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Yes, Gerry. An organizing principle must organize. You and Marc have been going back and forth about evolution/devolution and genetic stagnation and copies of copies and hosts an…
02 Apr 2013, 12:16
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Peritonitis, exactly. It need not have any meaning. It only needs to be an organizing principle. Your mention of fruit reminds me that the yeast that converts grapes to wine gro…
02 Apr 2013, 00:32
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Could it be that the maggots and mites and hair are a kind of very Wolfean joke? Could the novel be interpreted on a completely different level involving human bodies as entire w…
01 Apr 2013, 23:38
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You have to wonder how far to take Dollo's Law. The focus of the discussion naturally is on hands and thumbs. But what if it is sexual reproduction itself that is lost and re-evo…
30 Mar 2013, 12:14
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Jerry From your excellent link: . . . it is punctually associated with that delightful fiction of the poets, the poetical owl. They are as thick as thieves, these two creatures,…
27 Mar 2013, 11:57
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I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure owls don't eat wolves, even wolf pups (though I suppose they could). I did a cursory search and didn't find any discussion of wolves eating th…
27 Mar 2013, 03:06
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Awesome! Congrats on your own story.…
02 Mar 2013, 14:07
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Why "almost certainly"? Don't tell me you doubt evolution!…
07 Feb 2013, 16:57
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Ah, that too. ;)…
07 Feb 2013, 16:56
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Exactly---at least that was always my impression. Severian doesn't appear to suspect the creature of having consciousness, and for me, the wonderful horror of that whole scene li…
07 Feb 2013, 16:45
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Definitely. But the alzabo remains a beast, which is the important difference, I think. The voice within it speaks, but it is not the voice of the alzabo, which has no awareness.…
07 Feb 2013, 15:54
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In the absence of any concrete answer, I'd lean toward "recurring notion." But it's one that's grounded in Wolfe's obsessions: identity, speech-as-identity, spirit/soul/thought (…
07 Feb 2013, 15:36
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You're always a few steps ahead, Mark. :) Is there a consensus that it's Typhon's mausoleum? Does this suggest Severian "looks like" Typhon? Or someone else? Also, do you think t…
06 Feb 2013, 18:12
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I think you have a point. Blue and Green are more open in a sense, since they are after all merely earthlike planets. The narrator need not "leak" the concepts of shadelow and nigh…
06 Feb 2013, 18:05
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With Wolfe, I find that "stapled" things are often otherwise the most deeply buried, fundamental truths. Consider UOTNS, even granting that it must contain some creative ornamentat…
06 Feb 2013, 15:08
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Precisely. Although this isn't always a sign of realism. In Lost, characters were always missing obvious opportunities to tell each other "Oh, so-and-so's missing/pregnant/dead/ar…
06 Feb 2013, 15:01
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Exactly---both those reasons. And also, because of the sheer scale of the project, it's not like Typhon, upon waking, is going to ask after the Whorls. How would he even phrase s…
06 Feb 2013, 14:58
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I'm not sure why a reference to the Whorl would be needed. Although that would certainly nail it down, Wolfe characters often don't mention important things when speaking to one …
06 Feb 2013, 14:27
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Crimes upon crimes! I thought she looked a little elvish. The Italian /The Claw of the Conciliator /is beautiful, imo.…
30 Jan 2013, 14:56
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Exquisite. A couple look like standard S&S, but I especially like the scene in the mountains before little Severian is killed. I like Severian as a monk, although it's not quite …
30 Jan 2013, 14:08
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Well, of course they are! interesting that there is a dead son in such close proximity when Severian meets Typhon. Typhon had a second chance at "winning." He lost.…
23 Dec 2012, 03:40
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I had forgotten Osiris was green, but I think you nailed it. The Green Man represents rebirth, as Osiris does.…
23 Dec 2012, 03:08
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A little joke there, isn't it: the male is named after the stiff pointer, while the female is pointed at.…
15 Dec 2012, 02:26
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Reading about The Wizard Knight reminds me. Anybody have an opinion on the audiobook? I listened to a part of it by accident recently (having never listened to it before) and re…
14 Dec 2012, 22:53
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aha. Thanks.…
14 Dec 2012, 22:49
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How are those names pronounced: Cypher? Wiser? That might be suggestive too.…
11 Dec 2012, 02:15
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Definitely.…
30 Nov 2012, 23:14
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Aha. Well, we can certainly agree that there is an underlying/overarching thrust to the Cycle that subordinates both science and literature to itself. It is /scientific /in the s…
30 Nov 2012, 14:43
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Totally. I'm not sure why, then, you would classify Urth as "driven by a scientific premise."…
29 Nov 2012, 18:50
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Rendezvous with Rama is actually a great example of well-balanced hard SF, where the science it part of a great story. Clark was a true storyteller who really knew how to make scie…
29 Nov 2012, 18:49
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Exactly. And there's a related subgenre of space opera one could call "(military) hardware porn," where the science is totally made up but the technology is lovingly described. I d…
29 Nov 2012, 18:41
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I've wondered about the speed they would be moving at. Even if they are dead, they would have had to launch from Green at a speed at least = escape velocity. Then you have Blue's v…
29 Nov 2012, 16:48
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If they are in essence dried-up or frozen wood, they would burn fast. But bright. Too bad we can't run an experiment---I've got lots of firewood behind my house.…
29 Nov 2012, 15:20
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Yes, a much better example. Literal moral infection is pretty unscientific.…
29 Nov 2012, 15:18
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Now there's a brain-tickler. She certainly doesn't report it as though someone just told her. But since inhumi talk to each other as well as to humans when they are among them, a…
29 Nov 2012, 03:32
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Yes. Any evidence for it would tend to destroy any flight theory.…
29 Nov 2012, 03:22
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Yes, I agree. Science realism is after all impossible, if you are proposing scientific impossibilities such as FTL.…
29 Nov 2012, 03:20
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Star Maker is in text form somewhere on my Kindle. I hope it doesn't stay that way. Thanks for the suggestions.…
29 Nov 2012, 03:16
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You're right! That makes more sense. This Robinson is a /damned anarchist./…
29 Nov 2012, 03:14
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I'm not sure if it's philosophical exactly, though the examples that come to mind are /Flatland/, which exists to make a didactic point, and the Mars trilogy by Spider Robinson (…
29 Nov 2012, 00:02
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There is always that one particular example of the Best Human, whom I shall not name here. But as long as as his example persists, there is hope. That's Wolfe's hidden point. (Th…
29 Nov 2012, 00:01
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That is, the "medium" of physics-driven fiction is not the message, which is the case with true hard SF. Wolfe works hard to reconcile myth with physical plausibility to make a s…
28 Nov 2012, 22:55
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Well, the cited Jahlee reference has them burning up on reentry if they are dead. So the commingled atmosphere theory is not part of the story.…
28 Nov 2012, 22:51
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Actually, I think they see a potential for good in us that we don't. They may inflate it somewhat because it represents a grave danger to them. But they are smart enough to not tak…
28 Nov 2012, 20:15
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28 Nov 2012, 17:07
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I agree with him too. But Urth is still not "hard SF."…
28 Nov 2012, 17:04
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with, and wings don't help you slow down in space. I don't know whether to imagine inhumi skipping and settling slowly into the atmosphere or diving in and pulling up. Neither qu…
28 Nov 2012, 16:54
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Perhaps the Neighbors were somewhat better at it than we would be. They did after all gather enough "political will" to leave Blue and Green entirely. I don't see humans doing even…
28 Nov 2012, 15:57
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Nice point.…
28 Nov 2012, 15:09
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You're absolutely correct: We're not talking about hard SF here. Some basic reasons to give the inhunu space flight theory a break are (1) they are aliens whose physiology we have …
28 Nov 2012, 15:08
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