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2011/1/6 Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>: Indeed, interleaved replying is _the_ defining motif of email/Usenet communications. It has the unique feature that you can …
06 Jan 2011, 19:20
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Agreed: but what kind of information _does_ he provide, and why? ("Pale Fire" comments deleted: I tried to read the book once and simply couldn't penetrate it) That is a good ans…
05 Jan 2011, 20:46
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I disagree: as soon as he puts the story in the mouth (or pen) of VRT/M, we must ask why VRT/M is telling the story, and to whom. It doesn't look like a formal anthropological pape…
05 Jan 2011, 20:42
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2011/1/5 Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>: I suppose that the two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive; but the desire for one's theory to "win" tends to blind one to…
05 Jan 2011, 19:21
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Well, the first question to ask when dealing with an unreliable narrator is, "what are his motives in telling this story?" -- and I have no idea of any motives for Marsch, or "Mars…
05 Jan 2011, 19:10
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Dave -- There have been occasional periods of fractiousness in the past, but it isn't always like this.…
05 Jan 2011, 17:50
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Jesus wept.…
04 Jan 2011, 20:53
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Aaaaargh. Now I will be tormented with the image of Severian as a luchadore.…
04 Jan 2011, 18:37
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There is another interpretation available from this quotation: that the Shadow Children, telepathic, are descended from a race that was _not_ telepathic, and travels between the st…
04 Jan 2011, 17:03
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A blessed Christmas to those who celebrate, and a happy holiday to all.…
25 Dec 2010, 00:14
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2010/12/22 Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>: I think you're asking for too high a standard of "proof" here. A better principle would be Holmes's "When you have elimina…
22 Dec 2010, 17:26
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2010/12/22 Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>: Actually, when dealing with interstellar distances the concept of "the present time" is meaningless due to the C-limit and…
22 Dec 2010, 16:37
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Jack, Thanks for the Presbyterian view. Here's the (fairly nuanced) Catholic view, from the Catechism of the Catholic Church: 108 Still, the Christian faith is not a "religion o…
21 Dec 2010, 21:38
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The elephant is soft and mushy and smells bad.…
21 Dec 2010, 18:30
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Well, just because it doesn't exist yet doesn't mean that it won't. But I agree that it is a product of Briah in Severian's past.…
17 Dec 2010, 20:14
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On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 8:55 AM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote: \>> Dan'l Danehy-Oakes- Highly, and you can download it legally. It's a family saga set in and around a S…
17 Dec 2010, 17:03
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Actually I would think first of Charles Stross. Have you read _Accelerando_?…
17 Dec 2010, 16:17
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I think this is an error as you are applying "before" and "after" to states in Eternity, outside of Time. I guess my objection was to your stating it in a manner that sounded as i…
16 Dec 2010, 23:09
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On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 2:36 PM, Matthew Weber <palaeologos at gmail.com> wrote: A bunch of good stuff with which I take mild exception only to this one paragraph. 1) Grace exist…
16 Dec 2010, 22:47
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As I said, it's unambiguously present in Scripture. For example, Hebrews 7:27: "Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own…
16 Dec 2010, 20:39
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+1…
16 Dec 2010, 20:11
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Like Witz, I agree with ... well, _most_ of what you say. Here're my points of difference. I do. The idea of multiple Incarnations is not only "not strictly Orthodox Christianity,…
16 Dec 2010, 20:09
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Au contraire. The creation and earliest days of humanity take place off stage, so Adam and Eve and the Garden remain a possibility; and when humans show up in the Elvish lands it i…
16 Dec 2010, 18:47
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How does it not? Eru/Iluvatar/God speaks the world into being (the actual act of creation is his word Ea: let it be), just as in Genesis. If the details vary, well, someone as inte…
16 Dec 2010, 18:19
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I'll let James speak for himself if I'm wrong, but I understood his saying that "Silmarillion does not align with the Bible" as meaning that it was not in line with Tolkien's actua…
16 Dec 2010, 17:08
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Yes, I believe that is correct.…
16 Dec 2010, 16:57
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Actually, Tolkien went out of his way to make the cosmology of the Silm. compatable (though only by some fast dancing) with Christianity. The "gods" are angels, etc.…
16 Dec 2010, 16:55
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Not to mention "graphic novel" and "serial art."…
15 Dec 2010, 23:05
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"Sci-Fi" is the sound of two crickets screwing. More seriously: "Sci-Fi" is a term made up by a publicity hack, in analogy with the then-popular "Hi-Fi" for "high fidelity" stereo…
15 Dec 2010, 22:37
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I believe that the Outsider is the first Person of the Trinity, God the Father, and thus distinct from Christ.…
15 Dec 2010, 22:33
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H'mmm. Well, I would have said that the usual science-fictional sense of "parallel universes" includes the idea that they are in some sense moving along in time next to ours. The "…
15 Dec 2010, 21:50
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In Catholic (and most Christian) theology, Christ is not tripartite; He is one of the three persons of the Triune God. He does, however, have a _dual_ nature, thus the Theanthropos…
15 Dec 2010, 21:36
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I think Wolfe would say that Dionysus was real, but not a "deity" in the sense that God is a Deity.…
15 Dec 2010, 19:55
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This is extremely poor (Catholic) theology. The Person named Jesus, the Christ, is and must be unique across all Universes. The birth of Jesus is the origin-point of the eternal Lo…
15 Dec 2010, 19:41
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As mentioned elsewhere, to describe Jesus as "enlightened and possessed by the Outsider" would be hideously incorrect theology. However, such a description might well address the p…
15 Dec 2010, 19:26
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There are suites on cruise ships.…
13 Dec 2010, 22:02
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Actually, you probably could on Tzadkiel's ship...…
13 Dec 2010, 20:54
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Um. That he isn't helping Valeria doesn't necessarily mean that he's not on Urth.…
13 Dec 2010, 20:02
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But it has Brian Eno on poop loops!…
13 Dec 2010, 19:29
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The answer I gave twenty years ago and appears in various faqs: They both have inky quills.…
11 Dec 2010, 00:11
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I completely agree with Andrew. The Devil has many names, and admittedly each of them has a different flavor as to how he is characterized. But if you say "Lucifer" to an average A…
10 Dec 2010, 21:30
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David, Open the Googlebook and search for "werewolf." You'll get a link to page 37. Click the back-one-page link and start reading. I'm not sure what I think yet. --Dan'l…
10 Dec 2010, 20:29
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That can't be right because some scenes of the books take place at night. Can't recall if any take place during a full moon tho.…
10 Dec 2010, 17:45
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Frippiness might disagree...…
10 Dec 2010, 17:39
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Put a cork in it!…
10 Dec 2010, 16:51
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Certainly in the '60s and '70s my mother talked about working on her "doctor's thesis."…
09 Dec 2010, 20:47
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But do recall, please, that Wolfe is an American writer. (I almost wrote "an _essentially_ American writer," but realized that, while that is my impression, I have no real data to …
09 Dec 2010, 17:50
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While I am not necessarily buying onto James's theory here (though it has some merit and I may end up convinced), I should point out that the Jesus of the New Testament frequently …
06 Dec 2010, 22:29
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Almost; there are the bits and pieces about him in Long Sun/"the book of Silk," which was clearly written before the events of Short Sun begin.…
06 Dec 2010, 21:24
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But did it sharpen a razor blade...…
06 Dec 2010, 18:26
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