Posted from 8 addresses as Alice Turner, Alice K. Turner, akt, aturner3
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If that is the secret, I will eat my rat...er...hat. -alga *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.…
16 Jan 2000, 10:49
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From the NY Times, 1/16/00, Gerald Jonas column: Gene Wolfe's reputation as one of modern science fictions most impotant writers rests largely on his series of novels about re…
15 Jan 2000, 10:51
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Plasma is absolutely right about the inhumi being reptilian and being able to hibernate or shut down. But what is new about that---we've pretty much known that all along, almost si…
11 Jan 2000, 19:30
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I had a short, memorable (except to me, whose memory is deplorable), email discussion on C.S. Lewis's -Till We have Faces- with somebody here. You forwarded a terrific Lewis letter…
07 Jan 2000, 00:17
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STRANGE TRAVELERS Not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach, this collection of Wolfe's stories published in the 1990s contains death by overdose, suicide, Armageddon, cruelty…
20 Dec 1999, 20:31
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Huh? No, I can't quite buy the DEEP ref. Wolfe's tone here is facetious; Crowley is not facetious, though he does have a kind of learning-obsessed sophomoric irony--and I hope not …
15 Dec 1999, 04:26
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I do NOT want to be the FAQ keeper. I am happy to be a lieutenant, as I have been with mantis on a number of projects, but I do not want to be the general!!!! But I do think that t…
09 Dec 1999, 22:15
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Well, I am blown away by mantis's quite amazing precis of TBOTNS for GURPS, as I expect the rest of you are. I've only read it once through, and I know there are a few points where…
08 Dec 1999, 21:16
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At Paul Duggan's site, I just read a 1991 essay by Stephen Palmer which posits a thought I'd never seen before (pasted); Severian even though his mask was on then tried to cover h…
02 Dec 1999, 09:00
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The Rodent opined: I think you are correct, but that this is not the secret. I also think that "hanging around and being near" doesn't have much, if anything to do with it; it's t…
25 Nov 1999, 10:31
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Rostrum said, a while back: Which intrigued me enough to go back to TWHF to see if I could give it a Christian reading. And I couldn't; in fact, I kept forgetting that I was tryin…
21 Nov 1999, 18:39
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Hi John Roberson, and welcome, Thanks for pitching right in. My take on your two points: I. I don't detect a hint of Pas (as I see Pas, or as we all saw him as Typhon) in the "vo…
16 Nov 1999, 20:09
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One thing that I don't think anyone has yet mentioned: The echo of NS5 in Horn's being asked by the Vanished People to speak for his race (humanity) just as Sev had to represent th…
16 Nov 1999, 10:19
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[snip] I'm in this camp. To start with, Seawrack was a gift from a mysterious entity, and surely we've learned to beware of such gifts. Krait's suspicion is a real clue too--in hi…
16 Nov 1999, 10:10
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I am really sorry my paste from the OED on cacogen and carnifex came through so badly. There is a reason, but I won't bore you. I can repost legibly, if it's totally unreadable and…
12 Nov 1999, 22:44
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Oops, after a much too jolly dinner, I suffered a mental lapse, momentarily confusing the most ch-chi rodent with the largest one. They do both live in South America, where so many…
12 Nov 1999, 22:36
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Rat rote: A base canard, O Water-Hog! (A) we do not know what Wolfe's religious beliefs actually are, as he is coy on the subject. (B) I *love* religions. Especially dead ones. -…
12 Nov 1999, 22:22
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From: Charles Dye Michael Andre-Driussi writes: :Whoops. I completely misunderstood your comment, that you felt she had :*won* the contest by telling the best story. Quit confus…
12 Nov 1999, 08:24
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Foila is my favorite female Urth character. (Though I raise a glass to Juturna.) -alga…
09 Nov 1999, 21:59
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Aha--here it is; at the back of my mind I knew I had a second point of contention with Timothy Reilly (what a lot of Irishmen we have here....): I felt the same way you did at fir…
08 Nov 1999, 19:54
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Nick Gevers said: Yes, Nick, but you missed my point, and that of others. It is when Clute dumbs down his prose that he is readable and useful. What we are all objecting to is the…
07 Nov 1999, 09:55
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He does make a number of petty mistakes, but I tend to be tolerant of those (knowing how many of these are routinely caught by fact-checkers and copy-editors in any professional ve…
03 Nov 1999, 23:59
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I agree with pretty much everything in the last digest, uncluding the general awfulness of the covers, but I thought I might doublecheck on Dan's question. And lookee what I found:…
02 Nov 1999, 19:46
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Mantis remarked, in discussion of fantasy v. SF: Well, no. Actually I agree---how not. The Gothic elements refer directly back to alchemy, most specifically in Baldanders's castle…
02 Nov 1999, 10:04
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Has anyone else been following the Falun Gong uprising in China? The NY Times has covered it closely and I have been amazed at how familiar it all sounds. Beijing could be Viron, g…
29 Oct 1999, 18:15
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How funny. I just this second popped off my last message, addressed to Roy, and --ping--this new digest came in, topped with Ratso's reasoning. I do, I do. See last message. Actu…
27 Oct 1999, 20:11
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First, Daniel, there are two lovely trade paperback Borges compendia out, one fiction, one nonfiction. Check out Amazon. And Dan (the other), very interesting about DFW. Roy Lacke…
27 Oct 1999, 19:56
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Oh my, we forgot Pynchon. How could we? Some people even like him a lot, or claim to. I thought -Vineland- was crap, but I don't think that counts. I guess DeLillo is a modernist t…
27 Oct 1999, 19:17
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Well, I'm sort of astonished that there's so much interest in this subject, but it's a kick, too. I'll add a couple of thoughts. I mentioned -Catch-22- as "pop modernism." I'd like…
27 Oct 1999, 03:45
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Alga rejoins: The Rat adds: I add this (depressing) thought: Wolfe's writing may be so complex, and so dependent on the tropes of SF, that he will never make it into a "canon." …
26 Oct 1999, 16:54
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Daniel Fusch brings up--re the inconsistent or unreliable narrator (Sev) that we've been discussing--the modernist novel. Well, actually, that's not quite accurate, as he brings up…
25 Oct 1999, 13:45
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Thanks for a really thoughtful message, most of which I'm not addressing. But I do want to offer this, in a conjectural way. Perhaps the immediate conclusion, given the odd powers…
22 Oct 1999, 23:48
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Ooops, that was Blind Pew, wasn't it? Guess I conflated him with LJ Silver's peg leg <g>, Well, up next: Blind Pig. -alga *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of …
20 Oct 1999, 20:45
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From Alex: Chenille <g>. There's a funny Terry Bisson story with a character named Chemise. From Wm. Ansley: He did say that (adding Nettle), writing of course much later. Pig i…
19 Oct 1999, 20:14
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How do you know that? I think Matthew gets it very wrong, and on purpose. I think he totally invents the ties to Zoroastrianism (the Magi) and Osiris (the flight to Egypt) for the …
17 Oct 1999, 15:58
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Well, Ratty, you're wrong, I do agree. My very point was that Horn, exactly like Mathew (the most egregious of the gospeleers, IMO--and I will happily cite how), when he wasn't pre…
16 Oct 1999, 12:35
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An Enraged Enormous Rat is something to see, all right, horrid red eyes aglow, lice-ridden fur bristling, slimy fangs dripping... But I digress. The Rat wrote: How dare you impl…
15 Oct 1999, 17:18
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Wow, we're going at warp speed here, aren't we? It's the first time we've ever been able to race along together, and I must say it's a thrill. Anyway, I want to back up "Dorp" as …
12 Oct 1999, 21:08
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I've been lurking on the conversation, so, now that I've started talking again, perhaps I should say that I too am rather amazed at "Blue"... Wolfe's books just seem to get more an…
11 Oct 1999, 21:06
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Wombat! You rule! But we knew about Sev 'n Mer, didn't we? -alga *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.…
11 Oct 1999, 19:42
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Could there possibly be a more Borgesian sounding town name than Pajarocu? I :don't think so. And the concept of it, a phantom town, an invisible :city--the perfect mix of Borges a…
11 Oct 1999, 19:26
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... Wasn't there an "eclipse trick" featured in the 1931 movie "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" with Will Rogers in the title role? (it wasn't in Samuel Clemens' book…
10 Oct 1999, 14:15
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They seem oddly insectoidal to me, especially the second one. -alga…
09 Oct 1999, 13:41
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Krait's secret first turns up on p 295 and it is indeed what Horn/Silk threatens the revived inhumi with. Check bottom of p 310: "On Green I learned the secret the inhumi wish nobo…
07 Oct 1999, 19:01
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Okay, I'm going to disagree with myself as well. Krait's secret probably isn't the inhumation (thanks, Dave). Though I still marvel at the ingenuity of Horn's strategy and wonder h…
05 Oct 1999, 19:58
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That's exactly the way I took it. Dorcas's distaste for Jolenta is quite clear and J's lazy disdain for D just as clear. [snip] I'd only half agree here. It seems to me that low-…
04 Oct 1999, 19:41
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Robert and Alex, No, we're somewhat at cross purposes here. Horn knows perfectly well how to kill an inhumu--he was present at Quetzal's death, after all. The secret he has learne…
03 Oct 1999, 22:28
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You are a gent, Alex, but I suggest that we take off the gloves. People who haven't read the new book simply shouldn't download the Whorl list for a while; they can cavort around i…
01 Oct 1999, 19:07
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There are more threes. Three people give Horn unexpected gifts at parting, and the third gives him three gifts. Marble asks for three apples; there are three fish waiting on the st…
01 Oct 1999, 11:43
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snip Hi Hat, Well remembered. But the trouble is--and you can check this out in the archives--Wolfe has explicitly denied Typhon's having prior knowledge of the nature of the inh…
22 Sep 1999, 21:18
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