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I just read and reviewed George Alec Effinger's book _What Entropy Means to Me_, and I think it may be of interest to y'all. Here's my review, which will explain why. This book b…
18 Apr 2020, 22:55
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Wiktionary lists three meanings for the Latin word "latro": 1. mercenary 2. highwayman; brigand 3. chessman; pawn I've seen some discussion of Latro's role as a mercenary, somewha…
12 Oct 2014, 17:25
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I think an important point is being missed here. People keep treating "A Story" as if it were reliable. Give some thought to who wrote it and why and then decide whether (and to wh…
11 Aug 2014, 18:44
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The thing, the thing is, that if Urth is Green then there's no easy explanation, but if Urth is Blue, then the obvious explanation for the Ring of Glass is that it's the ruins of F…
10 Oct 2013, 16:01
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Da Man is 82 today.…
07 May 2013, 15:33
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http://tinyurl.com/cgy2tel "The term madregot comprises the various forms of super natural revelation, vision, clairvoyance, telepathy, miracle, healing, release from the physical…
03 May 2013, 17:25
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Without wanting to take any position on the current discussion, a metapoint: Samuel R. Delany (a writer of Wolfe's "generation" of SF writers) points out in several places that on…
11 Apr 2013, 20:23
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...I wish Wolfe were reading this list. I'm sure he'd get a lot of laughs from it.…
10 Apr 2013, 16:37
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Michael Andre-Driussi has a new concordance coming out for the books of the Long/Short sun. It's called "Gate of Horn, Book of Silk," and it looks pretty good. It's divided into tw…
21 Aug 2012, 18:50
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More to the point, the Three Laws of Robotics are designed to make Asimovian robots the perfect slaves, and thus a coded way of talking about the situation of minority persons in g…
28 Mar 2012, 17:11
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I tried to visit it just now and got a "can't communicate with the server" message.…
20 Mar 2012, 19:18
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I'm reading _Green_ by Jay Lake. I would never have read it on my own; it looks like a generic D&D-style fantasy. But 100 pages in I'm very impressed. The language is almost Lupine…
21 Dec 2011, 17:49
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David just mentioned which reminded me of something I've been thinking for a while. Does the iterative and improving universe remind anyone else of Stapledon's _Star Maker_?…
21 Dec 2011, 17:47
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It appears that there may be something to the inheritance of acquired characteristics: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111205102713.htm…
07 Dec 2011, 16:59
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Thank you for the pointer. An excellent essay.…
06 Dec 2011, 19:17
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Okay, if we are proposing that the Bleen/Grue system has a biology where plants grow up to be animals, what's the plant form of husses? (Hi? Huxen?)…
17 Nov 2011, 21:41
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I've really enjoyed Cherie Priest's "Clockwork Century" novels, BONESHAKER and DREADNOUGHT. Whether that makes them "good" is another question. One that I'm quite sure is "good" i…
10 Aug 2011, 03:19
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... appears to be more, well, a guideline. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110511162538.htm…
16 May 2011, 15:10
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Well, first of all, there seems to be a complete lack of wolves. Not a one, unless I missed something. The "meditation" sections often seem to be lessons from Gene Wolfe about how…
02 Mar 2011, 17:55
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Has nobody but me considered the possibility that Severian's presence has rekindled Becan's mind in the alzabo (much the way he rekindles Thecla in himself) so that Becan actually …
28 Jan 2011, 21:54
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Let's look at the cetacea for an illustration. Long, long ago, their ancestors left the ocean, fish becoming amphibians and, ultimately, mammals. They lost the shape of fish, and …
25 Jan 2011, 22:12
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Suppose that Silk were Pas's son of the body, or even his clone. Would people point at him and say, "There goes Pas"? Not necessarily. If this were the case then Silk would look …
19 Jan 2011, 18:52
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Do we even know that there are "green people?" We only see one, and have to take the word of a self-confessed liar that he is one of a race of green people.…
17 Jan 2011, 16:39
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Oh, aye. We're in agreement there; I was just tweaking this whole silly argument about whether there are domes on Lune or what. What really matters is that Lune stands green in the…
12 Jan 2011, 17:55
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Look. I'm sorry, but any connection between the Blue/Green(/Whorl) system and the Urth/Lune(/Ushas) system is purely thematic/symbolic -- NOT physical. Urth's sun, still red, is vi…
11 Jan 2011, 21:05
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That is my current working hypothesis, for which I do not have a real timeline: my mind doesn't work in such an organized manner. But roughly I am thinking of Wolfe's claim to beli…
06 Jan 2011, 21:12
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...for me to tell who's looking for truth and who's just trying to win. If you're just trying to win (and note that this is addressed to nobody in particular), please shut up.…
05 Jan 2011, 17:44
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What is the sound of two bulls shitting?…
13 Dec 2010, 17:35
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Nice post. I generally agree with what you say about "the author's stated intentions or explanations of a text," for two reasons. The first is what Tolkien and Lewis called the "P…
01 Dec 2010, 18:01
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Sometimes ... and I want to be clear that I'm not singling anyone out here ... nor is this a recent but rather a recurring thing ... I get the feeling that there's a competition go…
24 Aug 2010, 20:34
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It's in the anthology GATEWAYS, a Fred Pohl _festschrift_ edited by Elizabeth Anne Hull (Pohl's wife). I've only read it the once, so I am not entirely sure what it's about yet...…
19 Aug 2010, 03:35
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Ummmm. I think that for Yesod to be "before" Briah doesn't necessarily mean that Yesod is a predecessor of Briah. Consider this diagram (time proceeds from left to right): YYYYYY…
13 Aug 2010, 19:02
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"A scientist at Royal Holloway, University of London believes dark matter is lurking at the centre of the sun and cooling down its core temperature." Cue Twilight Zone theme. htt…
04 Aug 2010, 15:38
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09 Jul 2010, 21:16
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The April 2010 issue that is Has a short piece by Patrick O'Leary in which he (or his protagonist) calls Gene Wolfe "The best writer on the planet." Amusing little story in its ow…
21 Apr 2010, 18:26
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http://RonaBiron6811.co.cc…
17 Apr 2010, 00:06
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I'm writing this up before reading any of the stuff that's come over the list, which I've kept isolated in a folder of its own. I finished TSH yesterday and it seemed to me remark…
05 Apr 2010, 15:36
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http://tinyurl.com/lr4nuw…
17 Jul 2009, 16:42
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Keanu Reeves isn't sympathetic enough to play a torturer. No, really. Silk: A young Robert Redford Marble and Mint: CGI with unknowns as voiceovers Crane: Geoffrey Rush - don't la…
15 Jan 2009, 00:29
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Here goes Dan'l with his nutty theory again... My ongoing theory is that one of Wolfe's basic themes/memes/working methods is to embed non-Christian cosmologies into larger Christ…
20 Nov 2008, 00:03
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When you come right down to it. Isn't what the Hiero-Foos are doing, the same thing Mr. Million/Maitre/Number 5 do, only on a cosmic scale? Rather than warping their own children…
14 Jul 2008, 15:46
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Does anyone want to defend the theory that Father Inire is an inhumu (and a tree)?…
08 Jul 2008, 17:07
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A very happy Independence Day. Remember, firecrackers and beer don't mix.…
04 Jul 2007, 02:20
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Hey, We're beginning to build some content on the WolfeWiki at http://www.holkar.net/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=WolfeWiki.Contents and it would be great if a couple more people joined in…
03 Jul 2007, 23:25
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H'mmm. Sometimes in looking at the way we discuss Wolfe, I am reminded of a pair of comments Alan Moore made during the publication of the classic comic, WATCHMEN, which he wrote.…
06 Jun 2007, 17:21
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The question was asked, how we could tell how long an Autarch might live with alien medicine et al. The short answer is, we can't... ...but... ...I think that even the highest c…
29 Aug 2006, 00:01
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I'm not going to try to reply to B's latest right now -- depression has drained me of energy -- but I do have a general observation to make, which was inspired by said post. I've…
20 Jul 2006, 17:26
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No ... I don't mean Samuel R. Delany, but a writer many on this list probably disdain, Stephen R. Donaldson. He said, about a year ago, something that resonates for me with some th…
09 Jun 2006, 21:36
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Yeah, it really is -- but then I actually like LS better than SS. On the other hand, there hasn't been a Gene Wolfe book I didn't like (and actually TWK is my personal favorite, bu…
27 May 2006, 02:20
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James, It seems to me that your use of the term "observants" is ... well, a little narrow. It is possible both to be an observant Christian and to subscribe to the findings of mod…
19 Apr 2006, 20:30
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