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I've long wished that the best stuff from COTO could be extracted (the pages of laudatory blurbs could be dropped). I hope this collection includes "Books in Book of the New Sun" …
16 Nov 2001, 15:30
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[...] Wow, did I write that? I think not. Must be some other Dan. Dan P, slipping back into the shadows…
23 Aug 2001, 14:24
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That's my favorite too. Puddleglum is one of my favorite characters in all fiction I'd have to say. And Jill and Eustace with their constant bickering are much more easy to relat…
16 Aug 2001, 16:57
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I found a copy of LAKE OF THE LONG SUN at an ANNIE'S, a seemingly once-prominent chain of used bookstores that specializes in "genre" fiction, especially romance. I have the good …
18 Jul 2001, 11:07
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Disclaimer: I haven't yet read Gormenghast, though it's "on the list". I didn't watch the TV show yet because I prefer to read things before I see any film/TV adaptation and I fi…
02 Jul 2001, 17:14
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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at home.com> Re: the unreproducible Planaraian worm experiment: I think it's both, and I think that the fact that it's both is pure Wolfe. I was simil…
26 Jun 2001, 11:49
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Ultan's Apprentice writes: Great stuff, as always. I haven't fully absorbed Jeremy Crampton's article yet, but it seems fascinating, complete with completely non-gratuitous quote…
12 Apr 2001, 17:27
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People have pointed out Dante parallels in prior Wolfe books, and of course the parallels to the Odyssey have been brought up. Lately I've been vaguely considering another. I've …
10 Apr 2001, 18:07
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I don't know if it's so cut-and-dried as all that. I guess I'm on the side that takes note that in a sense, Horn has had something of Silk in him since LAKE OF THE LONG SUN, where…
03 Apr 2001, 15:42
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I've often wondered where the Hornsilk "military mind" comes from, particularly in IGJ. SilkHorn himself seems to provide the answer on page 252 with the following exchange. ----…
30 Mar 2001, 17:44
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Yes, that seems right, but if Silk associates the cutting of the jugular solely with performing a sacrifice he might be disinclined to use that method for a suicide attempt. Shell…
28 Mar 2001, 11:22
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Blattid writes: Oddly enough, this hit me this weekend too. I had come to think of the Inhumi in their natural state as a kind of shapeless bat. I suppose that the question agai…
28 Mar 2001, 10:43
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I've been reading over a lot of the old posts regarding the Silk suicide-attempt hypothesis. My second reading of the series has mostly convinced me that this is in fact the case …
27 Mar 2001, 17:52
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[...] Okay, point taken. I remembered the line about "holy slave" after I posted. I suppose the only legs that the Cumaean-as-Inhuma hypothesis has left to stand on would requir…
23 Mar 2001, 18:19
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I wrote, quoting OWB: Eek! That's what I get for typing with my eyes closed! Take out: Substitute: There were some other typos too, but that was the worst. Besides, I felt t…
21 Mar 2001, 15:57
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One of the other Dans aka Blattid writes (oddly): I'm not sure if our views are incompatible. I'm simply offering what seems like a plausible [implementation/realization] that sa…
21 Mar 2001, 13:38
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Bob Borski Bawled: Hold on. I don't think that hierodule necessarily = hierogrammate. My impression was that "Hierodule" covered all aliens. Dr. Talos suggests "extrasolarians" …
21 Mar 2001, 13:29
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Not mine. The notion that "robotics" and "prosthetics" are convergent technologies seems thoroughly acceptable to me. Wolfe describes chem anatomy in nearly human terms several t…
20 Mar 2001, 16:35
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Part of the "Screadhbhuidhe" hypothesis is that it fits Vironese naming conventions. Actually, what you wrote was this: But wait, the floral-girl-name convention is a Vironese ye…
20 Mar 2001, 11:19
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Let us not forget that there are plenty of "Christians" who hate Narnia. Good old Jack T. Chick who writes and draws those perversely fascinating hardcore born-again tracts about …
27 Feb 2001, 10:40
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Folks - Like many of you, I'm in the middle of re-reading both BotLS and BotSS in tandem (which isn't all that odd to do) and in addition to all the "ahh, *I* see" moments, I fou…
12 Feb 2001, 18:17
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Henry the K, he say: Alga agrees: My first reaction to the godling was that it was something like Hayao Miyazaki's "god soldiers" from his NAUSICAA OF THE VALLEY OF WIND (especia…
12 Feb 2001, 11:14
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Dennis, that's brilliant! And how about the rest of the song? "She's been dead since 1929" Oh, how I cried that night If only I'd been born in Lily's time It would have been alri…
06 Feb 2001, 15:05
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Thanks Dan! I love stuff like this. Wolfe made it clear in CASTLE OF THE OTTER (and perhaps elsewhere) that he was a Tolkien fan without bothering to mention that he was a corres…
29 Jan 2001, 15:31
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Hurm, I still like the Pennington (original UK) covers best. But why is it so hard for artists to draw a fuligin cloak? You'd think it would be easy, but these artists always ins…
16 Jan 2001, 12:40
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Okay, I'm no expert on Spanish, but I do happen to be employed as a lexicographer in the machine translation industry and since one of the projects that we've been developing is an…
10 Jan 2001, 15:29
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I rather like that, and I certainly support a unified Wolfe list. Random Whorl comment, probably made before: I wish we got more of Master Xiphias. He deserves a short story or t…
19 Oct 2000, 10:30
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Howdy folks - I've been working my way through the back issues of the Whorl list digest having finally finished IGJ. I still have a lot of questions and I'm still processing it …
10 Aug 2000, 10:35
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Folks - In Boston/Cambridge (USA), IGJ can be purchased at Pandemonium Books in Harvard Square (located in The Garage, across from Newbury Comics). They have many copies. Suppor…
17 Jul 2000, 17:58
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Alga: Rostrum: I thought that Hooper had been thoroughly discredited. I haven't seen "Prelude to Space" but isn't THE DARK TOWER fragment that Hooper published thought to be of…
30 May 2000, 12:52
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For me, one of the continuing joys of the New Sun books is the much-commented-upon use of archaic words. Wolfe himself has written about this (CASTLE OF THE OTTER) and indeed, our…
19 May 2000, 17:03
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Bingo. Also bear in mind the name of the central family in the Mythago Wood books - Huxley. Given Aldous Huxley's interest in hallucinogens, this is a clear signpost. Without be…
03 May 2000, 13:50
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Welcome back! I've always assumed so. There seems to be good evidence from the text (sorry, no citations) that Severian walked in Palaemon's steps in more ways than one. I've of…
17 Apr 2000, 19:40
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Hmmm, I always assumed the plate read: M . Million Sometimes a dot is used to indicate multiplication. "Monsieur" is often abbreviated to "M." Et voila! Or did I miss the p…
21 Dec 1999, 10:38
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This was also one of Alan Moore's earliest conceits in his stint on SWAMP THING. Before Moore took over, the essential premise of the character was that he was a man transformed i…
03 Nov 1999, 17:05
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Isn't Father Inire, the old BEM himself at least one of the curators of the Botanical Garden? Damn, I don't have the text here. D…
02 Nov 1999, 10:52
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Last night I was re-reading the passage in OBW where Horn visits Marble and Mucor. Maytera Marble alludes to Hammerstone's deep fondness for Patera Incus, which as I recall, was a…
15 Oct 1999, 07:42
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In LAKE, Silk notes Horn's uncanny ability to mimic him (Silk). D *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.…
12 Oct 1999, 12:56
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If you go to http://www.milehighcomics.com/ and search for "Shadow of the Torturer" you can even see good scans of the covers. The art style is very Bill Sienckiewicz-influenced, …
08 Oct 1999, 12:14
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I think it's the difference between "achieving greatness" vs. "having greatness thrust upon one." Severian is more the latter and Ozymandias attempts the former. I tend to go wit…
15 Sep 1999, 14:12
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I don't see why the Commonwealth can't "be" Buenos Aires *and* Constantinople *and* New York City for that matter. Wolfe isn't about search-and-replace. It seems to me that whate…
03 Sep 1999, 11:53
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Don't worry Michael, I think we're all bozos on this bus :-) D…
10 Aug 1999, 20:28
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While we're at this rather "fannish" practice of finding parallels between comic strip characters and the cast of BotNS, I'm reminded of the fact that at the last SF convention I a…
24 Jun 1999, 08:40
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Which of course gets one thinking: Charlie Brown - Severian Lucy - Thecla Sally - Merryn Snoopy - Triskele Linus - Jonas Pigpen - Hethor Peppermint Patty - Agia Miss Othmar - Malr…
22 Jun 1999, 19:05
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Michael Straight: Me > To bring your thoughts in line with my earlier post, perhaps Me > hypothesis "C" is essentially Lewis's Space Trilogy. Michael > I don't think that really …
04 Jun 1999, 08:31
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To bring your thoughts in line with my earlier post, perhaps hypothesis "C" is essentially Lewis's Space Trilogy. I admit that the story is somewhat contrived, but in the context …
02 Jun 1999, 15:27
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Mantis and I speculated that Jonas is a literary combination of Pinnochio (robot that becomes human) and the Steadfast Tin Soldier (Jonas relates to Jolenta because he thinks they'…
31 May 1999, 10:23
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I've often wondered if Cyby was based on anyone. For a while I was convinced that he was based on Norman Thomas DiGiovanni, the controversial Borges translator. The one photo of …
20 May 1999, 14:55
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What's the deal with that anyway? I happened upon that at the bookstore recently and I didn't read it at the time. I can't see buying it, but is it worth hunkering down in the bo…
27 Apr 1999, 14:59
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I think that the whole point of Loyal to the Group of Seventeen's story is that the Ascians minds and imaginations are NOT subsumed by the limitations of their constructed language…
27 Apr 1999, 14:55
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