Three Non-literary Books that Shaped The Book of the New Sun
In my considered opinion, there are three titles with big impact over the original tetralogy as a whole. Beyond these three books, influences are threaded chapter by chapter.
1. The Dying Earth (1950) by Jack Vance, a collection of science fantasy stories, for the dying sun genre.
2. I, Claudius (1934) by Robert Graves, a historical novel, for the mode of a memoir by an unlikely emperor.
3. The Deep (1975) by John Crowley, a slender science fantasy novel, for the enigmatic influence of powers "above the stage" and "below the stage" at the approaching end of an Age.
Again, beyond these three, it is chapter by chapter: Chapter 1 has Myth, Melville, Mark Twain, and Dickens; Chapter 2 has Borges, Clark Ashton Smith, and Edgar Allan Poe. And like that.
1. The Dying Earth (1950) by Jack Vance, a collection of science fantasy stories, for the dying sun genre.
2. I, Claudius (1934) by Robert Graves, a historical novel, for the mode of a memoir by an unlikely emperor.
3. The Deep (1975) by John Crowley, a slender science fantasy novel, for the enigmatic influence of powers "above the stage" and "below the stage" at the approaching end of an Age.
Again, beyond these three, it is chapter by chapter: Chapter 1 has Myth, Melville, Mark Twain, and Dickens; Chapter 2 has Borges, Clark Ashton Smith, and Edgar Allan Poe. And like that.
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The answer, I fear, is "The Questor Tapes" (1974), a Gene Roddenberry pilot.
Here is a SPOILER for "The Questor Tapes":
A superhuman android is flawed at creation by having only half of his programming. He goes forth into the world of the 1970s to discover his meaning, aided by friends and hindered by enemies. In the end he learns he is the last of a series going back to the dawn of history, left on Earth by alien Masters to serve and protect mankind.
So basically it is "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951), only started thousands of years ago, and the program is keeping quiet about itself. (I hope one can see the parallel to The Deep.)
Granted that John Crowley did a better job of it; granted that he complicated it by making the plan itself flawed rather than "perfect." There is something disturbing to me about the linkage between Questor and John Crowley, and this dissonance is so loud that I could not see how The Deep could influence something else.
Was John Crowley inspired by the pilot, or was it a case similar to the way the newspaper headline "Dali's Alice" became "Daily Alice" (in Little, Big if I got that right)? I don't think it matters. Beyond that, my sense is that the basic idea was "in the air" in the '70s, a Crowley-esque "Spirit of the Age," one might say, but still. I will refrain from trash-talking.