<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div><span>I've always thought that the similarity was pretty obvious, but that it wasn't a point about connected plots or conjoined. It's more of a symbolic pattern that Wolfe likes where double planets and blue/green coloring are ways that he thinks about creation, re-creation, "Garden of Eden" myths and their corruption, etc. The double-planet motif always becomes important at the same time that the themes of natural/innocent states of being do, alongside the possibility of returning to or recreating that innocence, and the failures that usually go along with it.</span></div><div><br><span></span></div><div><span>In that sense, it's *incredibly* useful to think about their similarities, but it doesn't (necessarily or even most interestingly) lead to conclusions that Fifth Head and the Sun books happen in the same fictional
universe.<br></span></div><div><br></div><div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font face="Arial" size="2"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b> Antonin Scriabin <kierkegaurdian@gmail.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> The Urth Mailing List <urth@lists.urth.net><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Wednesday, August 3, 2011 10:40 AM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: (urth) Looking for an Interview ...<br></font><br><div id="yiv2068582949">Ah, you are correct. I had only seen the first interview you posted, and thought the interviewer had added Saints Anne and Croix to the list. I tend to think that you are correct in your assessment that "<font color="#000000" face="Calibri">Wolfe has other reasons
favoring the Blue/Green pair (it's not
just planets), and explaining them, he thinks, would reveal too
much of his "secret sauce"."</font> Of course it is Wolfe's prerogative to keep his motivations / reasons for writing certain things to himself, but it would be nice to know! Part of Wolfe's appeal are the puzzles to begin with ... so at the end of the day, I am fine with there being a sense of mystery to how his stories are set up.<br>
<br><div class="yiv2068582949gmail_quote">On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 11:33 AM, James Wynn <span dir="ltr"><<a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:crushtv@gmail.com" target="_blank" href="mailto:crushtv@gmail.com">crushtv@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="yiv2068582949gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-left:1ex;">
<div>
<font color="#000000" face="Calibri">Nothing so emphatic. I think
you are conflating two interviews:<br>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/intgw.htm">http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/intgw.htm</a><br>
</font><font color="#000000" face="Calibri">
</font>
<blockquote>
<div><font color="#000000" face="Calibri"> James
Jordan: I might as well at least <i>ask</i> one of the
$64,000 questions, so I'll just go for broke. (Hmm. I've gotta
be very precise here. Okay, here goes:) Which of the
following, if any, are physically (not in some merely literary
or symbolic sense) the same planets as Blue and Green, in the
same order?:</font></div>
<blockquote>
<div><font color="#000000" face="Calibri">Ushas
and Lune<br>
Urth and Lune<br>
Lune and Ushas<br>
Lune and Urth<br>
Two Urths<br>
Two Ushases<br>
Two Lunes<br>
</font></div>
</blockquote>
Wolfe: None.</blockquote>
<font color="#000000" face="Calibri">And this:<br>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.sfsite.com/03b/gw124.htm">http://www.sfsite.com/03b/gw124.htm</a><br>
</font>
<blockquote><font color="#000000" face="Calibri">Nick Gevers: </font><font color="#000000" face="Calibri">When I began reading <b><i>Short
Sun</i></b>, I, like many others, was struck by the new
work's resonance of location with earlier novels [<b>The Fifth
Head of Cerberus</b>; <b><i>New Sun</i></b>]. Twin worlds,
with respective blue and green associations: St Croix/St Anne;
Urth/Lune; Blue/Green. Not that these are literally the same
planets; but why this repeated pattern? (I should add that Joan
Gordon, and I myself, have speculated on an allusion in <b><i>Short
Sun</i></b> to Kim Stanley Robinson's colour-sequenced <b><i>Mars</i></b>
novels...) </font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">Wolfe: At the time I first brought in Blue
and Green, I didn't know about Stan's books. Nothing of that
kind was intended. </font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">Gevers: [Trying again:] Can your readers
usefully view <b>The Fifth Head of Cerberus</b> as being set in
the same science-fictional universe as <b><i>New Sun</i></b>, <b><i>Long
Sun</i></b>, and <b><i>Short Sun</i></b>? Why does Fifth
Head's pattern of blue/green sister worlds recur so
tantalizingly in Urth/Lune, Blue/Green? </font><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri">Wolfe: I don't know. </font><br>
</blockquote>
<font color="#000000" face="Calibri"><br>
When Wolfe says he "doesn't know", he is surely answering the
first of Gever's two shot : "Can readers *usefully* view tFHoC as
set in the same universe as Severian and Silk." <br>
<br>
I simply refuse to believe that Wolfe doesn't know why the
Blue/Green pattern recurs. And following this line leads to the
conclusion that Wolfe is deliberately dodging the question. Two
conclusions open to us are: <br>
<br>
1) Blue is St. Croix thousands of years later. Problem: No
Neighbors as such nor Mother make obvious appearances in tFHoC.<br>
<br>
2) Wolfe has other reasons favoring the Blue/Green pair (it's not
just planets), and explaining them, he thinks, would reveal too
much of his "secret sauce".<br>
<br>
J Wynn<div><div></div><div class="yiv2068582949h5"><br>
<br>
<br>
On 8/3/2011 8:15 AM, Antonin Scriabin wrote:</div></div></font>
<blockquote type="cite"><div><div></div><div class="yiv2068582949h5"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri">Hello! I just
finished <i>The Fifth Head of Cerberus</i>, and loved it. It
is one of the best science fiction stories I have read ... it
isn't very often I feel completely immersed in a world, but
reading this book really made me feel like I was wandering
through some eerie, mysterious realm where nothing was as it
seemed. Absolutely fantastic.<br>
<br>
Anyways, I remember reading in an interview with Wolfe in which
he said that Saint Croix and Saint Anne were </font>
<font color="#000000" face="Calibri"><i>not</i> the Green and Blue
planets in the <i>Short Sun</i> books. Does anyone have any
idea where I can find that interview? Thanks!<br>
<br>
-K</font><font color="#000000" face="Calibri">
</font><font color="#000000" face="Calibri"><br>
<br>
</font><font color="#000000" face="Calibri">
</font>
<fieldset></fieldset>
<font color="#000000" face="Calibri"><br>
</font>
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