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Yeah, no. I don't see Sev travelling down the timestream to tell the old man, "Hey, Grampa, you know Gramma? Well, I screwed her all the way to Thrax."…
25 May 2011, 17:05
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No, it seems clear to me that Wolfe indicated in the original quartet that the coming of the White Fountain/New Sun would bring vast Urthly devastation, floods and the rising of ne…
23 May 2011, 17:29
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Antonin, Welcome to the list. Yes, this topic _has_ been talked about, and you might find some interesting debate on it in the archives. But the fact that someone else came up wi…
23 May 2011, 17:26
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Sorry, Lee, but I must disagree with this. It seemed obvious to me that Dr. Talos' play was supposed to be taken as unknowingly prophetic (in the same way that the High Priest in t…
23 May 2011, 16:50
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I'm guessing you meant to write "not likely." At any rate, I want to think that anything we can't resolve is not (in any ultimate sense) important to understanding what Wolfe want…
23 May 2011, 16:12
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Interesting. My favorite speculation is a bit different -- the Group of Seventeen rules the Ascians on behalf of the Megatherians, and one is "possessed" by each of them.…
20 May 2011, 20:40
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Nyeeeaaaaugh, not so much, if you take Dr. Talos's play at all seriously... As for the destruction of the Megatherians: I suspect that they are caught in the upheavals of the new …
19 May 2011, 20:45
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Actually, I believe this prayer is Trinitarian -- noting that there are three parts to it. The "hero" is indeed Severian, standing in for the Second Person The one whose breath w…
17 May 2011, 20:46
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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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If I recall correctly the spoiler for Tipler cylinders was Hawking's proof that it would require negative energy in some areas of the local spacetime.…
13 May 2011, 19:43
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If Severian meant that, he would probably say "Master Palaemon teaches mostly us apprentices" -- or, more properly, "mainly." The hanging adverb, separated by a comma from the rest…
13 May 2011, 18:44
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Well, that was my point... If there's FTL travel then some aspect of relativity is untrue. But: taking relativity at face value, there is no such thing as "time travel" -- or for…
12 May 2011, 18:03
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I don't see how you could do that - a sundial is limited to a 24-hour cycle (during about half of which it isn't showing anything).…
12 May 2011, 16:34
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As usual, women are grossly underrepresented in these lists. I voted for Joanna Russ and Hope Mirlees.…
02 May 2011, 17:25
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Elsewhere in tBotLS, Silk has an insight that strikes me heavily. I can't recall where it is, but it occurs to him that the purpose of free will is to give us the grace of consenti…
13 Apr 2011, 00:12
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Okay, you don't write any of that. But are all your characters exactly like you? That's the logical consequence of not writing what you don't have "direct, subjective experience of…
09 Mar 2011, 17:06
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But SF is all about writing the Other. If you can't write a female character, how can you write an alien?…
09 Mar 2011, 16:58
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Somehow, I doubt that either Gaiman or Wolfe has $70K to toss around. I could be wrong. But neither of them is in Stephen King/JK Rowling territory.…
07 Mar 2011, 22:46
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I dunno. With the right management, Lafferty could be the next Phil Dick. A lot of his stories -- I'm talking more about the short stories than the novels, now -- would make great …
07 Mar 2011, 21:50
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Actually, what's really disgusting is that the high bid is $70K. 23 novels, for ghod's sake.…
07 Mar 2011, 20:46
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When you say technical detail I agree -- but there is a lot of stfnal content, it's just that that content is mostly social speculation shoved into the background.…
02 Mar 2011, 19:47
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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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Also, the Tin Woodman (proper name of the character, if you please) wishes for a heart, while Jonas is deeply, passionately in love, or perhaps lust.…
20 Feb 2011, 03:59
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There's some argument about what it means. The majority believe that it comes from a misreading of Exodus, as I indicated previously; however there is a group who believe that the …
15 Feb 2011, 19:47
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Well, no; Moses does _not_ have horns; that is a mistranslation of the passage that actually says his face was radiant after spending time with G_d on the mountaintop.…
15 Feb 2011, 19:00
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Which also reminds me that Michelangelo famously depicted Moses with horns.…
15 Feb 2011, 18:32
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Heat rises so that the cathedral will fly. It is both natural and a miracle.…
11 Feb 2011, 18:26
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The question then for me is this: Can this nuts'n'bolts explanation be "it is a miracle" within the context of the book, if the book has an explicitly religious dimension?…
11 Feb 2011, 17:00
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Well, the reason, as I understand it, that inhumi become human in dream-travel is because they have human souls -- souls stolen from humans. (Insert meditation on "the blood is the…
09 Feb 2011, 19:26
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It's been done -- I don't recall the title, but Randall Garrett wrote a parody of early SF (specifically of Hugo Gernsback), set in the real world of the '60s, in which characters …
09 Feb 2011, 00:47
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According to his autobiography (Harpo Speaks), his silence came from realizing that he couldn't keep up verbally with Groucho and Chico. Since Zeppo was already the straight man, t…
08 Feb 2011, 19:59
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Thanks -- I had actually forgotten that that page even existed. Good stuff.…
08 Feb 2011, 19:56
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For what it's worth, "Viron" is a Finnish word that refers to Estonia...…
08 Feb 2011, 19:23
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I'm not sure what the role of the HS is in creation, but John's Gospel makes clear the role of the Son (the Word): "Through him were all things created."…
03 Feb 2011, 05:16
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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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I don't think it's that simple. The part of Becan's mind that seeks to defend his family is decidedly counter-survival for the alzabo, yet it takes over at the critical moment (and…
28 Jan 2011, 17:50
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Don't forget that Number Five is also a "gene wolf."…
28 Jan 2011, 17:39
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Peace? There Are Doors? Castleview? Pandora, by Holly Hollander?…
26 Jan 2011, 19:35
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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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I agree; the Ascians are the "people who live in darkness" despite living in the brightest sunlight of the Old Sun, which is the sun of darkness. (I wonder whether there are any s…
24 Jan 2011, 20:36
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The Soviet invasion of Manchuria was a bad joke - AFTER we had dropped the Hiroshima bomb, and Japanese capitulation was certain, they marched into a conquered area where the Japan…
19 Jan 2011, 22:19
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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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In much the way one might enjoy hitting oneself repeatedly with a hammer -- because it feels SOOOOO good when you stop.…
19 Jan 2011, 02:54
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No it isn't. It's science fantasy.…
19 Jan 2011, 01:09
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Tres cool indeed. Um, not so much. Say religious _symbolist_ and I'm right there with you, but an allegory is a very specific beast with well-defined "A stands for X, B stands for…
18 Jan 2011, 21:23
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Well, yes. War is hecky-darn.…
18 Jan 2011, 20:24
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While I could quibble about what "top Nazis" means, I agree with you in substance. von Braun and his ilk should not have been treated with such preference.…
18 Jan 2011, 18:09
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You're right: this American (and not a conservative by any means) considers the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki a necessary evil. The alternative would have been a much larger co…
18 Jan 2011, 17:23
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Contrariwise, if the two faces seen are Silk's and Piaton's, then Silk's may _be_ Piaton's -- the passage in question could easily support the theory that Silk is a clone of Pas. …
17 Jan 2011, 21:42
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Just a fussy point: There is no Demiurge in Christianity. That's a Gnostic (and neoPlatonist) concept.…
17 Jan 2011, 19:18
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