(urth) [EXTERNAL] Re: Heinlein's Universe and The Long Sun

Marc Aramini marcaramini at gmail.com
Mon Jan 27 16:35:59 PST 2020


Stephen, there’s a ton going on with the Perseus/andromeda/cassiopeia
imagery - the mountain top where gideon (the destroyer) sits and faces
cassiopeia - Perseus means the destroyer and he saves andromeda from the
sea monster. Perseus is born in a shower of gold and at the end when reis
hits the city of r’lyeh with a shower of gold - great Cthulhu will fragment
into gideon chase, Perseus will be born to meddle backwards in time, as the
future is the past in evil guest.

On Monday, January 27, 2020, Stephen Hoy <stephenhoy15 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Appreciating the Heinlein connections noted by Gem and Gerry; a reminder
> that RAH is still relevant in the 21st century, as Christopher Nuttall
> might put it.
>
> The interesting bit about the conveyor belt roads of Heinlein's The Roads
> Must Roll is that it has a precedent, and a much better fit with TLA, in
> H.G.Wells' When the Sleeper Awakens (1899). Wells' title recalls a
> noticeable sentence in TLA Chapter One "Now it seems to me that I must have
> been asleep a long time before I got into bed" followed by several
> "awakenings" throughout TLA.
>
> Note that Wells and Wolfe each relate the struggle of a potential ruler of
> a dystopian society who gets caught up in a struggle between opposing
> factions. I don't think the parallels go much beyond this. It's a lot like
> Wolfe's choice of Baskin-Robbins as an allusion to Andromeda (Messier-31
> Flavors) in An Evil Guest, or the allusion to Boris Badenov in a
> conversation at a cafe in TLA, "I don't trust that conductor. Why is he so
> short?" to draw attention to Papa Zenon's lack of stature.
>
> Aramini's Black-Red-White trichotomy helps us think about a lot of TLA's
> mysteries, although I suspect there is a lot of cloning going on along with
> the imprinting of personalities. Imprinting is found in Home Fires, TLA, A
> Borrowed Man. There's cloning/imprinting of some sort in A Borrowed Man,
> and I think something similar is happening in The Land Across.
>
> - Stephen
>
> On Mon, Jan 27, 2020 at 10:21 AM Norwood, Frederick Hudson <
> NORWOODR at mail.etsu.edu> wrote:
>
>> Another Wolfe novel, The Land Across, is, I think strongly influenced by
>> Heinlein, and essentially a satire of Heinlein. This is just my opinion,
>> I’ve never heard anyone else say this. But the Rolling Roads early in the
>> novel, which play no other part in the plot, I take as a hint.
>>
>>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Rick
>>
>
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