteration idea coming post-URTH.
> 
> 
> -- Jeff Wilson - 

There are comments like the few extant builings surviving so many centuries of futurity in the afterwords that at least indicate the fictional GW did not know if was from the past, if indeed the manuscript WAS supposed to be from the past, and let us know the frame translator thinks he is dealing with something from the future.  I always felt that previous iteration was something of a retcon due to the nature of the deluge in light of the Covenant, but I am not above saying that maybe Gene planned it as a possible previous iteration all along.

We really can't get to the bottom of that one - I do think that there are echoes of Christ everywhere in New Sun, from the myths of the conciliator to Sev reenacting the temptation in the desert, almost as if even if you didn't ever hear of Him His story is still living.  HOWEVER, Sev going back and actually living the life of the conciliator kind of shoots some holes in that, so I think it is ultimately ... ambiguous.  Say it ain't so!