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A few things: 1) The sun was dying out (whether "naturally" or because of the Hieros), so humanity was up a creek, anyway. From a broad perspective, the flood's "genocide" also k…
14 Mar 2012, 15:10
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It does seem, though, that some of the argument about what's in the story is based on the assumption that the world of Urth must be consistent with Wolfe's view of the world in som…
12 Mar 2012, 04:32
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So all the discussion of whether or not there was a Christ in Briah got me thinking about the actual textual reasons to think that Urth might not actually be Earth. Unless I'm wro…
12 Mar 2012, 04:16
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Fair enough. And this got hashed out in the same terms on the list a long time ago, so sorry to bring it up again for the oldsters. But I do think that Wolfe meant it metaphorical…
10 Mar 2012, 16:49
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Lafferty and O'Connor seem like perfect analogues on this point. There's something in both of those writers that makes faith a very dark and dangerous and uncertain thing. That mat…
10 Mar 2012, 16:44
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Here's the link. Random q&a from the list a long time ago. http://www.ansible.co.uk/cc/cc77.html…
10 Mar 2012, 16:27
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I forget which interview it is where Wolfe says that Silk is a member of the "Order of the Seekers of Truth and Penitence" ... which I think a lot of people (me included) interpret…
10 Mar 2012, 05:11
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Yes, indeed! And I'd forgotten about Gwern Branwen's write up about it. Tons of useful stuff, so thank you thank you.…
08 Mar 2012, 19:40
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Matthew, my friend is a historian, and my first thought was to do something on Crowley's Aegypt books...although I think that would be impossible in three days. I'm much more famil…
08 Mar 2012, 19:38
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I'm using the list to cheat. A friend of mine is an editor for a small online journal. He needs some content asap on an issue about "memory" because it turns out that he can't use…
08 Mar 2012, 17:26
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I always tell my students that there is no one interpretation that trumps all others because you can always say even more about a good work of fiction. But there are certainly wron…
06 Mar 2012, 15:37
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Yeah, I think that's fair to say. Tolkien does get called "high" fantasy and s&s is a term more often associated with the pulps. Like all these terms, though, they really only wo…
16 Dec 2011, 15:32
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To me, the generic markers of "s&s" vs. "Tolkienesque" usually break down like this: s&s - adventure tales where action and "marvels" are what drives the story. (The magazine _The…
16 Dec 2011, 13:47
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<Deliberately ignoring the public snark-fest...> Has Wolfe ever spoken at length about Lord Dunsany? I can think of a few mentions, but nothing significant. That might be an inter…
16 Dec 2011, 03:25
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I know what you mean. But Dr. Talos always seemed to borrow from the inscrutability of a fairy figure for me. Random dancing, riddling, otherworldly. I know his nature is "explaine…
15 Dec 2011, 23:01
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I convinced a friend of mine to read it, and he's not at all a genre/sf/fantasy guy. But his overall reaction was that many of the sections seemed like they were intentionally reca…
15 Dec 2011, 15:17
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So let's assume that Hy is in fact male/transsexual/altered. What does that mean for Silk and how we interpret him? I don't want this to be a dismissive question. I suppose I'm ju…
03 Nov 2011, 15:30
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Right. I get the concerns, but, at the same time, it seems like a lot of the reasons given for a particular timeline have an odd mix of "real" and "sf" science: for example, you're…
02 Nov 2011, 16:35
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The actual years distinction doesn't seem to make much difference in terms of Urth's culture. The culture was that way at that time because Wolfe said it is. His fiction, his rules…
02 Nov 2011, 16:25
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I'll stop lurking for a moment to say that these two statements get my vote for the most important point of this thread.…
23 Oct 2011, 22:03
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It also got referred to a number of times on Mystery Science Theater 3000... :) For what it's worth (not much in my opinion) The Circus of Dr. Lao was made into a film, releas…
22 Oct 2011, 03:50
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As long as we're all in a non-Wolfe-talking mood, does anyone have any recommendations for GOOD steampunk? I've only read a spattering (Vandermeer, Mieville, and random others), bu…
10 Aug 2011, 02:45
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And Moorcock's also said on many occasions that the Elric stories were exercises in a kind of pastiche of reversals. Recognizing elements that are lifted from other works and then …
10 Aug 2011, 01:38
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Aw, man! Dr. Doofenshmertz from Phineas and Ferb deserves a mention. (For those without kids, that show deserves a watch or two.) And this may sound lame among our more "literary"…
05 Aug 2011, 15:46
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There's a lot about Thomas Covenant worth returning to. I think the initial repulsiveness is the point. I don't know how many people I've heard say they stopped when they get to th…
05 Aug 2011, 13:57
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Absolutely. That's probably why my favorite book of the series was the third. On the one hand, it was just so monumentally tragic in all kinds of ways. But at the same time, you ha…
04 Aug 2011, 16:08
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Marc, I have two good friends who read them as they came out, even ordering them from Canadian and UK outlets since they came out a month or so earlier. They each loved the first b…
04 Aug 2011, 05:00
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The Malazan books hit their stride for me around the end of the second book. And the third book was simply amazing. I kept at them because of some friends who swore by them, but I …
04 Aug 2011, 03:41
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I've become a fast fan of Catherine M. Valente. Her style is way too ornate for a lot of people (the usual assessment some of my friends have is that she's "trying too hard"), but …
03 Aug 2011, 15:59
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I've always thought that the similarity was pretty obvious, but that it wasn't a point about connected plots or conjoined. It's more of a symbolic pattern that Wolfe likes where do…
03 Aug 2011, 15:51
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Fewer clothes = easier costume. It's strange now that I think about it. People who cosplay at cons are often also part of the "filk" scene. (It's basically fan fiction in folk so…
23 May 2011, 19:16
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This is often where I end up with many of the "puzzles" in Wolfe stories. For example, it's important to me in _The Sorcerer's House_ that Dunn *might* just be putting on an elab…
23 May 2011, 16:27
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"He's the finest living male American writer of SF and fantasy — possibly the finest living American writer." I wonder who Gaiman would consider the greatest female American writ…
13 May 2011, 15:57
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Of course it's true that all writers "derive". But what people really mean (I assume) is that a writer is piggy-backing on an idea/style that another writer made popular or execute…
10 May 2011, 15:14
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Depending on what you feel constitutes the beat criteria for an "unreliable narrator," I suppose SilkHorn in Short Sun would be just as good if not a better candidate for the label…
16 Apr 2011, 16:35
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I've always assumed that, in Severian's case, he gets the "unreliable narrator" tag for reasons other than outright lying. There are a number of reasons he might not be exactly r…
15 Apr 2011, 15:35
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You should probably put "comedic" in quotes, too....heh…
09 Mar 2011, 18:27
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Well, hey, let's start a collection and give him a proper home! ----- Original Message ---- From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com> To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at li…
07 Mar 2011, 20:49
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Whoops. I obviously forgot to change the address line. My apologies. I'll add something substantive, then: The interesting thing about approaching Wolfe from the direction that L…
11 Feb 2011, 16:42
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Lane, I'll write off line so as not to bore the rest with non-Wolfe stuff. But I almost wrote my dissertation on the relationship between Spinoza and Milton's materialism, with …
11 Feb 2011, 16:30
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Just a note that there are quite a variety of "materialisms" out there. Perhaps one that would be interesting to think of in relation to Wolfe would be Milton. Milton was a mater…
11 Feb 2011, 16:05
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Lee (and everyone else), can we stop the armchair psychologizing? I don't mean to single you out, but you seem to do it most often. It doesn't matter if other people don't accept…
20 Jan 2011, 21:46
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Just ordered my copy. I must say that I really look forward to completely misunderstanding it based on my own preference for an idiosyncratic reading backed up by gut reactions t…
20 Jan 2011, 04:00
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Awesome, sir. ----- Original Message ---- From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie> To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net> Sent: Sun, January 9, 2011 10:52:49 AM Subj…
09 Jan 2011, 17:38
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I've taught that story before precisely to teach the value of ambiguity. Works well, actually. And anyone remember "The Lady and the Tiger"? I used to teach that to high school f…
08 Jan 2011, 01:14
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Apologies for the weird spacing in my last email...writing from a friend's netbook on a weird custom browser that I don't understand. I'm sure I will have offended someone's thre…
07 Jan 2011, 21:24
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Lee said: Lee, does that mean that people have to agree with you or you feel personally insulted? There's always the option of just ignoring people who disagree with you. I apo…
07 Jan 2011, 21:18
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I have a very general question that I hope people don't mind me just throwing out there. I've finally gotten around to reading Neil Gaiman (Sandman and his non-comics stuff) afte…
02 Jan 2011, 21:34
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"Jungle Hut Jesus" ... band name?…
18 Dec 2010, 17:04
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Witz said: Allow me some total speculation. You've been warned. Ultan, of course, talks about the The Book of Gold, and the circumstances in which to-be-apprenticed librarians i…
18 Dec 2010, 16:45
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