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Why, that's almost steampunk!…
01 May 2011, 20:26
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You could have said death-ray guns. They were "invented" in the twenties, I think.…
01 May 2011, 20:02
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Exactly. But there's nothing inevitable about exclusion from democracy/humanity.…
01 May 2011, 20:01
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to say nothing of the noses ...…
01 May 2011, 19:52
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One could establish a democracy under the rule of law. But I see the basic principle. I don't see how it extends to poor Chinese people whose water supplies are poisoned by mela…
01 May 2011, 17:08
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Well put. It occurs to me, as an aside, that Arthur C Clarke also wrote quite a bit about mega-technology and human imperial expansion, but he was (as a Brit) plainly very criti…
01 May 2011, 14:43
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Yes, those two especially, I think. (It's been a long, long time!) There were also some novels about star colonization.... It's funny to see what the genre has grown into outside…
01 May 2011, 12:28
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Is it impossible? I had no idea. ;)…
01 May 2011, 12:08
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Precisely!…
01 May 2011, 01:27
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It's disappointing to many readers of science fiction. I wonder if it's disappointing to fans of college professor fiction? I always thought of it as a response to Heinlein's lun…
30 Apr 2011, 22:51
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The wolf is definitely calling the schnauzer ... lupine?…
29 Apr 2011, 19:49
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I hope you don't think the differences rule out the correspondence in general. Yes, I'd say the "long" part of Long Sun can be taken figuratively as well as literally.…
23 Apr 2011, 20:49
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The Whorl always struck me as a kind of Tower of Babel. Does that fit? It's a monument to human ego, a "message" to the universe about human greatness, AND a kind of human cultur…
23 Apr 2011, 11:34
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True.…
22 Apr 2011, 19:01
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Very roughly, yes. Not that it would mean much anyway. But Silk seems to be the closest thing to an overtly Christian character anywhere in Wolfe. His world seems more than vague…
21 Apr 2011, 23:15
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Viron has a desert to the south, cities to the north, and a long lake nearby. Which may or may not be a salt lake, depending on whether Typhon wanted to send any Urth saltwater s…
20 Apr 2011, 23:07
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Right, the LoC doesn't care if you fix typos. But you do need to buy a new ISBN and apply for CIP info for any new edition. Which can get burdensome when you own thousands of ti…
20 Apr 2011, 23:03
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Interesting. So the basic idea is body-as-a-tool? That is, a tool can be used for good or evil, and therefore so can a person? In addition, I'm sure, to the whole question of wha…
20 Apr 2011, 22:59
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Probably no one asked him. I'd assume each series has a couple of bloopers. If the rate of "errors" is found to be the same throughout the books, that is merely as would be predi…
20 Apr 2011, 22:56
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Diabetes is perhaps a more likely disease than leprosy (and Betel was fat), but it tends to strike the lower limbs before the hands. I suppose if Rose had access to legs, no one …
19 Apr 2011, 22:54
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Humbert Humbert? Also perhaps whoever narrated The Black Prince (it's been a while for me, but the setup is similar).…
19 Apr 2011, 19:58
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And Moly was Hammerstone's girlfriend ... ? I will read your link. Thanks!…
19 Apr 2011, 19:57
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I've never really understood this problem. When you do a new edition, you change what feel you need to change, and that ought to include obvious errors. The copyright owner and pub…
19 Apr 2011, 16:34
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Great explanation, James. I also appreciate the discussion of the nature of chems---it explains half a dozen minor mysteries, not just one. And raises new ones for me: Were Mamelt…
19 Apr 2011, 16:21
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I agree that errors so proximate to a claim of perfect memory are particularly suspect. But I would think they would be more significant, i.e., intended to misdirect the reader f…
19 Apr 2011, 12:02
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I'd like to see James' evidence too. But Rose is a bio---that's certain. My assumption was the same as yours, that her hands were (cyborg) flesh. But Marble's easy use of them is…
19 Apr 2011, 11:56
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Sorry, I forgot to actually say what I was talking about. I meant the wrapping-a-body-in-a-body thing specifically. (If a body meet a body wrapped in a body coming through the ry…
19 Apr 2011, 11:49
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Ahhh ... that makes sense. I did not know Rose was actually in Marble's hands, or that her hands were not flesh. That explains my confusion. Wolfe has a thing for that, doesn't h…
18 Apr 2011, 23:00
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I think I remember that---thanks. I always had trouble with them anyway. If I recall, Mint is a bio, Marble is a chem with fleshy prostheses, and Rose was an old bio with metal …
18 Apr 2011, 22:49
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Which Marble/Mint mixup is that? I'm pretty sure I fell for it myself, but I don't recall where it is. It's certainly an understandable error.…
18 Apr 2011, 22:35
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Right. Similarly, Humbert Humbert tends to narrate by focusing on descriptions of his thoughts and emotions. This not only makes him appear a more reasonable person than he could p…
18 Apr 2011, 20:46
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True, and she was a girl when he met her. More of an Annabel Leigh, perhaps.…
18 Apr 2011, 20:30
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I was just looking for commentary on Lolita and found the following brief description of a minor character: Valeria - Humbert’s first wife, whom he married to cure himself of his…
18 Apr 2011, 17:59
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Although as an afterthought I suppose there is still some distance between a narrative with a clearly delineated and limited viewpoint---and a narrative that pretends to even more …
18 Apr 2011, 17:52
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Apologies if my replies appear out of order. The original meaning of "unreliable narrator", as used by Wayne C. Booth in /The? Rhetoric of Fiction/, is that the narrator's /norms/…
18 Apr 2011, 14:35
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How do you know "Wolfe has been working against the kind of analysis that wants art to be shaped according to certain parametres"? Seriously. Certainly he struggles against assum…
18 Apr 2011, 01:13
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Exactly.…
18 Apr 2011, 00:35
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Absolutely. But I think the "more unreliable than is usual in science fiction" standard applies, in which case all the characters you mention are indeed unreliable. Often in SF, …
17 Apr 2011, 23:39
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That's an objection in search of an argument.…
17 Apr 2011, 23:30
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Wolfe as a writer has been working against the kind of analysis that allows for authorial error in the case of obvious discrepancies that have no possible meaning consistent with…
17 Apr 2011, 21:14
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I think the test here is "more unreliable than is usual in science fiction." It's a pretty low bar Severian clears with ease, just by his lies of omission. Gerry's comment that,…
17 Apr 2011, 20:50
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Good catch! (bonus points for antechamber reference, except I recall matte and chocolate being the two choices---???)…
17 Apr 2011, 20:30
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I have seen plenty of blatant errors in novels, including when a character's name is wrong, albeit usually in worse and cheaper books than Wolfe's. It is quite possible for an ed…
17 Apr 2011, 20:28
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Much like consenting to be governed by a king.…
13 Apr 2011, 03:28
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Ah, yes---our old friend Lepton. I suggest we read him to find out what NOT to think. As a side note, it is of course exactly that "different, without one being intrinsically in…
09 Mar 2011, 14:41
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Thanks, I always get that wrong.…
09 Mar 2011, 12:31
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A little bit of analysis is all that is needed on your second point. Accepting that the moral of King Rat is that "misogyny pays" ... OK, so what? (So does dramatically entertain…
09 Mar 2011, 03:06
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I've seen published academic articles "proving" Milton was a royalist. And of course there are those who believe Wolfe is a right-winger, when he is plainly just an American Cath…
09 Mar 2011, 02:39
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nice! Now we just need to hear it from Severian's perspective. Of course, that must be an eidolon, not the real Severian.…
09 Mar 2011, 01:37
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That's a good point. And any kind of social inertia is fitting for the Commonwealth---especially so when we know the author has projected about 20,000 years between our English a…
20 Feb 2011, 13:18
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