-
Stephanides When I said the first part was brilliantly directed, I had temporarily forgotten Dr. Hobby's lecture, which I agree is a clumsy device. "This is what the film is goin…
07 Oct 2001, 11:01
-
This I don't recall. My recollection is that children were rare, not because humanity is becoming infertile but because the world is short on resources so childbearing is strictly…
27 Aug 2001, 21:22
-
I haven't seen Bladerunner, but I agree that, despite Haley Joel Osment's amazing performance on the knife-edge between machine and human, A.I. didn't have anything profound to say…
26 Aug 2001, 23:12
-
Anybody seen this? Anybody have any thoughts about it? My excuse for bringing it up here, aside from its being an sf movie and loosely based on an Aldiss story, is that it strike…
20 Aug 2001, 21:40
-
The subject line above is, or would have been, the title of the sequel. In the Fall 1996 issue of _The Review of Contemporary Fiction_, along with a short interview with Delany an…
31 Jul 2001, 15:42
-
I recently checked a collection of essays on Jack Vance, which was published last year in Britain, out of the library. One of the essays is by Gene Wolfe, entitled "The Living Ear…
30 Jul 2001, 23:46
-
While digging through some of my old, packed-away books, I came upon an anthology entitled THE DRABBLE PROJECT (ed. Rob Meades and David B. Wake). This is a collection of one hundr…
26 Jul 2001, 21:38
-
-----Original Message----- This doesn't ring a bell with me, and I've read Borges' collected stories (though it could have just slipped my mind). The closest thing to it I can …
20 Jul 2001, 20:38
-
At the time of the big PEACE discussion, I dreamed up a theory as a reductio ad absurdum of the unreliable Weer: that nothing interesting actually happened to Weer--he made up Bobb…
11 Jul 2001, 11:03
-
I was looking over the section where this book appears (211-12, Harper hc) and I have an observation and a question. First, the observation: the book is introduced with the senten…
09 Jul 2001, 20:37
-
I was rereading the "Gold" chapter of PEACE, and in the light of the recent discussion of RttW, a disturbing suspicion came to me. Briefly, I suspect that the conversations betwee…
09 Jul 2001, 16:19
-
Somewhere in storage I have an anthology of rare psychedelic rock from the 60s which includes a track by a group called, iirc, Steerpike, which released a concept album whose conce…
02 Jul 2001, 22:49
-
[snip] I think the distinction between "strict biography" and "biography in novel form" does exist in the Lupiverse, although perhaps not in those precise terms. Evidence: 1) In…
22 Jun 2001, 21:27
-
Narr begins the paragraph by saying that he has confused Seawrack's ring with Oreb's. He goes on to say "I should go back and line out my mistake, I suppose, but I hate lining thi…
22 Jun 2001, 15:06
-
While thumbing through RttW, I came across a passage in which Narr notes he has made a mistake, but says he won't correct it, for various reasons, concluding, "No, there really are…
21 Jun 2001, 23:24
-
Thanks. We know what the editors called it: _Book of the Short Sun_ (RttW, 410). --Adam *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.…
21 Jun 2001, 18:09
-
I'm sure there are; but my question applies to these too. Did people of the time regard these attributions as merely a convention? Or were they fooled into thinking they were rea…
21 Jun 2001, 11:31
-
A New Sun/Sailor Moon crossover. --Adam *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.…
20 Jun 2001, 21:47
-
Just as a digression, I've always wondered whether those really do any good. A lot of books with such disclaimers contain charaters whose "resemblance to persons living or dead" is…
20 Jun 2001, 21:46
-
It wasn't originally my term, and it wasn't a term I would have applied on my own. And I agree the sections aren't literally fanfic. But mantis used the term, iirc, to indicate …
19 Jun 2001, 20:51
-
I missed something here: the third-person account of "Horn's" final meeting with Remora is based not on "Horn's" recollections but on Remora's testimony. This raises a tough quest…
18 Jun 2001, 20:29
-
I don't think the crucial difference is that TBOTSS has a single author. While Wolfe is the sole real author, there are several fictional authors, whose goals in writing differ to …
15 Jun 2001, 23:12
-
With all the talk about the difficulty of determining the "true facts" behind the narrative(s) of TBOTSS, I thought I'd try and determine just what are the textual "components" of …
15 Jun 2001, 14:21
-
In SHADOW OF THE TORTURER (chap. VI), Master Ultan speaks of _The Book of Gold_ as the book which, when a child discovers it, leads to his becoming a librarian. It may be, though,…
14 Jun 2001, 15:42
-
Why not? Looking at the passage in SHADOW where it's first mentioned, it seems to be a perfectly legitimate book, and it undoubtedly doesn't exist. There's also (in the same pass…
14 Jun 2001, 00:05
-
I don't agree. We "believe" in the accuracy of Horn's account because, as you wrote in an earlier post, it is a literary convention to accept a narrator as truthful and correct un…
13 Jun 2001, 20:16
-
As mantis has pointed out (great catch! It never occurred to me to check) Amanda Ros does indeed exist. In fact, she has somewhat of a reputation among connosieurs of bad writing…
13 Jun 2001, 15:47
-
I was doing some surfing the other day, and I came across a number of sites, and pieces of info, of interest to fans of HDM. 1) There is a site -- http://www.geocities.com/torre_d…
13 Jun 2001, 09:48
-
Found three more, all in "From the Desk of Gilmer C. Merton" (in STOREYS FROM THE OLD HOTEL). STAR SHUTTLE by Gilray Gunn (Gilmer C. Merton) COME, DARK LUST! by Wolf Moon THE SHRI…
12 Jun 2001, 21:58
-
There is a website called The Invisible Library -- http://www.invisiblelibrary.com -- which lists books which don't actually exist, but whose titles appear in other books. It lists…
11 Jun 2001, 19:33
-
Theoretically, yes. In practice, I don't see how we can reach satisfactory answers. Of course, we can know what they don't consider to be obvious errors--what they've left stand (…
11 Jun 2001, 10:51
-
The editors tell us in their afterword "These [Horn's narrative] we have left as he composed them, save for correction of obvious errors, division into chapters, and titling those …
09 Jun 2001, 17:26
-
Well, the use of Dark/Light imagery doesn't necessarily indicate influence from Manichaeanism--it's common enough. In fact, I don't recall noticing any influence of Manichaeanism …
28 May 2001, 15:20
-
When I wrote the above, I meant only that he should not have presented this as unquestionably true. But having thought more about the question and reread the relevant passages, I …
28 May 2001, 09:29
-
I just posted a message on Pullman dated 8/27/56 (everytime I unplug my computer it resets to this date for some reason, and I forgot to set it back). Apologies to everyone for th…
26 May 2001, 17:10
-
No. "Balthamos said quietly, '...He was never the creator. He was an angel like ourselves--the first angel, true, the most powerful, but he was formed of Dust as we are, and Dust…
26 May 2001, 08:41
-
Thanks for pointing this out. I agree it's a very perceptive review. I think Moloney has put his finger on the basic flaws of the ending, though he's wrong to state as a definite…
25 May 2001, 18:03
-
A long time ago, iirc, somebody asked if there was any Wolfe fan fiction. I did a little research into the question, and as far as I can tell there is none, at least not on the we…
19 May 2001, 17:35
-
Very insightful post; just a couple of quibbles. I'm not happy with this translation, though it's better than any of the alternatives I've seen (and I can't think of anything else…
19 May 2001, 17:35
-
Yes; great fun. The amazing thing about it is how it is simultaneously true to the spirit of the Oz books _and_ of HPL. Has the author (whose name I forget) written anything else…
19 May 2001, 14:15
-
For those who are interested in the historical background to the Aegypt books, there is a five-page article in the April 19, 2001 issue of the LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS on Edward Kell…
01 May 2001, 17:25
-
You post inspired me to reread the story. While I liked it better the second time, I wouldn't call it top-flight Wolfe. I didn't much care for "The Ziggurat," actually, but "Try …
28 Apr 2001, 10:32
-
To be honest, I bought _The Sea-Rabbit_ several years before coming across _The Secret Service_, and started to read it, but didn't get it at all (whereas I fell in love with _The …
27 Apr 2001, 19:30
-
Ha! A chance to plug one of my favorite, and totally obscure, books: _The Crimson Bears_ and _A Hundred Doors: The Crimson Bears, Part II_, by Tom LaFarge, published by Sun & Moon…
27 Apr 2001, 11:44
-
An apparently very strong objection to the Golden Rule as the means by which the Secret can be used against the inhumi (either by protection or conversion) is "how can the inhumi, …
27 Apr 2001, 09:16
-
I actually think I know this now (it just came to me). There were thousands of human corpses in the sewer, all drained of blood. In combination with the Secret, this indicates th…
27 Apr 2001, 09:07
-
Not that they couldn't bridge the gap (I think the inhumi do fly from Green to Blue, despite the physical implausibility), but that they had no reason to, since they had plenty of …
26 Apr 2001, 13:57
-
I have to abandon my nice new theory on the Secret. I just noticed that on p. 350 of the hardback OBW, Horn says: "If only we protected one another, they would all be idiots or wo…
26 Apr 2001, 13:49
-
There are the thousand of dead bodies in the sewer on Green, whom Horn says have "bled to death" (IGJ, 380); and elsewhere, iirc, Horn says or implies that the inhumi on Green drai…
26 Apr 2001, 09:58
-
I think that under the circumstances, with Horn believing himself under imminent threat of death, he might not be so precise. But I'll grant that this is the passage which is the …
25 Apr 2001, 22:26
Urth Net