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Well, east is east and west is west. Everything else can change. The map itself is drawn north-up, but northwest is still northwest.…
08 Dec 2020, 00:53
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Yes, I'm referring to the eight winds of the standard windrose.…
08 Dec 2020, 00:49
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Thanks. I was trying to find out where in the text a 6-point compass was mentioned. I agree that if you have six you could just as well have seven---but 8 is pretty much universa…
07 Dec 2020, 22:40
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Can you explain more about the 6 compass points? Sounds like it would lend itself to a hexmap, which I have not seen done. There is a theory about how far Wolfe took the reversa…
07 Dec 2020, 16:43
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Thanks!…
18 Apr 2020, 23:07
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I see no reason whatsoever to ascribe Barnes' attitude to Wolfe. That's not how authorship works. It's far more likely that the thought occasionally occurred to Wolfe as a question…
30 Jan 2020, 15:39
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Of all the Land Across interpretations I have read so far, this is the most immediately useful. Handy, even.…
28 Jan 2020, 13:12
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Great point. I have not read much Heinlein criticism, but those roads always symbolized for me Heinlein's belief in the inevitability of technological and (libertarian) social pr…
27 Jan 2020, 16:15
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27 Jan 2020, 14:57
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Yes. This kind of thing is usually handled directly by an executor, such as a child of the author, if not an executive editor. It's the proofreading that seems to create the trou…
01 May 2019, 15:00
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I always thought the paradox typically Borgesian but not reminding me of anything in particular. Much of the first book is almost Dickensian in its depiction of poverty. It makes…
16 Jan 2019, 03:04
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Well put. I was thinking along the same lines as far as materialistic assumptions about history, but was unable to develop the idea further.…
07 Sep 2018, 16:55
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That's a great collection. Davidson wrote mysteries too, so he was adept as withholding clues.…
25 May 2018, 18:11
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I am of course speaking in extreme generalities. But "in anger" usually means fighting, and rituals have to be followed carefully to count as such. Generally a sacrifice is underst…
03 Apr 2018, 14:48
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That may well be the case, but it would have happened long before the Iron Age. I'm not suggesting that animal sacrifice came first, but pointing out that the use of stone and br…
03 Apr 2018, 12:57
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Expanding on my comments of yesterday (apologies if they were long-winded), because I find the topic fascinating and relevant to the Christian syncretistic theme. Marc goes on t…
03 Apr 2018, 00:55
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It is striking that, from our vantage, that association just seems wrong. And yet, upon reflection, so right. I suppose Sol Invictus must be a link somewhere.…
02 Apr 2018, 14:06
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Yes. I think the fact that war dead can and have been seen as a form of sacrifice strengthens the Great Mother's distinction between war and worship, especially in Wolfe's hands.…
02 Apr 2018, 14:05
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Marc, I'm working through your write-up for Latro in the Mist. I've barely scratched the surface, but your voice is authoritative, your writing is clear, and your arguments are l…
02 Apr 2018, 01:10
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Yes, I recall the discussions of onomastics. I apologize for digging all this up but it seems some questions that Borski partly answered are otherwise completely unanswered. My q…
19 Feb 2018, 15:31
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I've been reading bits of Borski, with whom I am not very familiar. He proposes that after Palaemon was exiled (at the same age as Severian), rather than returning, he was replac…
19 Feb 2018, 03:51
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Exactly. I would only add "or even confirming" to "intentional and reinforcing." For example, we already suspected Appian was the Old Autarch, but where we might otherwise be pu…
18 Feb 2018, 16:14
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Severian's position in Thrax bears only the slightest suggestive resemblance to that of a Roman lictor. There is no "as such" here. Wolfe does not mention God or Borges either.…
18 Feb 2018, 15:11
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Sure, they have a "concrete" (literal but not literary?) meaning. But they surely have other meanings, because the literal one is, well, fairly meaningless. This is standard Wolf…
17 Feb 2018, 19:43
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Oh, good. It struck me that in any thorough book about the New Sun, this bees = bulls thing would be hardly more than a footnote attached to a discussion of the old Autarch's po…
17 Feb 2018, 19:40
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Severian is not described as a lictor as far as I recall, and while he serves a magistrate he does not arrest anyone. I don't recall him carrying the fasces either, but rather hi…
17 Feb 2018, 17:19
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How is Severian explicitly a lictor, and which definition fits him? Yes, although the bull Mithras kills is not shown as a castrated one.…
17 Feb 2018, 16:55
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Yes. Soldiers didn't have the money to kill all those bulls anyway. It was pure symbolism, and the taurobolium wiki suggests that it was likely symbolic even for the Great Mother…
17 Feb 2018, 16:46
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I don't see "lictor" mentioned in the wiki---do you have a specific link to that? Nevertheless, the Mithraic cult has always been suggestive of similarities to both early Xtiani…
17 Feb 2018, 15:28
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Allan, I have only just started the first book. Justine, I believe. I'm glad to see people reading Aickman.…
19 Nov 2017, 04:30
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Yeah, I appreciate the hyperbolic Wolfe as human wolf angle, and the closing is spot on, but much of the roasting is simply too inaccurate to be humorous.…
18 Nov 2017, 12:16
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I'm reading Durrell's Alexandria Quartet. Not SF, but definitely experimental and a little reminiscent of Robert Aickman in its detachment combined with nearly-alienating attenti…
16 Nov 2017, 14:03
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Thanks for the update.…
14 Nov 2017, 17:09
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Good point. On Wednesday, April 29, 2015 2:21 PM, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote: There's a lot more tribadism than the other thing,,, - Gerry Quinn…
29 Apr 2015, 19:13
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Thanks for the superb descriptions. Trollope is one of those many Victorian authors you think will bore you to death until you read him, and then he winds up sticking around. I sho…
29 Apr 2015, 17:10
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Presumably, the theory would require a rewrite (i.e., falsification, probably by Chris/Blackbeard himself) of Blackbeard's biography. Otherwise, Blackbeard: The Early Years would t…
29 Apr 2015, 16:44
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Nay, the Hobbit movie was an abomination! Prepare to defend yourself, sir! On Wednesday, April 29, 2015 11:12 AM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com> wrote: …
29 Apr 2015, 15:51
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This discussion reminds me of conversations I've had about various kinds of market intervention: in markets, in politics, in culture, etc. The "liberals" of SF fandom seem to me to…
29 Apr 2015, 14:20
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Hi Andreas I agree that Moebius would have been a great illustrator for BOTNS. I can see the panels very clearly in my mind. There was a film project underway for The Island of Doc…
29 Apr 2015, 14:07
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That's true. Wolfe relies on all sorts of genre tropes, and mixes them up in the process. I don't think he can really be accused of treating female characters substantially diffe…
28 Apr 2015, 23:17
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Riding a camel, I'm sure. Makes sense!…
27 Apr 2015, 19:45
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Could well be. I might have guessed "Hebrew propaganda" but only out of cynicism, not out of any actual knowledge.…
26 Apr 2015, 17:56
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Once again, we can't tell where the critic's personal opinion of genre ends and the alleged opinion of a supposed "society at large" (or perhaps merely a profession or industry) …
26 Apr 2015, 17:54
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But monolatrically, not monotheistically, right? I mean, "hold no other gods before" him all you want, but there are still other Gods. We may have to start a cult.…
26 Apr 2015, 14:39
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There is that. But what head wound do you mean---from the crown of thorns?…
26 Apr 2015, 14:36
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And no one is more gossipy than "the gays." Worse than a houseful of wives!…
26 Apr 2015, 14:32
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Huh! That suggests another dimension to "thief," since a thief takes what he is not "entitled" to. But I wouldn't know where to go from there, unless another god is involved. Thu…
22 Apr 2015, 16:48
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Right, the "mono" is a separate idea from the "latry." It seems relevant on its own but it led me to "latry." Yes: thief/mercenary + worship(er) seems an interesting combination.…
22 Apr 2015, 16:40
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I hadn't heard your theory. Interesting!…
22 Apr 2015, 16:36
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I just encountered a new word---that is, a word that's new to me. Not, I'm sure, to this forum. The Greek root is only part of it, though its similarity to "Latro" is new to me t…
21 Apr 2015, 22:38
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