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<DIV>Does anyone know if a fourth book in the Soldier series is being
contemplated? After all, Latro has not been returned to his home.
</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>In a message dated 11/3/2008 5:09:14 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
urth-request@lists.urth.net writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>Send
Urth mailing list submissions to<BR>
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at<BR> urth-owner@lists.urth.net<BR><BR>When replying, please
edit your Subject line so it is more specific<BR>than "Re: Contents of Urth
digest..."<BR><BR><BR>Today's Topics:<BR><BR> 1. Re: AEG: Is
AEG Lovecraftian? (Bryan Alexander)<BR> 2. Stingray (Nigel
Price)<BR> 3. Stingray (Nigel Price)<BR> 4.
Re: Stingray (James Wynn)<BR> 5. AEG: Is AEG
Lovecraftian? (Nigel Price)<BR> 6. Stingray (Nigel
Price)<BR> 7. Re: Stingray (Matthew
Keeley)<BR><BR><BR>----------------------------------------------------------------------<BR><BR>Message:
1<BR>Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2008 17:10:48 -0500<BR>From: "Bryan Alexander"
<bryan.alexander@gmail.com><BR>Subject: Re: (urth) AEG: Is AEG
Lovecraftian?<BR>To: "The Urth Mailing List"
<urth@lists.urth.net><BR>Message-ID:<BR>
<a55c3dff0811031410h6cd912e8t9690b7f7b5bd81ba@mail.gmail.com><BR>Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"<BR><BR>I admit to bringing a Lovecraftian
perspective to my reading of AEG. That<BR>was due in part to various
things I'd heard about the novel, which were then<BR>brought to mind with the
HPL inscription. So I suspected far more cosmic<BR>horror from various
quarters, including the flapping creature, than I ended<BR>up with.<BR>My Phil
Dick-style expectations were confirmed instead.<BR><BR>On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at
3:55 PM, Dave Tallman <davetallman@msn.com> wrote:<BR><BR>> Kieran
Mullen wrote:<BR>><BR>>> That needs a bit of
explanation. For a work to be Lovecraftian I
don't<BR>>> think it is simply sufficient to stick in Hastur and Cthulu
and call it<BR>>> that. Lovecraft (IMO) came up with a truly
original ontological horror<BR>>> premise for his fiction:
the universe is dominated by inhuman forces which<BR>>> we don't
have a hope of understanding or defeating. At best we can
only<BR>>> hope that they ignore us. (We can't even
pray that they do - there is no<BR>>> God, only atoms and a void).
Humanity is a minor irrelevance in a dark<BR>>> and hungry
universe. Any attempt to try to change that will only draw
the<BR>>> attention of forces that will destroy the
inquirer.<BR>>><BR>>><BR>> Given that Wolfe is a Christian I
doubt very much that he would write a<BR>> work consistent with such a
nihilistic Lovecraftian premise. But other<BR>> writers, such as August
Derleth (also a Christian), have expanded the<BR>> Lovecraft universe to
include a more classical view of good vs. evil. To me,<BR>> true horror
cannot exist in a universe where our ideas of sanity and<BR>> goodness are
a mere fluke, a cosmic joke. The efforts of the protagonists<BR>> become
simply silly.<BR>><BR>> But I don't think the Lovecraft parts are simply
tacked on. From the<BR>> beginning Reis announced his intention to retire
to the South Seas (p. 14).<BR>> This cannot be a coincidence. Reis may have
learned something during his<BR>> time as ambassador to Woldercan. He may
have realized there was a connected<BR>> menace on Earth and determined to
fight it. To some degree his provoking a<BR>> fight between Squiddy and the
Navy seems to have been a success. At the very<BR>> least the storms took
out many Cthulhu worshipers on the neighboring<BR>>
islands.<BR>><BR>> Even Lovecraft allowed the forces of good to succeed
sometimes, for example<BR>> in "The Dunwich Horror." Even he could not help
rooting for humanity against<BR>> the monsters.<BR>><BR>>
_______________________________________________<BR>> Urth Mailing
List<BR>> To post, write urth@urth.net<BR>> Subscription/information:
http://www.urth.net<BR>><BR><BR><BR><BR>-- <BR>Bryan
Alexander<BR>http://infocult.typepad.com/<BR>http://twitter.com/BryanAlexander<BR>--------------
next part --------------<BR>An HTML attachment was scrubbed...<BR>URL:
<http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20081103/cdec52ad/attachment-0001.htm><BR><BR>------------------------------<BR><BR>Message:
2<BR>Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2008 22:33:59 -0000<BR>From: "Nigel Price"
<nigelaprice@talktalk.net><BR>Subject: (urth) Stingray<BR>To: "Urth
List" <urth@lists.urth.net><BR>Message-ID:
<AFEFKBJKJDDJOMBNACBNGEEMDNAA.nigelaprice@talktalk.net><BR>Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"<BR><BR>As I was writing about
evil undersea cities and civilisations in AEG and the<BR>Urth Cycle, one part
of my mind facetiously wandered and wondered whether<BR>Gene Wolfe had ever
watched the Gerry Anderson puppet show "Stingray" in the<BR>1960s. As I
thought whimsically about it, the parallels scattered through<BR>his books
became stronger and stranger. Was Seawrack inspired by Marina? Was<BR>the idea
of the US Navy attacking the Storm God inspired by the sight of<BR>Troy
Tempest and the WASPs attacking Titan and his aquaphibian minions?<BR><BR>No,
of course not, it's a silly idea. It's not as if Wolfe ever refers
to<BR>puppetry in his stories.<BR><BR>Hang on there, wait a
minute...<BR><BR>What about that dream Severian has of the toy theatre and the
marionette<BR>versions of himself and Baldander?<BR><BR>Goodness! If I'm
right, anything can happen in the next half hour...<BR><BR>Nigel (in a playful
mood)<BR><BR><BR><BR>------------------------------<BR><BR>Message: 3<BR>Date:
Mon, 3 Nov 2008 23:00:41 -0000<BR>From: "Nigel Price"
<nigelaprice@talktalk.net><BR>Subject: (urth) Stingray<BR>To: "Urth
List" <urth@lists.urth.net><BR>Message-ID:
<AFEFKBJKJDDJOMBNACBNOEEMDNAA.nigelaprice@talktalk.net><BR>Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"<BR><BR>Weird but true: Gerry
Anderson and Ray Harryhausen were both speakers at the<BR>1987 WorldCon in
Brighton, England, which Gene and Rosemary Wolfe also<BR>attended.<BR><BR>Did
Wolfe hear Gerry Anderson talk about his work?<BR><BR>Then again, for anyone
interested in creating submarine squid deities,<BR>Harryhausen's amusing
account of animating the six-limbed giant octopus in<BR>"It came from beneath
the sea" might well have been inspirational. (The<BR>octopus only had six
limbs because Harryhausen was on a tight budget and an<BR>even tighter
timetable. Animating extra limbs takes time, and time
is<BR>money!)<BR><BR>Nigel (who is trying to write a serious analysis of AEG -
coming soon - but<BR>keeps getting distracted by whimsical
notions)<BR><BR><BR><BR>------------------------------<BR><BR>Message:
4<BR>Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2008 17:57:00 -0600<BR>From: "James Wynn"
<crushtv@gmail.com><BR>Subject: Re: (urth) Stingray<BR>To: "The Urth
Mailing List" <urth@lists.urth.net><BR>Message-ID:
<8349DBE9E74F4391A5D742992EE9395D@GATEWAY><BR>Content-Type: text/plain;
format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";<BR>
reply-type=original<BR><BR>> No, of course not, it's a silly idea. It's not
as if Wolfe ever refers to<BR>> puppetry in his stories.<BR><BR>In The Book
of the Short Sun, Horn remembers the following from his
<BR>childhood:<BR><BR>"I once had a toy, a little wooden man in a blue coat
who was moved by <BR>strings. When I played with him, I made him walk and bow,
and spoke for him. <BR>I practiced until I thought myself very clever. One day
I saw my mother <BR>holding the two sticks that held his strings, and my
little wooden man <BR>saluting my youngest sister much more cleverly than I
could have made him do <BR>it, and laughing with his head thrown back, then
mourning with his face in <BR>his hands. I never spoke of it to my mother, but
I was angry and ashamed."<BR>On Blue's Waters, pg. 158<BR><BR>Soon he after he
was assaulted by the triple-jawed leatherskin---an obvious <BR>reference to
Pinnochio's
Dog-fish.<BR><BR>J.<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>------------------------------<BR><BR>Message:
5<BR>Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2008 00:04:01 -0000<BR>From: "Nigel Price"
<nigelaprice@talktalk.net><BR>Subject: (urth) AEG: Is AEG
Lovecraftian?<BR>To: "Urth List" <urth@lists.urth.net><BR>Message-ID:
<AFEFKBJKJDDJOMBNACBNCEENDNAA.nigelaprice@talktalk.net><BR>Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"<BR><BR>Kieran Mullen
asks...<BR><BR>>>So what do you think? Is AEG just a
romp<BR>>>through different genres or is it really meant<BR>>>to
be a horror novel?<BR><BR>No, I don't think that AEG is a Lovecraftian horror
story in the sense that<BR>you define. As far as I understand - which is not
very far at all - it<BR>borrows some Lovecraftian elements, but does not share
their underlying<BR>philosophy, their "ontological horror premise" (great
phrase!).<BR><BR>I've read back through all the posts here on AEG and I've
reread bits of the<BR>story but I still don't really understand how all the
parts of the book fit<BR>together. I'm trying to work it out. The nature of
Gideon Chase seems to be<BR>key. That in turn, because Gideon was born there
and is probably a<BR>human-Woldercanese hybrid, is tied up with the moral
status of the planet<BR>Woldercan.<BR><BR>Wolfe depicts Woldercan as a place
which has talking fish, dangerous<BR>forests, alchemy and different physics.
The inhabitants superficially<BR>resemble humans but are subtly different.
They can breed successfully with<BR>lower animals, including humans, and male
Woldercaners try to seduce and<BR>mate with human females. All in all,
Woldercan sounds more like Fairyland<BR>than a conventional science fiction
alien planet. If it is a sort of SF<BR>Fairyland, that would make the Wolders
fairies, or fairy analogues anyway.<BR><BR>The moral status of fairies and
Fairyland is moot in the European tradition.<BR>Sometimes they are morally
equivalent to humans, with the "good" and "bad"<BR>fairies familiar in
children's stories. Often, though, they are depicted as<BR>being amoral and
"other", outside human schemes of morality and, when their<BR>stories get
merged with the Christian tradition, outside the divine scheme<BR>of
salvation.<BR><BR>Yet another tradition, evident in stories like that of Tam
Lin and some<BR>versions of Thomas the Rhymer, has Fairyland as a subsidiary
dominion of<BR>Hell to which it pays tax (usually every seven years) in the
form of human<BR>souls. Fairies in this tradition become similar to devils or
demons.<BR><BR>In the opening chapter of AEG, Gideon tells the President that
there is no<BR>such thing as good and evil. His position seems to be that
there is no such<BR>thing as absolute good or evil, only things that we
ourselves disapprove of.<BR>If he means that no person is ever wholly good or
wholly evil, he must<BR>surely be right. If he means that good and evil do not
themselves exist,<BR>then, from Wolfe's perspective as a Christian, he must
surely be wrong. He<BR>seems to mean both, which is confusing!<BR><BR>Gideon's
perspective is either that of an amoral alien, analogous to the<BR>amoral
fairies I described above, with no human sense of good or evil, or
he<BR>himself is evil and is deceiving others with his untruths, which makes
him<BR>more of the "demonic" type of alien/fairy.<BR><BR>Wolfe has stated in
interviews that his starting point for AEG was the idea<BR>of a detective who
was a wizard. Gideon is a wizard, and certainly the<BR>archetypal wizard,
Merlin, is half-human and half-devil in some accounts of<BR>his
parentage.<BR><BR>By this account, Gideon is at best amoral and at worst
positively evil.<BR><BR>At the start of AEG, the President of the United
States attempts to recruit<BR>Gideon to work with the FBI in catching Bill
Reis. In many stories,<BR>certainly in the 1930s pulp stories which Wolfe is
pastiching, this would<BR>make Gideon the good guy, an untouchable science
fictional Eliot Ness. But<BR>there's a strong element of satire in AEG. The
USA over which the President<BR>presides is a place where abortion has become
legalised child murder, and<BR>where the various federal agencies fight an
endless turf war against each<BR>other, possibly under the manipulative
influence of demonic submarine<BR>aliens. The moral status of the President in
this story is pretty cloudy,<BR>especially as we later come to see that Bill
Reis himself may be far from<BR>being the evildoer the President claims. As
the President's agent, Gideon's<BR>moral status is equally
suspect.<BR><BR>That's at the start of the story. Does Gideon
change?<BR><BR>I'm not clear in my own mind whether Bill Reis starts off bad
but is changed<BR>by the transforming power of his love for Cassie, or whether
he was always<BR>good and it just takes Cassie and the reader a long time to
find the correct<BR>moral orientation within the confusing landscapes of AEG.
I think that<BR>there's at least an element of the former because Bill Reis
learned his<BR>alchemy and other tricks on the morally dubious
Woldercan.<BR><BR>Either way, Gideon's transforms Cassie into a star (her
name, after all, is<BR>that of an astronomical star) and its her loveliness
which captures both<BR>Gideon and Bill Reis' hearts. Somehow, this love helps
to orientate all<BR>three of them. Cassie chooses to marry Bill and Gideon
goes to work for him,<BR>although he doesn't seem to break his agreement with
the President so much<BR>as suspend it.<BR><BR>That seems to be one half of
the story. Bill is inspired to self-sacrifice,<BR>Cassie loves the Christ-like
Bill and Gideon is working, at least for the<BR>moment, for the good guys.
Gideon may have transformed Cassie into a star in<BR>order to trap Reis, but
the her power of beauty has transformed all three of<BR>them for the
better.<BR><BR>But the other half of the story seems to involve putting the
bad guys into a<BR>properly inverted hierarchy of wickedness.<BR><BR>Cassie's
story of how she came to love the neighbour's dog is instructive in<BR>this
context. Scared of the neighbour's dog but even more scared of
her<BR>violently abusive father, she finds herself sheltering with the animal
and<BR>accepting its protection. Her clear perception of the greater source
of<BR>danger enables her to accept the dog just as she later accepts the help
of<BR>the bat creatures which would otherwise have terrified her in order
to<BR>escape the agents of the evil Storm God.<BR><BR>The US Navy act as
agents of the bad American President and pursue Bill Reis<BR>for his gold.
Reis uses that gold, however, to direct them against the Squid<BR>God. If the
US President, his navy and other agencies are not made virtuous<BR>as such,
they are at least properly directed against the greater evil of
the<BR>malevolent underwater alien.<BR><BR>I still don't fully understand the
ending. Why does Gideon return to<BR>Woldercan? Because it is his true home?
Perhaps it's because the spell of<BR>Cassie's star quality has been broken and
without it he has fallen from<BR>virtue back to his old immoral/amoral ways. I
don't know what Cassie is<BR>looking for.<BR><BR>As an allegory, AEG is
confusing. But I don't think it is an allegory any<BR>more than it's
Lovecraftian horror. It uses allegory, or has an allegorical<BR>dimension, but
there's a lot more going on and the correspondences between<BR>characters and
qualities seem to be dynamic rather than
static.<BR><BR>Nigel<BR><BR><BR><BR>------------------------------<BR><BR>Message:
6<BR>Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2008 00:10:14 -0000<BR>From: "Nigel Price"
<nigelaprice@talktalk.net><BR>Subject: (urth) Stingray<BR>To: "Urth
List" <urth@lists.urth.net><BR>Message-ID:
<AFEFKBJKJDDJOMBNACBNGEENDNAA.nigelaprice@talktalk.net><BR>Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"<BR><BR>Thanks for that, James.
I'd forgotten about that marionette reference in<BR>OBW.<BR><BR>There's the
story "The Toy Theater" in TIoDDaOSaOS too. That's all
about<BR>marionettes.<BR><BR>I started this thread as a sort of joke on
myself, but now I'm really<BR>beginning to
wonder!<BR><BR>Nigel<BR><BR><BR><BR>------------------------------<BR><BR>Message:
7<BR>Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2008 20:08:43 -0500<BR>From: "Matthew Keeley"
<matthew.keeley.1@gmail.com><BR>Subject: Re: (urth) Stingray<BR>To: "The
Urth Mailing List" <urth@lists.urth.net><BR>Message-ID:<BR>
<44fb53d10811031708s57a39c09k508af7025e14b5bd@mail.gmail.com><BR>Content-Type:
text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1<BR><BR>On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 7:10 PM, Nigel
Price <nigelaprice@talktalk.net> wrote:<BR>> Thanks for that, James.
I'd forgotten about that marionette reference in<BR>> OBW.<BR>><BR>>
There's the story "The Toy Theater" in TIoDDaOSaOS too. That's all
about<BR>> marionettes.<BR>><BR>> I started this thread as a sort of
joke on myself, but now I'm really<BR>> beginning to
wonder!<BR>><BR>> Nigel<BR>><BR><BR>And "Strange Birds" from the
chapbook of the same name. Have we ever<BR>discussed those two stories here? I
thought they were pretty good, but<BR>I'm not sure how many people actually
ordered the chapbook. Well at<BR>least Mr. Gevers read
it:<BR>http://slaughterhousestudios.blogspot.com/2006/05/strange-birds-indeed.html<BR><BR>Minor
spoiler<BR>-<BR>-<BR>-<BR>-<BR>-<BR>-<BR>-<BR>-<BR>-<BR>"Strange Birds"
actually features the return of Stromboli [sic?] from<BR>"The Toy Theater". I
guess Wolfe does have a thing for puppets
and<BR>puppeteers.<BR><BR>-Matt<BR><BR><BR>------------------------------<BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>Urth
Mailing List<BR>To post, write urth@urth.net<BR>Subscription/information:
http://www.urth.net<BR><BR>End of Urth Digest, Vol 51, Issue
4<BR>***********************************<BR></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></FONT><BR><BR><BR><DIV CLASS="aol_ad_footer" ID="58412f6233eb82473514985f9aa8f641"><FONT style="color: black; font: normal 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF;"><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px">Plan your next getaway with AOL Travel. <a href="http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1212416248x1200771803/aol?redir=http://travel.aol.com/discount-travel?ncid=emlcntustrav00000001">Check out Today's Hot 5 Travel Deals!</a></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>