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You can say that again. I'm currently reading Neal Stephenson's new _Cryptonomicon_, a 900+ page behemoth which contains about a typo every other page. These days, the normal typo …
14 May 1999, 09:14
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William Ansley suggests that every now and then, like the unwatched fall of a sparrow, Wolfe makes a mistake. Well, he's actually admitted to one, on this very list. When we got …
10 May 1999, 10:12
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alga, Read _Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West_, by Gregory Maguire, and you may think again about that wish... I recommend this book highly! -- Dav…
19 Mar 1999, 14:18
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One minor correction to corncrake's masterful exegesis: Queequeg is pretty clearly a Pacific islander, not an Andean. I would add (at least): Survival: floats on coffin …
05 Feb 1999, 10:11
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Altavista Discovery is a product that allows you to index the text on your system. If you burst the archives into separate files (one for each message), it would allow you to acce…
29 Jan 1999, 11:33
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That's _The Universal Baseball Association, Inc; J. Henry Waugh, Proprietor_. Also one of _my_ favorite books. It should be required reading for "subcreators," gameplayers, and d…
27 Jan 1999, 09:13
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Those interested in Wolfe's profession of belief in Lamarckism (mentioned in _Castle of the Otter_, among other places) are referred to this month's (February, 1999, I think) issue…
20 Jan 1999, 10:27
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I haven't seen Feeley's list, so I'm making my own mistakes here; however, I agree with him. In further exculpation, it is stated elsewhere that every now and then (but not often)…
17 Dec 1998, 16:04
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Another one. After describing his near drowning on the day he rescued Vodalus, he says "I never went back" to the river. Yet a few chapters later, ("The Last Year", I think) he d…
17 Dec 1998, 08:59
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Something I noticed in the chapter of _Shadow_ dealing with the destruction of the Pelerine's altar. Agia is telling Sev about the Conciliator. She remarks that he may have live…
16 Dec 1998, 11:18
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Does anyone have any thoughts on Clute's "Catherine the Weal" theory? I've only now had a chance to read his essay in _Strokes_ where he propounds it. What do I think? As I read…
16 Dec 1998, 11:09
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It might be interesting to collect Severian's lies. It has been remarked on occasion that he is an unreliable narrator, but we haven't listed more than one or two of his misleadin…
16 Dec 1998, 10:55
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Wombat said: Really? I've read _Peace_ several times and still don't know what to make of Weir. Judging from past posts on this list I don't think I'm alone. For example, there …
04 Nov 1998, 09:50
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I think the general explanation that is given in genetics textbooks is not that the moths "evolved" a black color and then a white color. Rather, there was (and is) a certain amoun…
15 Jun 1998, 17:18
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The nice thing about "talus" as a term for the bulldozer-guard-robots is that the word also fits nicely within Wolfe's naming scheme, in that talus is rock debris, or a pile of suc…
26 May 1998, 09:38
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The Pennington covers made me think of _The Dying Earth_. I was prompted to reread this one, and I like the "universe conspiring against them" explanation, though immortality and …
09 May 1998, 12:02
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I've just finished reading Emil Ludwig's _Napoleon_, which my local library actually has. It's not bad, a very novelistic sort of biography. There's a lot in it about how Napoleon …
07 May 1998, 10:05
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I don't have a good explanation for why he first thinks Thrax is by the sea, but I think I can nail the other. Palaemon probably knows Severian as well as anyone, and has figured …
06 May 1998, 09:27
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I don't think I buy that one. It's more in the nature of the scene in the typical coming-of-age story where the older mentor reveals, usually when the protagonist is in some hot w…
04 May 1998, 13:31
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Which brings up the further possibility that there was an iteration of the Conciliator (Sev3.5, or thereabouts?) who was killed by the civil authorities and buried in the cemetary …
04 May 1998, 09:53
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* William Ansley's epigraph Wonderful epigraph! I hereby petition Ranjit to add it to the Archive Web Pages, and the digest. As they say in alt.folklore.urban, "Motto!" * mantis…
02 May 1998, 12:51
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Back in January we got ourselves into some serious knots over the question of how many Severians there were, and which did what, and to whom. This went on for several weeks (you c…
01 May 1998, 17:05
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I'd like to know as well. To answer part of your question, there indeed is a biography of Napoleon by Emil Ludwig, which was published in 1926. It was a best-seller. How old is W…
30 Apr 1998, 15:10
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"In the Penal Colony" is also the source of the torture device which letters a slogan on the victim. If my memory serves (and it may not) the device was rarely working there as we…
27 Apr 1998, 16:52
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A couple of quick notes: mantis, The "teratoid sign" in TBOTNS is our radiation warning symbol. Damien Broderick, Aunt Bella's vision is of a downdown street at night in our ow…
30 Mar 1998, 09:21
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I found time last night re-read most of "Tracking Song," and I found some interesting stuff. * Does anyone else agree that the locale may not be Earth (or even Urth)? It's a world…
03 Mar 1998, 12:44
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alga, The underground sequence with the robots and Mantru bothers me, too. One way out of it, a tortuous one I admit, is to say that the narrator has become a man, just as the rid…
02 Mar 1998, 12:18
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mantis, Quotation from "Return of the Straight Dope," by Cecil Adams: "Legend has it that the green room, also styled greenroom or green-room, goes back to the Elizabethan era, w…
08 Feb 1998, 15:59
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mantis, A note for the _Lexicon_, if you haven't gotten it before: When Severian is told (at the House Absolute) that Dr. Talos and his company are in the Green Room, they are ta…
08 Feb 1998, 11:24
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alga, re South America: While you are absolutely right that TBOTNS's South America isn't ours, I think it's safe to say it fills the role of South America on Urth. Recall that wh…
06 Feb 1998, 14:24
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Tony Ellis: I can do the C word! In _Citadel_, ch. 37, Severian sees for the first time a river or stream flowing north and east. "All streams, in my previous experience, ran sou…
05 Feb 1998, 21:21
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What a great flurry of new activity! And some new blood as well. Yumbo! On the illness of the sun: It is stated in several places that the sun is being devoured by a black hole. …
01 Feb 1998, 13:37
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CRCulver opines: Even Jove nods. Unless someone (Dr. Talos? mantis?) is faking the geological and archeological evidence, there's a _lot_ more time than that. The only out I see…
30 Jan 1998, 17:09
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Thus, This is a mantic or even lupine opinion have a lot of trouble with. Primarily, I look at the mountains, all or most of which have been carved in the likenesses of rulers. I…
30 Jan 1998, 16:34
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CRCulver writes: I think Severian must be in error here, because in "our" timeline, near the end of "Urth of the New Sun," he becomes Apu-Punchau. As this hasn't happened to him …
30 Jan 1998, 13:42
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Xury, I find it easier to believe that the undine saved Severian as part of an effort to (if you will excuse the expression) lure him to the "dark side of the force." All the exe…
29 Jan 1998, 18:06
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If I were a little less tired, I probably would have noted in my previous missive that the essay whose interpretation I reported on (Severian as beneficiary of tweaks to the past) …
21 Jan 1998, 20:59
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I would also love to see Clute's essays. "Strokes" was at one time in the list from Amazon.com, but they lost touch with Serconia Press when it (apparently) moved. So Clute think…
21 Jan 1998, 17:21
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The sinister interpretation of "Westwind" is entirely in keeping with the religious one. Christianity can be (and has been) called "the opiate of the people" and "a religion for s…
13 Oct 1997, 09:26
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Rostrum, Nutria, alga, et al., I'd have to disagree slightly with the Rodent of Unusual Size. Don't read Smith in the chronological order set out in the NESFA books (but do buy t…
12 Sep 1997, 09:18
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According to a friend of mine who is a anthropologist, the "animal" names look "vaguely Algonkian, the languages which were spoken over much of the northeast (Micma, Abnaki, Massac…
25 Aug 1997, 10:07
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I'd like to thank Gene for his forbearance and kindness in answering our question trains. If this is the last one, so be it -- few authors would be nice enough to do this at all, …
13 Jul 1997, 15:48
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Rose's Parts: The question arose recently of where Maytera Rose's parts came from. (Xiphias apparently got parts from five different chems to make his artificial leg). Well, when…
02 Jul 1997, 13:40
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Here are possible additional cars for the train. In the interest of having a full cargo, I am happy to donate any of them to someone temporarily bereft of puzzlement. "Mint state…
23 Jun 1997, 09:30
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A great mixture of bland revelation and sneaky evasion, I must say! [Mantis, having recently reread _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_, I must report the discovery that Wolfe was callin…
15 Jun 1997, 17:12
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mantis, You may ask my question (about Pike's revenant) in any form you like. Feel free to add the "Quetzal" addition. An alternate question if you want to use alga's instead: "…
16 May 1997, 14:17
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This is like being a kid in a candy store, but with only one quarter to spend! "Was what Silk saw in the manteion Pike's ghost, or an aquastor, or what?" and "What about..." No,…
14 May 1997, 09:07
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Joel (et al.), Auguries: Do we ever witness an augury (not just a sacrifice) conducted by anyone other than Silk? His predictions are both accurate and "obvious" (in that they c…
11 May 1997, 11:47
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A random thought while driving to work this morning. Perhaps the event that caused Mint to give up her secular life and become a sibyl was a possession by Kypris, perhaps even a d…
09 May 1997, 09:18
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South to North. If a floater tries to go north too fast it smashes into the ground, if south, it floats too high. (_Calde_, p. 318). (I'm not certain I completely buy into the p…
04 May 1997, 12:22
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