Talk:Voice of the Whirlwind

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I am changing the series from a trilogy to a diptych based on careful reading of the novels Hardwired, Voice of the Whirlwind, and Aristoi. The prime mover in Hardwired is the Rock War, when the Orbitals dropped asteroids on Earth in order to subdue the planetbound nations and assume domnance. In VotW, there is no mention of the Rock War, there is a European conflict, and at one point it is specifically mentioned that there have been no wars in America for a hundred years. The Rock War essentially destroyed America as a nation (in Hardwired) and left profound scars on it. Also there is an alien species in VotW and evidence from Aristoi strongly suggests that it is a sequel -- there are no aliens in Aristoi. Wikieponymous (talk) 09:30, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but you're incorrect on this one. Walt himself has said (in print) that VotW is a sequel to Hardwired - although he didn't originally write it with that in mind. If I remember correctly, he explains it in the introduction to Solip: System in the Frankensteins and Foreign Devils short story collection. I'm not going to dig out the book to type up a verbatim quote right now, but he begins by saying something to the effect of "People always ask me why I never wrote a sequel to Hardwired, when in fact it has two sequels." He goes on to explain that VotW was written as a stand-alone book, but that his publisher asked him if he could make it a sequel to Hardwired, because "sequels sell better." Walt says he was overcome by the logic of the publisher's remark, so he went back and rewrote some parts of VotW to tie it into the same fictional universe as the one Hardwired occurred in. As I understand it, one of the inspirations behind Solip: System was to show the catastrophic events that caused the Orbitals in Hardwired to mutate into the Policorps that play such a prominent role in VotW. - 'Card (talk) 11:30, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, if you wish to make that point in the articles I will not re-re-edit. However I do stand by my contention that the evidence presented in the text of the novels Hardwired, VotW, and Aristoi strongly indicates the relationship between them is not the same as is presented here and if WJW said at some point that a book written as a stand-alone is now a sequel, I'd like to see what he says about Aristoi. However, if the author says VotW is a sequel, that is, indeed, a powerful argument. I think the article would be stronger if it referenced proof of sequelhood. Wikieponymous (talk) 15:44, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not going to claim to be some sort of expert on WJW. I've been following his career for about 20 years (I'm an old fart and got a copy of Hardwired when it was released), reading all his books, all the various incarnations of his websites, and his blog. We've exchanged e-mails a few times, but he seems pretty good about answering his mail so I'd imagine there are literally thousands of fans who could claim that. The point being that I think I've got an inkling as to his sense of humor at this point, and I'm pretty comfortable saying he's probably the kind of guy (like Brust or Zelazny, maybe) who isn't above tossing something into a book just to mess with the heads of people he refers to as Completists.

So I wouldn't worry about it too much. Walt doesn't. This is a guy who has gleefully admitted to planting a few extra paragraphs into a book to justify calling it a sequel for marketing purposes, so I think it's safe to say he'd enjoy sticking the term "reno" into Aristoi just to mess with you.

While we're on the subject, though - if we really wanted to be completists about this, in addition to what's already been mentioned there are at least two of Walt's short stories that take place in the Hardwired fictional universe (for lack of a better term). Wolf Time follows the story of the Reese character from VotW, and Erogenoscape takes place in the same setting, but has nothing to do with the storylines or characters from the other works. - 'Card (talk) 16:29, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I also am no kid ;) I read Hardwired back in the 80s too and although I haven't directly communicated with WJW (other than being communicated with by his books) I've done some analysis of some trends in his work (you might be amused by a bit I wrote about ways his commercial success affected his storytelling in a comparison of Hardwired, Angel Station, and Aristoi. In any case I've changed my edit of "diptych" to series to open it up to include your point. One of these days I'll see about expanding some of these articles so they aren't stubs anymore. Probably not VotW, simply because on re-read it doesn't hold up nearly as well as many of his other works. Wikieponymous (talk) 01:09, 25 February 2008 (UTC)