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And now we see another significance of "Number Five." By this generation (which probably isn't the fifth at all; "that number is either far too small or too large"), the Wolfes a…
22 Apr 2002, 16:23
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Tony Ellis responds to me: Why, yes; so it does (or seems to -- certainly, it ends with the arrival of _some_ colonists). But how much of 'A Story' should we take literally? Even …
22 Apr 2002, 16:21
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Sorry. On another list I'm dealing with a serious anti-Catholic who seems to think that Jack Chick tracts are Revealed Truth. A bit of the defensiveness seems to have slipped acros…
19 Apr 2002, 23:22
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Wow. Hartshorn said: Yes, this is very clearly _one_ thing these books deal with (and 5HC doesn't, which is a strike against its inclusion). Now, there I (as Wolfe's fellow-Cath…
19 Apr 2002, 19:55
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Adam and Nutria say a great deal of what I was going to say, in response to Nigel, and frankly better than I imagine I would of said it. I agree with the fundamental point that t…
19 Apr 2002, 17:45
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Huh? Don't know the essay in question. I suppoese I really ought to get hold of the Lexicon some time ... I was just following up (albeit in an indirect way) on my thought about th…
18 Apr 2002, 17:12
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(etc.) Omigod. It's the Drazi. "Green!" "Purple!" "Green!" "Purple!" (H'mmmm... "Truth is a three-edged sword" sounds very Lupine, doesn't it?)…
18 Apr 2002, 16:02
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Mantically speaking, More plausible than you might think. The famous Civil War ironclad battle was not, as often reported between the Monitor and the Merrimac, but between the U…
18 Apr 2002, 15:43
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Marc asks: According to the Locus Online obit (http://www.locusmag.com/2002/News/News04Log.html) Writer, editor, and critic Damon Knight died shortly after midnight, on April 15…
17 Apr 2002, 20:09
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Okay, I don't think I am up for a corvid sandwich at this point, but only because of my rather cautious wording above: I said you are supposed to think that #5 is a clone of the "…
16 Apr 2002, 19:54
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This is why I said it was full of Derridean play. It doesn't have to be intended by the author, only visible to the reader. While I have a lot of reservations about a lot of pomo-i…
16 Apr 2002, 00:28
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Just started rereading 5HC. I'll respond to this (quite possibly by devouring my share of crow) after I get through the first novella.…
15 Apr 2002, 17:18
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More: you are to think that he is an n-th generation clone of our own beloved Gene Wolfe. (I believe it was John Clute who gave a canonical list of arguments for that being Number …
15 Apr 2002, 16:58
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Jerry -- Hey, I said I'm no orbital mechanic! I remembered that the E/M system orbited a mutual center which wasn't the center of the Earth; obviously I was a bit off about where …
11 Apr 2002, 21:11
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I'm no orbit mechanic, but that seems unlikely with a six-year period, and _very_ unlikely to cause the inhumi to be able to cross only for a short period. Oh. Good. Ahem. We do…
11 Apr 2002, 18:26
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I agree with Rostrum, that was a really nicely-done "intro to Wolfe," especially for the (presumed) target audience of folks with no more than a casual knowledge of or interest i…
10 Apr 2002, 15:53
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Marcus Araminius did write: I'm pretty sure the inhumi qualify as "alien," whether Green is Lune or not. (And really, it isn't _that_ hard to remember: he is an inhumu, she is an…
03 Apr 2002, 22:22
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Marc, This is amazing. I will definitely be looking at this when I reread "Short Sun." This may be the most useful model of these books I've seen to date, and it seems to have tr…
30 Mar 2002, 00:30
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Marc, Your argument (deleted) has convinced me that your theories regarding the trees are worth serious attention. I will make this one of my foci in my next reading of the "Short…
29 Mar 2002, 17:18
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And Rostrum queries: Not right now -- I will be rereading the Short Sun in a couple of months & (if I remember!) will post this. Nothing so specific -- only that there seems to b…
28 Mar 2002, 19:49
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Modulo some meaning of the word "closely," I think we can all agree with this proposition, yes. That's where my credulity falls down and goes boom. I simply fail to see any connec…
28 Mar 2002, 16:47
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"Well World," I think. Yeah, I read those too -- Chalker as a writer is about a step above Piers Anthony: he _recognizes_ he's writing potboilers (unlike Anthony, which regards its…
27 Mar 2002, 19:17
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Well, 17 is a big number for Discordians (also 5 and 23). -----Original Message----- From: Michael Straight [mailto:straight at email.unc.edu] Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2002 9:02 AM…
27 Mar 2002, 17:08
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Yes, that was me. And some of the defenses were good, but miss the point -- which, however, Andy himself _does_ get: that (in his own words) "there is no *compelling* reason to bel…
26 Mar 2002, 20:43
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Or, more simply, trees with very thick bark to protect the heartwood from giant termites (or whatever). --Dan'l…
26 Mar 2002, 18:08
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Jerry Friedman wrote... Well, yeah. But it was (at the time) the only explanation that had been offered. I have since offered a very silly retrovirus -- one capable of having a ne…
26 Mar 2002, 18:06
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... and you know what? This is the best argument I've seen for the WHORL returning to Urth: Tzadkiel (or Tzad's masters) rerouting it to repopulate. It still falls a smidgeon short…
26 Mar 2002, 17:57
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Matthew Malthouse interjects a bit of realism to the discussion: Bravo. The play's the thing -- or, rather, the novel is. Wolfe may be following yet another basic convention of…
26 Mar 2002, 17:41
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Hartshorn wrote (very cut): True; but my point was simply that the alien creatures in tBotNS seem to be Urth-compatible enough to live and feed there. Indeed, the degree of compat…
26 Mar 2002, 17:33
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Ummmm... well, "The Small Assassin" was written _well_ before '60, and (if I'm not mistaken) appeared in Bradbury's first collection, "Dark Carnival." Indeed, a number of Bradbury'…
26 Mar 2002, 17:08
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An analogy to an outside source, with no citation of the text at hand to invite compare with that outside source, hardly constitutes "textual evidence." If there's a controlling B…
26 Mar 2002, 00:57
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Well, this is at least plausible. But is there any _textual evidence_ in its favor? While this is clever, it entirely evades the questions actually asked about the genetic issues.…
25 Mar 2002, 22:16
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Mantis proclaims: Very well. Perhaps it's simply because these (along with "With the Lafayette Escadrille") were my first Wolfe encounter of the Gene kind, but I'm rather fond o…
21 Mar 2002, 20:37
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Jerry F., responding to me... Well, maybe I was wrong from that perspective. I think the gravity issue does it, though... I can weasel this a bit, by observing that the ring make…
14 Mar 2002, 22:27
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G. Willikers done wrote (in part): I'm going to take a slightly different tactic from my esteemed fellow-insect here, and speak to what (in my reading) the BotNS (and indeed the…
13 Mar 2002, 17:26
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... for which I am frankly grateful, because it seems to me to drive the final nail into the "Blue = Urth" theory's coffin, based on past discussions herein. Then Jerry F. asks: …
13 Mar 2002, 17:07
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Jerry Friedman wrote, and I'm going to snip and cut mercilessly to avoid a 90% quoted posting... Not, so far as I can tell, in your math. Possibly. My immediate guess would be th…
12 Mar 2002, 00:10
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A Fool Rushes In... Yeah. She goes off with the Narrator and the others to the Whorl. Ummmm... Actually, I suspect this is a reversal of what we've seen in several other places,…
07 Mar 2002, 16:25
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And Matthew responded: I may be wrong, but I seem to recall a passage -- and it's about time for my periodic rereading of tBotNS (which will probably wind up being a period reread…
06 Mar 2002, 16:40
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Hoom. First I should apologize for the Subject line followed immediately by "Jeff Wilson, come on down!" It occurred to me only after I hit "Send" that, in that context, my pun o…
05 Mar 2002, 17:20
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Chiming in - Marc, while I find a lot of attraction in your theory that Blue/Green is a much older Ushas/Lune (particularly the implicit identity of the Mother and Scylla-on-Urt…
27 Feb 2002, 16:18
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My dear Mantis, Actually, Wolfe's work doesn't in general seem all that amenable to filkification, but really that should be perceived as a challenge. If nothing else, I'm amaz…
26 Feb 2002, 19:08
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PatNutWrit ... Need I point out: So was Wesley? Probably why Methodist churches to this day have such a strong musical tradition. And, btw, my point about how good the music in Me…
26 Feb 2002, 18:28
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I don't have my copies to hand, but didn't Wolfe use one verse (the 'a thousand ages in thy sight' verse) as a epigraph to one of the volumes of tBotNS? Pffff. I was also, and now…
25 Feb 2002, 18:49
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Nutria, Thanks for the thoughtful (and, by-and-large, supporting) remarks. I see your point about _Exodus_ having some aspects of Acts and of Rev.; but even if I thought those as…
19 Feb 2002, 19:32
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Yes. There is an interesting comment, and I cannot for the life of me remember whether it is somewhere in tBotNS or, perhaps, Castle of the Otter - but Wolfe-or-his-narrator comme…
11 Feb 2002, 19:33
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Ahem. Not to be always harping on the obvious... but... Wolfe, as a committed Christian, certainly believes that the only real hope for the human race lies in a hybrid (of God a…
07 Feb 2002, 16:27
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1. Great to have the lists back. 2. For some reason, I'm receiving the digest as a blank email message containing bunch of text attachments instead of a compiled email. This is k…
30 Jan 2002, 16:47
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Andy Robertson, this is your quote: Ummm... why "obviously?" I don't see anything in the text which forbids a spiralling double.…
09 Jan 2002, 18:49
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Rostrum wrote... ... at which it occurred to me that "Horn Silk" is one letter different from Corn Silk. A Wolfean pun? H'mmmm............…
09 Jan 2002, 17:41
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