(urth) FW: May 2014 Wolfe interview in _Technology Review_

[Lee]

>Entonio: my issue with Lee is more his tone than his content


My true apologies for any lapses into a negative tone. Unfortunately both my writing

and verbal speech  patterns unconsciously drift to match whomever I am conversing 

with. This has included the embarrassment of realizing I have temporarily adopted an 

Alabama, a British and a Russian accent and others, though I am not from those places. 

Still it is my responsibility to retain a polite tone in (almost) all situations, so 

again, my apologies if I have lapsed.


>Jeff Wilson: Dude, if you want to tell people authoritatively what a story means, it 
>would simpler, easier, more credible, and less insulting if you wrote 
>your own rather than asserting those already published are only 5% in 
>earnest


Dude, I have no authority other than explaining what my personal perspective is. I don't

see why identifying what I think is a thoroughly unreliable narrator requires that I write 

my own novel.


>Gerry Quinn: In fact the scenario of two independent abo races..


As I have explained several times, this is not my view.


My view is that there is one shapeshifting, imitative race from Ste. Anne. Since Ste. 

Anne is a rather desolate planet, this species started as a somewhat shapeless,

formless being(s), likely without a sense of being divided into individual organisms

and bodies. 


When a human ship crashed onto the planet, the first attempt at imitating them wasn't

especially good, hence "Shadow Children" an apt name given that they are derived from

shadowy being(s). The very process of being individuals has not been accurately copied

and thus Shadow Children do still blend and meld into one another.

Part of their disguise is that they have forgotten that they were previously
shadowy formless beings, though the Old Wise One briefly remembers it. They tell a false

story about being degenerate humans to enhance the disguise.


The second attempt at imitating humans by this native life form is Abos. They look a lot

and act a lot more human than Shadow Children. They don't have the same trouble 

maintaining an individual identity but they still aren't very good with tools. They have

a false history suggesting they are native to Ste. Anne in their current human form

although such parallel evolution on Earth and Ste. Anne is statistically impossible (as

an anthropologist like Marsch would know). So if Abos didn't originally look human, what 

DID they originally look like? Shadow Children provide the answer.


The third attempt at imitating humans by this same species are the humans who populate

the towns and cities of Ste. Anne and Ste. Croix. This attempt is good enough to fool

most other Earth-origin humans but some cracks in the façade still appear here and there.

As would be expected, the more primitive Abo are found only on Ste. Anne and the even

more primitive Shadow Children (if any still exist) are only found in the deeply rural

and "backwoods" areas of Ste. Anne, or (if none still exist) only in stories.


Wolfe describes an engineering principle in the text in which "relaxation" technique can

be used to solve a seemingly unsolvable problem. One makes a real-world model approximation, 

does measurements and then uses a second and third attempt and further adjustments to more 

closely approximate the result you are trying to achieve. Eventually, you can create a 

prototype which works well enough for your purposes (though perfection is impossible).


This principle comes up in a conversation between Dr. Marsch and Number Five and is 

rightfully ignored by Number Five since he (and his predecessors) are not using 

relaxation.  They are copying themselves without appreciable adjustment or change each

generation although he argues with Marsch over this issue.


It is the native, imitative species who has engaged in relaxation and Dr. Marsch, now being

almost undetectable as a native, is a wonderful example of it.


This is my view of the story. If others have a different view, that is perfectly fine and

I make no claim of superiority for mine, nor a claim that anyone else ought to adopt my view.