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e ----- Original Message ----- They are common, Dorcas' extreme blondness is not remarked upon. I never really understood this point. Isn't there somewhere in the BOTNS where S…
16 Jul 2002, 08:24
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Not at all. Massive mixing of populations is historcally a very new thing, the consequence of massive, fast, travel, and that has stopped in Severian's time for reasons of techno…
16 Jul 2002, 07:18
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What people are persistently failing to acknowledge, though Wolfe flags it again and again, is that Hyacinth was a bad woman, and disastrous for Silk. Silk's near suicide on the …
13 Jul 2002, 14:58
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----- Original Message ----- Having read this passage several times, I believe that Wolfe meant the ambiguity and that it therefore cannot be resolved by us. One point, however, …
13 Jul 2002, 05:24
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----- Original Message ----- The Vironese faith is obviously based on ancient greek religion, with some inpout from other Indo-European polytheisms: The maor thematic links are t…
17 Jun 2002, 05:26
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----- Original Message ----- An Astronmical Unit. The average distance between the Urthand the Sun. 93,000,000 miles and some odd. It is very easy to determine the size of the …
17 Jun 2002, 04:32
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----- Original Message ----- Interesting thought. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has a long pedigree in SF (cf Vance THE LANGUAGES OF PAO) but is almost certinly untrue. In fact w…
12 Jun 2002, 21:55
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It is logical and straightforward. It is called Quantum Electrodynamics. hartshorn ----- Original Message -----…
12 Jun 2002, 15:28
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----- Original Message ----- Umm, Boethieus, *De Consolatione Philosophae* . . . hartshorn…
11 Jun 2002, 16:56
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----- Original Message ----- It is obvious that it is derived from 1984 and Nuspeak. The idea that the Ascian's war may be derived from the eternal war between Oceana/Eastasia/E…
11 Jun 2002, 07:45
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----- Original Message ----- I think this is a meaningless distinction. Their minds are not responsible for it. But the mind/body duality, even if it has some truth for human…
01 Jun 2002, 19:49
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----- Original Message ----- It is not the character of Reality to be other than Dangerous. Rather, the Real presents us with a series of Tests, each more unbearable than the one…
01 Jun 2002, 19:37
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Have a good time: there is no chance of my being there, much as I'd like to be. ----- Original Message -----…
01 Jun 2002, 19:13
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----- Original Message ----- Are you sure it is not that you are seeing what is really in TBOTSS and are now disliking it? In my opinion TBOTSS is a far more serious book. It is…
31 May 2002, 20:36
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----- Original Message ----- Well, I'm glad you do at least. hartshorn…
31 May 2002, 20:31
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----- Original Message ----- As a matter if fact, Evolutionary Psychology is the key to understanding the whole mess. There is a case of a planarian that infests a type of wate…
31 May 2002, 16:17
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----- Original Message ----- The ghost-soul in the inhumi may attain to a sort of human virtue. The flesh remains evil. Of course the question is whether "evil" in this context…
30 May 2002, 14:31
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----- Original Message ----- Ohhhhhh to be there!!!!!! hartshorn…
30 May 2002, 11:54
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----- Original Message ----- I do think they are fascinating, but I don't agree: Or rather, I'd like to agree, but I am not (yet) convinced. These old stories have been selecte…
29 May 2002, 17:54
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----- Original Message ----- Now then, let's stay within the bounds of reality, shall we? hartshorn…
29 May 2002, 17:49
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----- Original Message ----- Right. I think I agree with you here. hartshorn…
28 May 2002, 20:08
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----- Original Message ----- Why not? Our own minds *right down to our deepest souls* are no more than a genetic ghost conjured up by our bodies, to serve evolutionary drives. T…
28 May 2002, 18:07
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----- Original Message ----- Why on Urth not? Doubts and uncertainties are hardly alien to the Lupverse. hartshorn…
28 May 2002, 17:38
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----- Original Message ----- It happened to me. On my first reading of 5HC as a young twentysomething I thought if a fine bit of writing but rather confused, fragmentary plotwi…
26 May 2002, 15:04
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----- Original Message ----- From: Allan Lloyd It's just you feeling grumpy. ;-) No. I can see it. I have even had the experience of reading the SS books and having it come o…
25 May 2002, 22:20
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----- Original Message ----- Comment freely, but only where relevant to Wolfe's work Wolfe is not biologising *human* evil. If he did I would read with interest, mind you. But…
22 May 2002, 17:30
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----- Original Message ----- I refer to depictions of race and gender in literature and the media, not real life. I repeat that you should read Wolfe with an eye to these thing…
22 May 2002, 06:49
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----- Original Message ----- Well, back where we were then. Why "tie"? And how/why is this specifically linked to being uncircumcised? hartshorn…
21 May 2002, 15:46
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----- Original Message ----- If 251, Whoops. The problem is my Quartet edition, which has this misprint "they would *tie*, the two of them" Problem solved, and apologi…
21 May 2002, 08:09
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----- Original Message ----- But there is a simple point to understand here. Contemporary western morality enforces a deeply unreal hierarchy of virtue based on class, gender, an…
21 May 2002, 07:51
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----- Original Message ----- Yes, but - TDE really is one of those original, once-of-a-kind, novels. It seems imitative now only because it has been imitated so often. For exam…
20 May 2002, 18:46
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How I wish it were true as well!! hartshorn ----- Original Message -----…
14 May 2002, 21:13
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----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Borski" <rborski at charter.net> Doubtless I've bolixed up the math I haven't read the story, alas. But if they are using base 9, then t…
14 May 2002, 21:13
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----- Original Message ----- It is 10 in any base whatever. No, no,no. All you need to know is that 7+7 = 15. You put 5 down and carry 1 making 25. It's a fascinating idea…
12 May 2002, 08:05
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----- Original Message ----- Uh Either: 1) They are actually from PLANET ZOG http://home.clara.net/andywrobertson/zogcount.html Or 2) The children are in their childish wa…
11 May 2002, 18:25
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----- Original Message ----- From: "Jeff Wilson" < No, it's not crap, but like most things about biology it is a rule rather than a law. But of course this is significant for wh…
11 May 2002, 07:49
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----- Original Message ----- Note, Dollo's law is about degeneration: the way an evolutionary talent, once lost, is never regained. This tells us something Victor at any rate bel…
10 May 2002, 18:11
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----- Original Message ----- Just a simple point. Abo lack of dexterity might be due to lack of practice, nothing else. The abos have a largely tool-less culture. If they d…
10 May 2002, 07:24
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----- Original Message ----- I don't have acces to APOCALYPSES, but I think this is where I remember the motif from. It was about forging statue(s), but not necessarily the Venu…
08 May 2002, 17:17
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Traditionally the fairies, the Sidhe, the "little people", live "Under the hill". This derives from a confusion of old Celtic burial mounds. ----- Original Message ----- htt…
07 May 2002, 20:20
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Apart from the obvious parady of Ralph 124C41+ in the villians' name, I can't see any jokes. But is it not a notably Vancean story? hartshorn ----- Original Message ----…
07 May 2002, 18:17
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Thank you!! But actually it seems quite minor. The theme is that life is preferrable to peace, or more succintly that Peace = Death. It is a nice little thing, but I spy no dep…
07 May 2002, 10:27
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----- Original Message ----- For what it's worth - if you want to find a writer who uses "tergiversation", you must read Patrick O'Brien . . . almost as good as Gene Wolfe, but…
05 May 2002, 17:35
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----- Original Message ----- I suggest that T5HOC is a book with a lot to say about Colonialism and its aftermath. The Abos have to be there because they are Wolfe's major th…
04 May 2002, 21:24
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----- Original Message ----- The Salmon of Wisdom is a figure in irish myth. <quote> Tuan, like Suibhne and Merlin, becomes the leader of the stag herds of Ireland, before takin…
02 May 2002, 20:19
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----- Original Message ----- Yeah, I read that, and I got the reference to circumcision. What I don't get is what seems to be Marsch's assumption that these two get locked toget…
27 Apr 2002, 18:27
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----- Original Message ----- Oh Pooh Look, the Abos are creatures of the Dreamtime. They are very strongly based on Australian aborigines: even down to their name. Creatures of…
26 Apr 2002, 01:40
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----- Original Message ----- And Wolfe is well aware of the moral side of it. The aggresive approprioation of the mechanical into the divine is on one level an argument against t…
24 Apr 2002, 16:39
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----- Original Message ----- TBOTLS is among other things a retrospective of SF. Here, we see Cyberpunk being treated. The main idea of Cyberpunk was to take "cyberspace" and fu…
24 Apr 2002, 16:34
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Sheesh. OK "Any vertebrate". My bad. ----- Original Message -----…
24 Apr 2002, 05:38
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