Examining "The dark wheel"

ClymAngus · Post by **ClymAngus** » Tue Aug 19, 2014 3:01 pm

Re reading this, I have discovered the odd controversy that Robert Holdstock slipped into the canon. There are small nods to people who are "in the know". Snippets of philosophy, ideas and concepts that suggest further reading. There are inconsistencies too. Were these on purpose? I'm afraid the only man who would know has taken his secrets with him. But the links are there is you wish to look for them:

Page 41 "Just 20 seconds more Alex and we can fly like starseed."

Starseed? As in the writings of Timothy Leary?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Le ... wo_decades
Wow. Quite the subversive thing.

Website · Post by **Cody** » Tue Aug 19, 2014 3:35 pm

It's an ill wind that blows against the Empire!

ClymAngus · Post by **ClymAngus** » Tue Aug 19, 2014 5:37 pm

http://www.lycaeum.org/books/books/star ... seed.shtml

It's a bit chewy. Mind you new age philosophy always is. Seems like an odd reference to make considering the fundamentally revenge through commerce narrative running through the novella. Maybe it was meant ironically.

Website · Post by **Cody** » Tue Aug 19, 2014 6:03 pm

ClymAngus wrote:
"Just 20 seconds more Alex and we can fly like starseed." Starseed? As in the writings of Timothy Leary?

As in the writings of Larry Niven, perhaps - more likely, I'd think. Leary might even have borrowed the concept from Niven's work.

ClymAngus · Post by **ClymAngus** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 11:03 am

How did I forget Niven? Just take me out the back and shoot me!

They're all floating around the same publication date (hell there was a lot going on in the late sixties early 70's) but even these seminal works of fiction rip off left, right and centre.

"The Bandersnatchi"? Really Mr Niven? Really?! Hear that sound like a 2 stroke engine? That's Lewis Carroll, doing revolutions.

It does give one hope however. If titans of the genre can get away with blatant cheesy rip offs like Bandersnatchi, then Drew having Rebecca use a software "poke" to tweak the performance of the krait in Status Quo is positively "secret society signs and wonders" by comparison.

Then that's the good thing about nods like this. In one word Holdstock can reference both source and subsequent usages. Not only is his reference point to it ambiguous but also how the readership access and understand it. As long as everyone keeps their gob shut you get the best of both worlds. Reading through there are a fair few references like this one. It's like a treasure trove to those "in the know".

Website · Post by **Cody** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 11:10 am

ClymAngus wrote:
... hell there was a lot going on in the late sixties early 70's...

Too right... I remember it well!

ClymAngus · Post by **ClymAngus** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 2:44 pm

I'd got that far Mr Cody. Truckin in a Zoot suit? Good old Shakedown street Sam? Deadhead I maybe, or maybe not. Doesn't mean I cannot read the historical memes written out so eloquently in front of me.

One may not of been "there". But examination with the cold hard logic of history, does lend one a certain perspective, untainted by the stresses of physical involvement.

Malacandra · Post by **Malacandra** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 4:18 pm

ClymAngus wrote:
"The Bandersnatchi"? Really Mr Niven? Really?! Hear that sound like a 2 stroke engine? That's Lewis Carroll, doing revolutions.

There's one reference, indeed, in which the creature is referred to as a "frumious Bandersnatch". So I think the conceit is that Lewis Carroll's writing entered Earth folklore to the extent that, centuries later when space exploration got moving, the name got borrowed for this outrageously huge Jinxian swampdweller.

Remember that the Puppeteers are deliberately so named because they look like Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent from an old Earth TV show.

ClymAngus · Post by **ClymAngus** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 4:33 pm

On the MP degree course we called is cultural shorthand. Why explain something when you can get your audiences upbringing and cultural references to explain it for you?

I'm not saying it's a bad thing. It just illustrates the point that very little in life is original.

Website · Post by **Cody** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 4:33 pm

ClymAngus wrote:
One may not of been "there".

Ha... as the old saying goes, if you can remember the sixties, you weren't really there! As for Shakedown Street... I may be a Deadhead, but I ain't too fond of the music contained therein. The album art is cool though! About The Dark Wheel, I cannot comment as I've never read it right through... not to my liking either!

ClymAngus · Post by **ClymAngus** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 4:43 pm

Well it is a basic novella, I did find one renting flaw however the clone says at one point that the Cobra they are stalking; "killed her whole family" and sold her and her sister into slavery? Might be just a slip of the tongue or the way the clone views itself and it's relationships with other clones but she can't really technically have a sister or a family. Well not in the traditional sense anyway.

It jarred, a little. But there you go.

Diziet Sma · Post by **Diziet Sma** » Thu Aug 21, 2014 12:56 am

Cody wrote:
ClymAngus wrote:
... hell there was a lot going on in the late sixties early 70's...
Too right... I remember it well!

As they used to say.. "If you remember the '60s, you weren't really there.."

Edit: dammit.. ninja'd by Cody!

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