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Just a reminder that _Pirate Freedom_ is not yet published (Amazon US and UK both cite November 13 as the release date). It's delightful to hear some impressions from early read…
29 Aug 2007, 03:59
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Jessica Maclean asks, "Maitre" is the French word corresponding to the English "Master". It's actually spelled "Ma?tre", where the circumflex, as is often the case in French, …
06 May 2007, 22:39
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I just thought the folks on this list might be interested in the following review of mine that was just accepted by the online jounral _SF Silicon Valley_ concerning Wolfe's upco…
01 Apr 2007, 22:34
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Transentient <transentient at gmail.com> asks: The best candidate I could find in an hour of online research was "colophon". This is the term used today for an account of the ma…
15 Jan 2007, 01:47
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Theresa Flemming asks, Even better, in my opinion. Egypt and the lands to the south have some _very_ charismatic gods for Latro to see and chat with, but he still has to meet hi…
21 Nov 2006, 07:04
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I meant that Latro, not Wolfe, can't foreshadow the way Severian can. It is true, as I guess you're suggesting, that nothing prevents Wolfe from injecting foreshadowing into the …
14 Nov 2006, 22:30
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I'm done with my first reading, and I'm ready to join a discussion once enough other people are done so that we can be free with the spoilers. This is going to be fun. We've go…
14 Nov 2006, 06:44
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The chapers all start on right-hand pages, a rare touch nowadays. I could do without the upward-slanting hyphens, but that's my only problem with the font. I only noticed two o…
05 Nov 2006, 13:47
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I got my copy of _Soldier of Sidon_ yesterday at Borders in Palo Alto, California. I'm only four chapters in so far, but everything so far is encouraging. It's written in Wolfe…
02 Nov 2006, 23:33
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Speculation: Either 1. They are released somehow--apprenticed to another guild that takes orphans, or, more likely given the nature of the age, 2. they are executed (by legal …
31 Oct 2006, 05:19
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My own theory about the passage that Brent Dyer cites is that the juxtaposition between Severian's casual treatment of the possibility of sex between him and the boy, and the pos…
31 Oct 2006, 05:05
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Roy's use of "bogus" may simply have been referring to doubts about the historical existence of Catherine of Alexandria. -- Dan Rabin…
26 Oct 2006, 17:25
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Hmm. I always assumed that these two were perfectly ordinary guild members whose names happened not to be used in these references because Severian was talking about their roles…
26 Oct 2006, 05:46
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I don't think the narrative of _The Urth of the New Sun_ covers all appearances of Severian as the Conciliator: 1. I recall a couple of references in _The Book of the New Sun_ (…
25 Oct 2006, 21:55
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The Appian Way being a road, what of Maruthas closing them? Concisely, -- Dan Rabin…
29 Aug 2006, 20:36
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I have always interpreted the passage mentioning Paeon the honey-steward to be saying that the Old Autarch received instruction regarding the succession from someone he knew to b…
28 Aug 2006, 22:56
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Fred Kiesche asks: There are no significant divergences that I've ever noticed. Some typos are corrected, some retained, some introduced perhaps. The omnibus is missing the po…
04 Jul 2006, 13:52
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I forgot to mention in my commentary on Wolfe's use of FORTRAN conventions in "The Computer Iterates the Greater Trumps" the the reason Trump(0) is an error is that FORTRAN array…
14 Feb 2006, 21:38
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Jesper Svedberg points us to "The Computer Iterates the Greater Trumps", and says, Very much so! I particularly note that, despite Wolfe's reported claims of ignorance of compu…
14 Feb 2006, 21:30
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All the discussion of ingestion of blood reminds me that nobody is mentioning the Osterlings, who seem to have an inhumu-like motivation for their raids. Would anybody care to s…
07 Dec 2005, 16:54
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On p. 217 of _Starwater Strains_ (U.S. hardbound), in "The Boy Who Hooked the Sun", the phrase "pelted him with the shining stones of Atlantis" is a recurring motif, except at wh…
24 Aug 2005, 21:34
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Shadows of the New Sun has been explained (by its editor) in this very mailing list: <http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0031/urth.v031.n002.3.shtml> It seems to be the essays f…
25 Apr 2005, 21:53
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Perhaps "both of mine" refers to "Arthur" and "Able" rather than "Arthur" and "Ormsby". -- Dan Rabin…
15 Jan 2005, 21:10
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What an outpouring of pent-up commentary we've had! Here are some short notes I myself have been saving up: 1. "Arthur Ormsby". My reaction was "What, again?", thinking of "Oh …
03 Jan 2005, 21:55
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After my last message on vocabulary, I decided to look up some works in the _American Heritage Dictionary_, third edition. It turns out that the "arch" in archive is derived from…
05 Dec 2004, 22:26
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Hmpf MacSlow asks about the familiarity of the word "barbican" to native speakers of English. It's a really important question, because Wolfe's use of unfamiliar words and neolo…
05 Dec 2004, 21:23
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I finished _The Wizard_ on Sunday. Perhaps if we send messages as we finish, we'll be able to gauge when it's OK to start discussion. -- Dan…
03 Nov 2004, 20:07
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Any explanation of the appearances of Malrubius to Severian should also account for the appearances of Paeon, the honey-steward who trained the Autarch when the latter was a serv…
19 Jul 2003, 06:29
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I agree with Blattid about the beach scene, especially "The idea is absurd. But then, all ideas are absurd," and "I drew off my boots, that had traveled with me so far, and threw …
12 Apr 2003, 04:34
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I've read the Latro books twice. The second time was after I read Herodotus. That helped a lot with the history and geography, besides being a lot of fun in itself. -- Dan …
21 Jan 2003, 07:55
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Mantis writes; The tattoo is more likely to stand for "Richard Nixon". The North character takes some traits from G. Gordon Liddy, and I recall him questioning the protagonist …
16 Jan 2003, 15:33
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Marc Aramini writes, Severian is under the effects of a powerful psychoactive drug (alzabo) at the moment narrated. He is hallucinating. I can't count this as an instance of W…
02 Dec 2002, 04:26
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Um, I think this is reversed. _New Sun_ makes it fairly clear that Dorcas and the elderly boatman in the Botanic Garden are the parents of Severian's father Ouen. It's Severian…
13 Nov 2002, 07:04
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I'm not much bothered by the inconsistencies between the account of Typhon in _The Book of the New Sun_ and _The Urth of the New Sun_ as opposed to that of Pas in _The Book of th…
11 Nov 2002, 06:33
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Douglas Anderson's _The Annotated Hobbit_ was reissued last month in a second edition. In this new edition, Anderson has greatly expanded the note on "warg" that cites a letter …
08 Sep 2002, 03:49
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I was recently reminded that Chicago has abandoned tunnels that underly most of the central business district (read about it at <http://www.ameritech.net/users/chicagotunnel/tunn…
08 Jul 2002, 04:36
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A Method Bit in "B", _Orbit 8_ Forlesen (shorter version w/o Abraham Beale), _Orbit 14_ Petting Zoo, (collected in _Year's Best SF 3_, ed. Hartwell, 1st app. _Dinosaur Fantastic I…
22 Mar 2002, 06:28
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James Jordan supposes correctly that the name of the Futurama character Turanga Leela is derived from the title of the work by Messaien. I checked with my friend Jeff Westbrook,…
03 Mar 2002, 18:30
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With respect to the recent discussion on Tolkien's influence on Wolfe, I'd like to propose that the Claw of the Conciliator is, in some respects, a Wolfean reversal of the One Ri…
06 Jan 2002, 18:28
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Christopher Culver asks: A quick Google search on "sabretache" turns up <http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~thinred/ceremonial.html>, an entire catalog of British uniform items. …
07 May 2001, 21:13
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Tierra del Fuego is the location of Cape Horn. Didn't the Neighbors wear capes? -- Dan Rabin *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.…
28 Mar 2001, 05:49
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"Loganstone" is the name of the lighter that took Magnesia (Marble) to the Whorl. I got a little bothered about the name yesterday, so I did a Google search and came up with <h…
04 Mar 2001, 10:37
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There are injunctions in the Torah against using the name of God, including one in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:7). The name, which occurs in written form throughout the Tora…
18 Feb 2001, 21:38
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The nature of the inhumi may be one of Wolfe's trademark reversals. Dracula-type vampires are ex-humans, and by preying on living humans, make them vampires. Inhumi are aspiring…
18 Feb 2001, 21:37
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William Ansley writes, Should he? Or should he just write? -- Dan Rabin *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.…
14 Feb 2001, 19:57
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Matt asks, I take the parenthesis to mean that Urth looks very weak with its dying sun, yet it is the original Short Sun Whorl from which the _Whorl_ was sent out. Urth can no …
12 Feb 2001, 21:23
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Matt asks, I recall that what is said is "their Green is larger and brighter than ours". The reference is to the Moon, called "Lune" in _The Book of the New Sun_, and appearing…
12 Feb 2001, 21:18
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The protagonist spends a lot of time treating inhumi as people and trying to see their point of view, even to the point of wanting to learn about their reproductive habits. He m…
11 Feb 2001, 22:24
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I agree with David Lebling that the coincidence of Jahlee being Krait's mother is a bit of a stretch. I also find it a bit unsatisfying that Wolfe tends to revisit established l…
11 Feb 2001, 22:11
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This third volume in the series adopts yet another distinct set of techniques for interleaving two narrative time frames. In _Blue's_ we had the Gaon story interrupt the quest st…
07 Feb 2001, 22:35
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