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Pelagianism!…
30 Jul 2010, 22:25
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[SNIP] Only slightly off topic, I was pleased with my keen insight honed from reading Wolfe :), when I saw this driving the plot of Evelyn Waugh's _Decline and Fall_. A Google …
09 Jul 2010, 23:13
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I thought there was a consensus that he is one of Inire's agents. He comes down his ladder, S. feels sure, because he heard the name of Vodalus. David Duffy.…
05 Jul 2010, 22:05
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On Wed, 30 Jun 2010, Nicholas Jost wrote: Welcome, Nicholas! Perhaps not the best place to start ;) Yes. Almost certainly not. Either it is well in our future, or in a differe…
30 Jun 2010, 23:29
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I thought of it even before reading the book, based on descriptions of the plot, especially after _An Evil Guest_. Like so much of Wolfe, I think there is some allusion, but it …
30 Jun 2010, 22:28
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Well, it's a common trope that opposite-sex dizygotic twins can be so similar that they can cross-dress and confuse others, but in reality they are will have an average brother-s…
20 Jun 2010, 22:30
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Through the magic of Google, I think this might refer to the constellation of Octans, which sits near the South Celestial Pole, and has three bright stars forming a triangle (see i…
11 Jun 2010, 23:23
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Too abstruse for me.... Googles...I couldn't possibly comment ;) Cheers, David.…
07 Jun 2010, 02:02
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Re LWW, my opinion of it did fall when rereading when older, and seeing "through" the plot. By contrast, I was able to read _The Pilgrim's Progress_ ignoring any allegorical con…
06 Jun 2010, 23:15
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Indeed! Another Wolfe related piece of prose appeared in the April NYRSF by Patrick O'Leary _Half the Bargain: A Short Story_.…
07 May 2010, 05:33
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Wielded only by the male of the species, of course. David Duffy.…
13 Apr 2010, 22:00
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http://everythingisnice.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/the-fifth-head-of-cerberus-by-gene-wolfe/#comment-1391 David Duffy.…
26 Mar 2010, 23:54
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I was just addressing: "I haven't noted much influence from him." One might argue that the choice of a fantastical South America is due to reading Borges, rather than Chesterton …
24 Nov 2009, 04:54
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Father Inire echoes "The Book of Imaginary Beings" section on fauna of mirrors. Borges has: "the Fish was a shifting and shining creature that nobody had ever caught but that ma…
24 Nov 2009, 03:15
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And what about guy in _Peace_ -- he's all over the place ;) David Duffy…
10 Nov 2009, 03:40
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A nice nosology. Except PJF's _Night of Light_ is 1a and 1b, isn't it? There *is* one stereotypic story, of course: aliens martyr missionary because they think this is the kinde…
22 Sep 2009, 21:41
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I have only just received my copy of the the August edition of the NYRSF, where Darrell Schweitzer reviews AEG. He comments that the President is "not recognizably a caricature …
14 Sep 2009, 22:35
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to boldly split...…
31 Jul 2009, 02:47
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I forget if this has been mentioned before, but there was a US painter J. Alden Weir (1857-19--), one of whose impressionist paintings of the Hudson I was looking at over the wee…
22 Jul 2009, 21:42
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And on Australian Radio National, a review of the _The very best_, though finds him "too hard". http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2009/07/bsw_20090713_1038.mp3 Cheers, David…
14 Jul 2009, 02:24
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In the same way, I think, that _Short Sun_ shows the shortcomings of the libertarian/propertarian/frontier mentality, in the absence of some higher ethic at work behind it. David…
19 May 2009, 04:52
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My thinking on this matter, which noone ever seems to agree with ;) (though perhaps it is too obvious), is that BotNS is a dialogue with several concepts of Frank Herbert's. So, t…
20 Mar 2009, 21:57
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Nah, that would have been for _Engine Summer_. David Duffy…
19 Mar 2009, 22:58
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Crazy but delicious, like, say, Van Vogt, though at a different level. And surely _Doors_ owes something to _Three Days in New Crete_? David Duffy.…
19 Mar 2009, 22:48
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I read it as a nod to _Childhood's End_ And I thought the missionaries are "modern day" individuals who are "chant-caught" reenactors. David Duffy.…
19 Mar 2009, 07:26
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Well, given that the remark is made by a maximally "bad priest", I suspect we might take it with a grain of salt as representing GW's POV. But all his worlds seem singularly lac…
18 Mar 2009, 02:29
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It comes straight from Byzantium, where the emperor was head of the church, and ruled on doctrinal matters. David Duffy…
11 Feb 2009, 22:23
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I have to be pedantic ;). "Sentient" (contrary to most use in SF) means "feeling" (and therefore capable of suffering), so all mammals are sentient. What we should say is "sapient…
10 Feb 2009, 21:47
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My take on Bill/Wally is that he become a "superhero", specifically the _the Shadow_. That character fights evil, but uses violent methods, and is distrusted by most of the auth…
19 Jan 2009, 00:23
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Excellent. Does anyone know if Wolfe makes a timeline when plotting? It seems almost certain. No, he said he had the bracelet commissioned months age (presumably to have at hand…
17 Jan 2009, 05:52
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On Tue, 13 Jan 2009, Dave Tallman wrote: - SNIPPING much on Margeret as Cassie - I have reread Margaret's lines, and haven't spotted any dead giveaways. I might push my barro…
14 Jan 2009, 02:00
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Various interpretation of the signficance of Able's surname have been posted, but I hadn't previously herd of _Maudine Ormsby_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maudine_Ormsby Cheers…
29 Dec 2008, 22:00
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Or is that a subliminal message? Cassie: Oh Lord! Yes, I remember. Assassin: Well, you should Cassie dear, since he died for you...…
23 Dec 2008, 23:19
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WRT the timeline, I can't remember if you included "A hundred and fifty-odd years ago there was a man called Cranston..." puts the present day at "The Shadow debuted on July 31, …
23 Dec 2008, 22:58
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Has anyone brought up Arthur-Guinevere-Merlin rather than Lancelot? Reis is the High King after all, and GC is definitely a wizard. Cheers, David Duffy.…
23 Dec 2008, 07:44
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Catching up with the list now I have read AEG. His "bad heart" is pretty obviously not physical. I thought it likely that he was a changeling, viz the description of incipient …
23 Dec 2008, 07:37
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It is only male Wolders who can alter their DNA. Was just thinking the same thing, but haven't been through the backlog of entries yet. He also seems to be quite familiar with t…
21 Dec 2008, 21:40
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Someone asked before about discussions of Aegypt etc. There is a fair bit in the archives eg http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0030/0696.shtml is about the middle of them. It …
18 Dec 2008, 04:36
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No, here. Michael Andre-Driussi also authored Lexicon Urthus, you know ;) Alice Turner was Alga, and in the Digest I see is the second message ever. David Duffy…
18 Dec 2008, 03:36
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You might know that a number of former list members put together _Snake's Hands: The Fiction of John Crowley_ Recently read _Lord Byron's Novel_, which was enjoyable too. Perhaps…
18 Dec 2008, 02:11
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There are a few papers from Deutsch and others on the many worlds interpretation and ethics. Specifically, that you should choose actions that maximize a utilitarian type measur…
15 Dec 2008, 07:56
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When BotNS was written, a big crunch (and restart) was seen as quite likely, but now, of course, we live in a flat universe. I might point to _Star Maker_ as another model -- pro…
13 Dec 2008, 04:56
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He looks younger/less damaged, I assume. David Duffy.…
11 Dec 2008, 20:45
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Yes, but proportionately to one's net good and evil ;)…
08 Dec 2008, 09:39
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I don'y have the time or the expertise to argue it, but I think Wolfe is a bog-standard modernist. _BotNS_ is his _Ulysses_, filled up with things to keep readers busy for the nex…
26 Nov 2008, 22:31
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Hey, just like _The Music Man_ ;) I think there are two bits here, that maybe that is as good as it gets with fallen humans, and God moving in mysterious ways, subverting the pl…
26 Nov 2008, 02:41
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And of course _At the Mountains of Madness_. I haven't got around to reading John Long _Mountains of Madness: A Scientist's Odyssey in Antarctica_, where he traverses the same lat…
04 Nov 2008, 20:52
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Well I just finished _Against_the_day. I avoided M&D as too long (read all his others), but got sucked in by the first chapter of _AtD_. I like and have read everything of Step…
16 Sep 2008, 23:03
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Is it ambrosia? David Duffy.…
23 Jul 2008, 08:40
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I haven't read it, but isn't this the thesis of _Attending Dedalus_? If you look at _Pirate Freedom_ and _Cerberus_ and perhaps _Peace_, Wolfe does write quite extended horror st…
21 Jul 2008, 23:03
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