----- Original Message ----- From: <pddb at demesne.com> To: "David Silberstein" <davids at kithrup.com> Cc: <dragaera at dragaera.info> Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2002 12:04 PM Subject: Re: funny the things you catch > On Mon, Sep 23, 2002 at 04:32:49PM -0700, David Silberstein wrote: > > On Mon, 23 Sep 2002 pddb at demesne.com wrote: > > > > >On Sat, Sep 21, 2002 at 03:26:52AM -0400, chris cunningham wrote: > > >[snip] > > > > > >> now, amidst _athyra_, i've just realised, hopefully correctly, that the > > >> wizards savn reads about in _the book of the seven wizards_ are the > > >> scribblies, and/or other authors of mr. brust's acquaintance. > > > You know, that never ever occurred to me. Kewl. > > Sometimes it doesn't occur to us either. only reason it occurred to me was that i had the recent posts about publishers in _phoenix_ in mind just as i came upon the "book of the seven wizards." > > >> but which is which? > > > > >> she who is small > > >> she who is tall > > >> she whose hair is red > > >> he whose eyes are green > > >> he whose hair is dark (skzb?) > > >> the gentle one > > >> the master of rhyme > > > > > >I could tell you, but how much fun would that be? I mean, I'm willing, > > >but do people want to play more first? many thanks for not spilling the beans. just joined the list and had no idea that one of the wizards was around and about. > > Well, can you confirm that they are all current or former Scribblies, > > or are there others in there as well? > > I find a very easy correlation for six; the remaining one is actually a > bit of a puzzle. You know Steve is perfectly capable of throwing > in a ringer. thanks. at first i thought the ringer was megan lindholm or jane yolen, not knowing whether either might have been later/honorary scribblies. > > The list that Googling on rasfw has uncovered is: > > > > Steven Brust, Will Shetterly, Emma Bull, Kara Dalkey, Pamela Dean, > > Nate Bucklin, and Patricia Wrede. nate bucklin! many thanks! had forgotten about him, and was wondering who the third male wizard might be. > > Which does come to 7, I note. Unless I left someone out. Hmmm. > > There was a brief period before Will and Emma moved to L.A. > when Raphael Carter was in the Scribblies. Until Will and Emma > and I went to Las Vegas to deal with VISCOUNT, there waw a sense > in which the last Scribblies meeting was a time when Raphael and > I went over to Steven's house in Minneapolis to critique the > manuscript of DRAGON. I provide this information partly for its > obfuscatory aspect, since I can't recall how the timing of that > works out with the passage in ATHYRA. At that point Pat and Nate > had left the group and Kara was in Colorado, but this means really > nothing in terms of the Book of the Seven Wizards, which is > remarkably timeless. hmmm. i'm gonna stick to the original seven, for the nonce, to preserve my already addled wits. > > >> have read a bit of shetterly and a lot of bull (:p), but not much > > >>from the other scribblies, other than in the liavek books, and that > > >>was long ago in a distant land. is emma bull tall? does will > > >>shetterly have green eyes? hmm... > > > > >They have websites, I think with pictures. > > > > I have looked at the pictures, and it is hard to judge heights & eye > > color with the contextless low-resolution stuff that is out there. :-) > > I realized after I posted that height is in any case relative and > you can't tell as much as you might wish about height just from > looking at one person in isolation. indeed. first thing i did was check ms. bull's and mr. shetterly's photos, only to find out that i couldn't determine ms. bull's height, or mr. shetterly's eye colour. then i recalled seeing a photo of you (ms. dyer-bennet) on your site, so there i went, only to find out that all of the photos are in black and white. argh. but, lacking conclusive information, ms. bull does look as if she might be tall, and your hair does look as if it might be red. :) so, here are my current ruminations and wild-assed guesses: "she who is small finds the secrets of the present in the past..." i'm thinking this refers to one who knows her history, includes lots of history in her writing, or perhaps uses allegory to mask observations on the present in a historical or mythical setting...aha! thought that kara dalkey had set some novels in japan, so i just now searched for a site on her to verify this, and found a nice bio ( http://www.lunacat.net/authors/author-dalkey.htm ) which not only confirms the japanese-historical-fantasy thang, but also mentions that she is vertically challenged. yes! "she who is tall says that the secret is in the song..." emma bull. ms. dalkey's bio also mentioned that she had been a bassist/singer, and i was afraid that i had misattributed ms. bull as this wizard. but as ms. dalkey is small, and ms. bull seems tall, and sings/sang as a flash girl, i'm going with ms. bull on this one. also, this part of the description just seems to fit: "...the secret is plain to all who listen, but that it is hidden again when the song is past," as i know that i've loved everything i've read by her, but have naveer been able to explain to others what i like about her work, as opposed to, say, mr. brust, whom i can usually describe somewhat effectively to friends: zelazny-esque, jazzy, etc. think i'll start quoting him and say that he writes "in 6/8 time." i love that. and just as i typed that, rush's "body electric" comes on, which song is only in my mp3 mix because of its mutated 6/8 beat. "she whose hair is red wraps the secret ever tighter in skeins of words...so that it is hidden to those who look, yet revealed to those who take joy in the unfolding patterns and sounds of words." reminds me of this description of paarfi's style, from _500 years after_: "your reader is the one who doesn't rush on to see what happens next, but relishes the way the sentences are formed." ok, this is a bit of a stretch, as i've only got one story by this writer on hand, from the first liavek book, but to me it is that sort of a story, where skimming it to reacquaint myself with it was informative, but made me want to read it slowly, which i did, at work, last night, during my lunchbreak: "the green cat." pamela dean dyer-bennet is my guess here. "he whose eyes are green...no sooner finds the secret than he buries it anew." will shetterly. i have a love/hate relationship with his fiction. have to read him again before i can say more than this. but i do think this is he. and i feel fairly confident that i know who his analogue is in _the sun, the moon, and the stars_. "he whose hair is dark laughs at secrets, for his pleasure is in the search, not the discovery--and the paths he follows in this search stem from whim..." skzb the gentle one: "...when each is placed in its own position, the outline of the secret will be laid bare..." no idea. refers to the way in which she assembles her fiction, i suppose? by process of elimination this should be patricia wrede, and that's my guess, but i have zero confidence in this guess, even after a quick reread of her story, "ancient curses." "the master of rhyme still searches for the way of the wizards..." nate bucklin? having not written, or at least, not having been published, iirc, he could be seen as still searching for the way. and i seem to recall that he's a musician/filkster, aka a master of rhyme.