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Hm - if it has to be a _Gene_ Wolfe that definitely adds complexity to the issue. (There is a Gene, since 'Ouen' is a form of the name 'Eugenius'. But I don't see any signs of his …
13 Apr 2014, 20:12
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Neil Gaiman, I think, proposed the theory that in each of Wolfe's stories there is a wolf. I've been thinking about how this works out. In some cases, of course, the wolves are qui…
11 Apr 2014, 13:50
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Lee wrote: Great question! One I think Marc would have no trouble answering as he That's certainly possible, though it would be tricksy - the 'return to your sons' native place a…
01 Dec 2013, 23:01
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But he (Horn) met Seawrack long before the prophecy.…
26 Nov 2013, 19:44
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Once again, a very happy Feast of Saint Katharine to you all! I realise that it's now a year since I started my Short Sun notes, and they are not progressing as fast as they shou…
25 Nov 2013, 21:59
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The iNeighbours whom Horn/the Rajan meets certainly seem to be higher than humans, but we should remember that they thought that humans would be better able to cope with the inhumi…
06 Oct 2013, 21:54
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OK, this one is very speculative, and may seem round the bend. In the trial scene in Dorp, Windcloud says ?I was one of those who boarded your whorl when it neared our sun. In the…
27 Sep 2013, 21:27
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I think Wolfe says somewhere that although there are other inhumi on the Whorl, they are few, which means it's quite likely Quetzal is the only one in Viron. I have a couple of spe…
27 Sep 2013, 20:54
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I think we are actually told at some point that Oreb's possession by Scylla began during the Rajan's sacrifice in the Grand Manteion in RTTW. Up to this point Scylla had been hidin…
27 Sep 2013, 20:44
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Oreb brought the ring a lot earlier, before they arrived in Dorp. Auk's presence is certainly a puzzle, but it has to be a supernatural presence .of some kind, so I don't see how i…
14 Jul 2013, 20:28
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We know that each humanoid inhumu/a has a human spirit, which is derived from someone one of their parents fed on before their birth. In the case we know most about, Krait, it’s hi…
07 Jul 2013, 21:29
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This is a small thing, but I think an interesting one. The question has been raised in the past why, apart from Marble, there appear to be no chems on Blue. It’s worth noting, thou…
01 Dec 2012, 22:34
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We should bear in mind, though, that the Rajan himself is very doubtful about whether the secret is really useful. "If you will, it is a great and terrible weapon. That is how the …
28 Nov 2012, 15:33
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Ah, I thought that would get a response. OK then; Here is the relevant passage (OBW 15) : “When our roads crossed again before Hari Mau and his friends carried me off to Gaon, I d…
26 Nov 2012, 23:42
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A happy Feast of Saint Katharine to you all. I recently finished reading _Short Sun_, and as I went along I found myself encountering a lot of puzzles, and also possibly seeing so…
25 Nov 2012, 23:17
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No, it doesn't have to be, but 'misinterpreted' seems fairly clear. (The question then is what would be the correct interpretation - does it mean 'universe', in the sense in which …
16 Mar 2012, 23:18
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I mentioned a while ago the way in which, in Long Sun/Short Sun, the lesser gods can sometimes become manifestations of the true God, culminating in the Rajan's statement near th…
16 Mar 2012, 22:35
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In any case, Wolfe fairly clearly rejects this view in the author's note to 'La Befana' - while the story itself does turn on the idea that Christ must be born anew on different pl…
12 Mar 2012, 21:07
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West is certainly a good direction. North less so - in the first age material the North is the seat of evil (and it's not Tolkien's fault that wasn't published first). By the time …
16 Dec 2011, 17:08
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Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. Of course he kidnapped her. The question is why think it was _for sacrifice_ that he did so. I don't think Tartaros wanted him to kidnap anyone; the w…
24 Nov 2011, 14:16
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Yes, I saw this - I'm not doubting that there is a way to explain it within the time-travel theory. I just wanted to see if a simpler explanation could be given. Why do you say he…
23 Nov 2011, 22:47
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?I haven’t managed to read everything posted over the last couple of weeks, so some of these points may already have been made, in which case apologies. What can we know about Pik…
22 Nov 2011, 17:31
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I don't think chems have anything like what we would call sex. The only thing that disqualifies a chem from seeing the gods is actually making a child, which takes a year. Lemur h…
13 Nov 2011, 22:23
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A while ago I raised the question whether Sard, the pawnbroker in _Long Sun_, was a chem. I've found positive evidence that he is; at the beginning of _Calde_, 'Sard' is given as a…
05 Nov 2011, 22:45
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I think it has something in common with an aquastor. It's clearly not exactly the same; its source is different, and so are the precise abilities of the travellers. But Malrubius s…
26 Oct 2011, 16:53
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Hethor is also a saint, one of the martyrs of Chertsey. I take it that is the reference our Hethor is going for, since he is trying to pass as a Commonwealth citizen.…
26 Oct 2011, 16:30
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Not in the _Sun_ cycle, as far as I can remember. Perhaps that Weer is dead?…
21 Oct 2011, 21:30
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I have just been looking at the Jordan interview with GW, which has been mentioned here a few times lately, and I noticed a couple of things. First, I can't find any reference to …
21 Oct 2011, 21:27
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?The jungle guide is the masked figure who leads Vodalus and party through the jungle in COTA, and occasionally disappears into the Autarch's litter to talk to him. The old boatman…
13 Oct 2011, 13:05
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I think the two sets of parents actually count against the clone theory; a clone does not have genetic parents in the ordinary sense. One might call the parents of his source his p…
10 Oct 2011, 19:06
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I think the main evidence for Typhon as Neighbour was that they both have doubled body parts; but I don't find this plausible, as Typhon's doubled part was artificial.…
09 Oct 2011, 21:37
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Of course, that would cause demarcation problems in some cases - and in no case more than with Wolfe. I think the _Sun_ cycle, taken as a whole, has to be read as both SF and fanta…
23 Jun 2011, 14:55
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I'm not sure what you understand by 'blot'. I don't think it's impossible to say that something overhead 'blots' the fields by casting a shadow on them. (Not 'blot out', since they…
02 Jun 2011, 13:29
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There's an interesting passage in _Urth_ which I think illuminates the recent discussion. UOTNS 37: Severian talking to his followers in prison (the speech which was transcribed b…
28 May 2011, 20:33
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. It makes perfect sense to me. 'March winds' is a well-established phrase, enshrined in a nursery rhyme. And a garbled retelling the Romulus tale is kind of lame and That dep…
25 May 2011, 21:19
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Gerry Quinn wrote: ?In BotNS, (unless you include Frog!) there is no More than that:it seems actually inconsistent with some things in the text. In connection with the antechamb…
25 May 2011, 20:54
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Gerry Quinn wrote: > ". Elements from the Jungle Book include: The name 'Frog' (that's what 'Mowgli' means) The tiger (smilodon) as the threat to the child. The figures of the Bl…
23 May 2011, 17:42
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No, I don't think anyone did. But we may wonder whether this represents actual concealment within the world of BOTNS, or whether it's just Wolfe's tendency to make things less clea…
19 May 2011, 22:16
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I'm sure Cyriaca's story has been embellished, but I think it likely that something like that happened, since it explains something which is otherwise mysterious; how there are a l…
20 Feb 2011, 20:39
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Gerry Quinn wrote: . As you say, Latin and English would be nearly indistinguishable in I agree with all this. But another question is whether real Latin is being used in _Long S…
19 Feb 2011, 22:21
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Actually it's not really surprising; the meanings are linked. A gift is something that is presented to you; and 'now' is the present moment, the moment that is presented to me as I…
19 Feb 2011, 22:12
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Gerry Quinn wrote: Afterward, Hide said he had no I wondered that. I don't think it can be exactly the same, because Severian spends much of his later life as an aquastor, and I…
12 Feb 2011, 21:48
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Was Tussah expecting to die just when he did? If not, perhaps he intended to do more to bring Silk to power. Still, perhaps he would have become prolocutor. Quetzal shows you can d…
12 Feb 2011, 21:43
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Well, for one thing, although Silk has been bred to be special, his specialness is not wholly due to his breeding, but also to the Outsider. Without his intervention Silk might ha…
11 Feb 2011, 23:21
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No, I've always doubted it. Severian thinks Miles is Jonas because he uses Wellerisms, and even works out a theory which would explain why robots do so. But later we discover this …
09 Feb 2011, 23:27
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One of the aims of the Neighbours was to observe humanoid inhumi, so you would expect them to be where the inhumi were; there ought to be at least one of them in Viron to keep watc…
09 Feb 2011, 15:10
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Gerry Quinn wrote: Gerry Quinn wrote. Also Gens, 'tribe', and Wick 'settlement' or the like. On the other hand, as well as Trivigaunte there is Palustria, 'marshland', and the ori…
08 Feb 2011, 21:31
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James Wynn wrote: . That's one way they could Not all spacecraft have to dock. The tender on which Severian and Burgundofara returned to Urth didn't; it just settled. No need to…
08 Feb 2011, 21:27
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But each country has (allegedly) a natural type to which the people living in it conform after twenty generations or so. So even if North Americans are descended from people who no…
20 Jan 2011, 22:25
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Son of Witz wrote: . She may be Asian, but not Ascian. Wolfe has been quite insistent that Ascians are not Asian - they are North American. Asians are Xanthoderms or from the Xant…
20 Jan 2011, 21:03
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