Posted from 6 addresses as thalassocrat, Andrew Bollen, Mr Thalassocrat, Ed EDson
-
I think this is right. Maybe also explains SilkHorn's frustrating omission of any details of his meeting with Chenille & Auk in Sinew's village on Green. I assume that he arran…
17 Dec 2007, 00:23
-
I think they're separate planets. There's no hint of gravity differences, so they're about the same size, presumably (SilkHorn says he doesn't know if one is bigger than the othe…
16 Dec 2007, 12:09
-
I am cluless when it comes to orbital mechanics, but if Wikipedia can be trusted I think that lander voyages between Blue and Green will only be feasible at around the time of co…
16 Dec 2007, 09:29
-
Maybe the lander only has the delta-vee for the trip when Blue & Green are at or near conjunction? That's when Horn's trip to Green on it happens.…
16 Dec 2007, 00:35
-
Off topic in this thread, but I don't think Blue & Green are supposed to touch atmospheres in SS. The inhumi supposdly fly through the void between them, and one Blue-ish astrono…
15 Dec 2007, 15:06
-
Yep, that's certainly a soggy spot in the theory. I guess Fr Chris could be lying about the events of the night - eg maybe what actually happened was that he was tied up while as…
15 Dec 2007, 00:09
-
There are some things which make Burt an attractive candidate as Chris' father - somehow or other. - Burt takes to Chris early on for no very apparent reason (although there's a…
14 Dec 2007, 05:11
-
Start with Lesage. Burt gives him command of the little sloop Windward after depositing Chris on Hispaniola. He's still in command of it when Chris puts into Port Royal after t…
14 Dec 2007, 03:57
-
Chris says: "The artists of the Middle Ages painted allegories, we say. What really happened was that they saw more clearly than we do, and painted what they saw - angels and dev…
09 Dec 2007, 04:08
-
I think Wolfe is playing around with our preconceptions about his themes and other narrative tropes. IMO, WK is the story of a young guy striving to excel with respect to the h…
09 Dec 2007, 03:49
-
I come to the following conclusions: - Chris1's "birthday" is around about now; 2007. - Chris2 is writing in about 2017. - Chris2 appeared from the past around about the same time…
08 Dec 2007, 13:57
-
But "himself" with a beat-up face, taller and possibly engineered in other ways - so maybe not a huge suprise if he doesn't recognise "Ignacio". There's perhaps two things whic…
02 Dec 2007, 16:51
-
Oh, surely not. It could only be a "proper penance" if he did everything he could to stop "Chris1" from turning into a murderer. But he doesn't do that; he wants "Chris1" to do e…
02 Dec 2007, 13:44
-
In fact, isn't it quite clear that Chris is a monster? He sins, wilfully and in complete knowledge of what he is doing. Even when he is given a chance to undo his sinful acts, he…
01 Dec 2007, 12:26
-
Oops - screwed that up. The Veracruz episode happens before he is taken by Captain Burt, of course. But I think the point stands: he does have lots of opportunities to become wha…
30 Nov 2007, 23:16
-
That's an excellent review. One point: was it really to protect Chris that his father put him in a monastery? I thought about that, but how much protection would it actually of…
30 Nov 2007, 20:45
-
Some quick musings after a first run through .. Can we take it that Chris is a clone? He says his father told him he'd "engineered" Chris for height; there is no hint whatsoever,…
30 Nov 2007, 05:26
-
I think it has to be something Sicilian. Chris says he's Sicilian; one of his favorite saints is St Lucy (of Syracuse in Sicily); he travels under the alias "de Messina". Don't …
28 Nov 2007, 10:21
-
I think this fable might be partly a conflation of the Theseus myth with a story which is in fact Jonas' own. Something like this: The enclave of magicians is a research instit…
27 Nov 2007, 12:27
-
Also, Agilus has some kind of permanent mask attachment points on his neck. Sev can still see them when Agilus removes the mask. What's with that? On the fish part: Just after t…
15 Nov 2007, 03:21
-
On Wed, 03 Oct 2007 05:46:40 +1000 "Roy C. Lackey" <rclackey at stic.net> wrote, inter alia: I disagree with that. When Able transforms Dsiri, he does it in the presence of a Va…
02 Oct 2007, 21:20
-
Well, to be precise, Able only says that Aelf spirits are mortal, whereas human spirits are immortal. I guess it may be reasonable to assume that a mortal spirit doesn't count as…
29 Sep 2007, 07:36
-
Actually, the Aelf first tried to defeat her on their own, and when that didn't work, they called in the dragons. They tried again, under Setr, and failed once more. I assume tha…
25 Sep 2007, 23:46
-
On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 17:51:13 +1000 "Roy C. Lackey" <rclackey at stic.net> wrote, inter alia: I thought it was fairly clear that they cross the Bridge of Swords into Hel's domain…
25 Sep 2007, 09:53
-
I think the Toug character puts a spike in this. He's pretty much Able minus the "power-ups", and if Wolfe had been indulging just in Gary-Stu-ism, I don't think he would have bo…
24 Sep 2007, 07:54
-
... which is probably one of the reasons why the stories sometimes might not seem to work so well as adventure stories. You're right of course: the heroes usually have the deck m…
20 Sep 2007, 02:51
-
I think a common theme in Wolfe has to do with the balance between the virtues of Aphrodite and Ares. They are, I think, his prime virtues, but an imbalance is a distortion. Aphr…
19 Sep 2007, 12:00
-
Nice piece, thanks! To enjoy Wolfe I generally have to hold my nose & swallow his political & religious assumptions whole, and then grit my teeth to deal with the crappy genre t…
19 Sep 2007, 10:12
-
Here's the argument: - The Aelf built the tower under Setr's compulsion. - Setr was the son of Uthor. - Uthor was born 100+/- Mythgathr-years ago. - Therefore Setr was born (proba…
14 Sep 2007, 22:42
-
Another data point comes from Beel, who says he's a younger son of Uthor's younger brother. (Wizard, Ch. 48) Art calls Beel "middle aged" - say 50. Say he was born when his fath…
14 Sep 2007, 13:41
-
Yup, a couple of places: - Knight, end of Ch.22. Garsecg to Art, as they first come to the tower & before Able has guessed that he is Setr. Garsecg has told Able that Setr made …
14 Sep 2007, 09:29
-
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Just thought I'd toss this in to see if anybody can find an answer better than I can ... When Setr/Garsecg meets Art/Able, he speaks…
12 Sep 2007, 04:46
-
I'm in a minority, I think, in believing it isn't. The -by suffix usually means something like "village" or "town", and I take the name to mean "from the village of the dragon". …
08 Apr 2007, 11:10
-
Somewhere early on in Long Sun, we learn that Auk once kicked a man to death. It is very frustrating. SilkHorn meets Chenille (and Auk? can't rememebr) in the cellar of Sinew's …
02 Apr 2007, 06:50
-
I don't think we have enough info about why Latro was left behind; anyway, I couldn't come up with anything. I found some things about Sidon a little disappointing. Eg: - What …
18 Feb 2007, 12:42
-
The ending is pretty confusing. I posted my interpretation a few weeks ago - should be in the archives, fwiw. On Polos: Pasicrates is pederastically infatuated with him and has …
30 Jan 2007, 12:33
-
Could be. But by the time he encounters her in sphinx-form, she's instructing him in a perhaps motherly way; apparently guarding his memory palace; and actually declaring that sh…
02 Dec 2006, 10:55
-
I think knowing something about what happened afterwards is useful. Pausanias was supposed to have conspired with the Persians with the intent of taking over one of the Spartan…
01 Dec 2006, 02:41
-
Theseus was supposed to have kidnapped an Amazon & taken her as his wife. When the Amazons invaded Attica seeking revenge, Theseus defeated them.…
30 Nov 2006, 20:47
-
The end of Arete is Wolfe at his toughest, IMO. For this part of it, my conclusion is that Latro did a deal with Pausanias; the ship cargo in return for Pausanias holding back wh…
30 Nov 2006, 11:56
-
Good point! But I'm going to stick with the my interpretation for now. Pindar says he doesn't know who is meant by "the god unseen" - why wouldn't he have picked up on a Hades re…
14 Nov 2006, 20:00
-
Sidon should arrive here in a couple of days, and I've been re- reading Mist & Arete in preparation. Mainly I'm hoping for a good story well told, but I'm also hoping that there…
14 Nov 2006, 09:04
-
This has probably been kicked around long ago, but I couldn't find it on a quick archive scan. Anyway ... Little Sev's first words to Our Sev after getting over the shock of see…
02 Nov 2006, 09:52
-
Wikipedia reckons that "Katharine" comes from a Latin mangling of the original Greek, which is closer to "Catherine". Of course this is consistent with Ouen's belief that the lat…
29 Oct 2006, 09:12
-
Wolfe's PE revelation that Thecla's "fourth book" = TBOTNS is just so unconvincing on internal grounds. It's obviously ludicrous from a narrative perspective, if it refers to our…
23 Oct 2006, 05:10
-
But also: "There's your blue Urth coming over his shoulder again, fresh as the Autarch's fish."…
22 Oct 2006, 03:39
-
Probably been pointed out before, but Wolfe seems to have made a slip juggling his books. When Sev gets the 3 volumes from Cyby, the green book is "no thicker than my index finge…
15 Oct 2006, 06:53
-
I took this to be just a simple deduction by Sev: He realizes first that Ouen must be his father, then since Ouen is fair & he (Sev) is dark, Sev's mother must have been dark als…
14 Oct 2006, 12:48
-
I think it's kind of intersting that "The Gospel of Sev" was set down by a Raskolnikov figure who thought it made a cute story - not by a devout disciple type.…
03 Oct 2006, 21:52
-
The most striking manifestation of this to me is Sev's behavior when he's arrested in UOTNS. He messes up bunch of soldiers, and then he kills the prison governess almost immedi…
08 Sep 2006, 11:04
Urth Net