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I think *Anansi Boys* is his best novel, far tighter than *American Gods*(you can feel a lot of both Wolfe's and Lafferty's influences in those two novels I think). He is, though,…
04 May 2012, 15:30
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Aside from some of his own great stuff, I'll never stop liking and being grateful to Neil for bigging up my two faves: Wolfe and Lafferty. From the same interview: *If you could…
03 May 2012, 21:00
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The girl liking sci fi bit was painfully geeky to me, but I think it was a real name drop, a nod of respect, a wink to Wolfe nerds everywhere. I did just find all the threads on t…
02 May 2012, 17:41
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Sorry if this had already been flagged up on the board. If it did, I missed it somehow and I just got notified of it in Wolfe google alerts today. Anyway, THANK YOU very much Mat…
02 May 2012, 17:12
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Yeah, definitely. Particularly gratifying to me as I find the majority of them quite cringe-worthy. Here's hoping for a new era of quality book covers for Wolfe editions! -DOJP…
26 Apr 2012, 11:48
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Maybe Gene would be all for Pirate Freedom. -DOJP…
25 Apr 2012, 13:32
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I picked up Worm Ouroboros over a decade ago for the same reason and still haven't read it! But another I picked up because it was an influence on Lewis was David Lindsay's* A Voy…
19 Apr 2012, 14:17
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That's too bad Wolfe didn't respond to your invitation. I'd love to see him do it. And I'm thankful you put up his excellent Tolkien piece since the Tolkien anthology he wrote if…
18 Apr 2012, 21:01
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metafiction without transformation ... the difference between cleverness and the stereotypical academic's attitude I read in Crowley and the true spiritual longing I feel when I re…
18 Apr 2012, 20:12
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You mean 'The House on the Borderland'? I don't find the themes or the settings familiar, but there may be something about the 'tone', whatever that is. Yes. Frankly, Wolfe's hor…
18 Apr 2012, 14:44
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I've heard that and I've been on my way to checking him out for some time. Still planning to do so. Thanks for the reminding recommendation. -DOJP…
18 Apr 2012, 07:58
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I believe there's a big difference between the people who like Wolfe (and Lewis, Tolkien, and some others) largely because their work is heavily influenced by their Catholicism, an…
18 Apr 2012, 07:50
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Let's see, what's left? I'm only just starting to check out Michael Bishop, but he looks like he could be of interest to those into the cluster of authors we're talking about. Wa…
17 Apr 2012, 23:27
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Don't get me wrong - I don't encounter 'lows' in Wolfe terribly often. Maybe 'mids' a bit more. I think one 'low' or 'mid' would be when his narrative loses its drive - last book…
17 Apr 2012, 23:08
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Wolfe definitely considered himself a significant step below Laff. I can only attribute this to modesty and a failure to outgrow youthful enthusiasm (much as I haven't outgrown To…
17 Apr 2012, 17:33
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I would have to agree that's it's underrated. It's really up there with his best I think. But it's potent and woolly - not for beginners perhaps. -DOJP…
17 Apr 2012, 15:50
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That's chapter one of Fourth Mansions. I love chapter three's title too: 'If They Can Kill You, I Can Kill You Worse'. -DOJP…
17 Apr 2012, 15:48
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Heh, heh, knew I'd raise some hackles. I totally agree that Wolfe is the more disciplined writer (*maybe* also more consistent) - it's just that Lafferty's fiction, at its best, s…
17 Apr 2012, 15:47
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Hey folks, I too saw this in Lafferty google alerts and was very excited as I write a Lafferty blog in addition to my Wolfe blog. I interacted extensively with his article here: …
17 Apr 2012, 15:02
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I read this out loud to my wife one evening while she was working on something and asked to be read to. It was the next story up in the collection and neither of us had any idea w…
08 Apr 2012, 07:17
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I didn't get the sense Wolfe identified with the adults or the boy. He shows them both fairly disoriented and ill-prepared to cope with the mysteriously building crisis (even if t…
07 Apr 2012, 18:06
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There's a certain plausibility to your suggestion, David. I too have sometimes wondered about what seemed a lack of emphasis on God as Creator in Wolfe. But he does work it in th…
02 Apr 2012, 14:33
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Wolfe approaches spiritual things with a categorizing and scientific mindset, and it is, I think, unusual. Yeah, maybe it's unusual in some circles, but I find it quite common amo…
01 Apr 2012, 08:58
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Extremely interesting, Marc. I just want to know what you mean more precisely by two terms: 'spiritualist' and 'dualism'. The former conjurs in my mind the believer in contact w…
31 Mar 2012, 22:33
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These are really enjoyable so far, Marc. Thanks. (Is it too late to get in on receiving these early stories you're referencing?) -DOJP…
25 Mar 2012, 13:47
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Probably wise. -DOJP…
21 Mar 2012, 13:06
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Are you going to include the three novelettes that make up Fifth Head of Cerberus as instances of short stories, or just leave them to one side as a one unified piece? Just curiou…
19 Mar 2012, 23:22
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Dang. My heart just literally ached in my chest. -DOJP…
18 Mar 2012, 23:52
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Photogen and Nycteris is definitely one of the very best. Lilith and Phantastes are certainly meandering and oblique novels - but I think they're very powerful, undiluted fantasie…
17 Mar 2012, 10:06
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Good find. -DOJP…
16 Mar 2012, 22:39
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Ha, Pynchon aloud? I've not read him but the impression I get of his work makes me think that must have been an interesting or unusual scenario. I just remembered I did once read…
16 Mar 2012, 19:53
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Possibly 'on top of' would be the most natural construction? But I myself might be likely to say 'atop' - but I'm a long-time lyricist/poet/whatever, so I'm apt to use older or od…
16 Mar 2012, 19:50
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I really enjoy the edition where it's printed as its own small book, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak and an afterword by W. H. Auden. (And I'll side with Auden over Stockhoff…
16 Mar 2012, 19:30
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Yeah, David, I know what you mean about 'personal God' and even more so 'personal Jesus' - the latter phrase has no good use at all to me. The former can be misleading, but I thin…
16 Mar 2012, 19:22
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's the BEST! You have no soul! You are not human, you are machine! (To be honest, it was on a second read that it blew me away.)…
16 Mar 2012, 19:09
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Ha, thanks everyone for engaging so profusely with my initial rant. I think all the angles have been well-covered. I'll just add that any of you who think Lewis and/or MacDonald …
16 Mar 2012, 15:58
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Yes, said better than I did. However, now I'm wanting to qualify: let's not de-fang the Wolfe. He has bite and we shouldn't begrudge him that. If some writer clearly portrays M…
15 Mar 2012, 18:52
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Well, let me just say that having recently re-read Milton's Paradise Lost (my all-time favourite poem by my all-time favourite poet), I cannot imagine two more opposed doctrines of…
15 Mar 2012, 18:07
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'There is nothing heretical in Wolfe's proposition that the pagan gods were "real".' Yes, thank you! -DOJP…
14 Mar 2012, 22:39
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Well, I'm way behind in all the gritty details of this debate, but (that's where you all stop reading - ach, well)... Just because Wolfe is no Card (is that a pun?) doesn't mean he…
14 Mar 2012, 22:36
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Great if so. (That surely doesn't happen too often on this board, ha!) -DOJP 2012/3/12 Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>…
13 Mar 2012, 22:18
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'Though I think a Christian should be able to defend the OT *also* in strictly Jewish terms.' Agreed. That's partly why I'm not down with the OT God is just the best they could c…
11 Mar 2012, 18:22
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'Those of us who stand by the whole canon should be ready to defend it with more than just saying the people who wrote it were savages.' I tried to take a tentative stab at that i…
11 Mar 2012, 01:55
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The only thing I would add to Craig and Marc's comments is the qualification that I think some of Wolfe's characters *do* actually experience genuine redemption, but that it's neve…
10 Mar 2012, 17:47
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Ok, Craig, at the risk of sounding sycophantic, I just have to shout an 'amen!' yet again to your perceptive observations. I guess I'm the president of the Craig Brewer Fan Club. …
10 Mar 2012, 09:14
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Will you let us know if your piece makes it in to the online journal so we can look it up? -DOJP…
08 Mar 2012, 22:20
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All that may be allusively there in Wizard Knight, which would be exactly what we've come to expect from Wolfe. Pagan practices finding their 'correction' and true 'fulfilment' in…
08 Mar 2012, 21:53
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I think maybe this is the classic interview where Wolfe talks directly about some of his Christian beliefs in relation to his fiction. The interview's conveniently broken into lin…
08 Mar 2012, 20:31
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Hey, I thought you didn't want to discuss this! :) The *larger* summary of the doctrine of God from the entire OT could not possibly be accurately represented by a summary of the …
08 Mar 2012, 20:07
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Yeah, Lee, apologies on seeming to make a blanket association with you and Dawkins. I only meant in your seemingly similar readings of the OT. Other than that, you're nothing lik…
08 Mar 2012, 16:30
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