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Exactly. However, Silk also narrates it as the Rajan, and it comes up a lot in BLS. So we may presume that he told Horn and Nettle. If he did not, then the end of OBW does not si…
29 Nov 2011, 16:59
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And ... drum roll ... WHY do you think that? WHY do you guess that? WHY?…
29 Nov 2011, 16:47
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29 Nov 2011, 15:29
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Whether it has meaning to Silk or not is probably irrelevant because he has seen little more of Pas than anyone else his age, but I agree that even for readers of BNS looking for…
29 Nov 2011, 15:27
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Sorry, what's the Levi quotation? It's quite possible, except that the whole cloning/in vivo/possession/scanning trope was plainly already in Wolfe's mind, and as such maybe the…
29 Nov 2011, 14:17
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yeah, but in a very different way ....…
29 Nov 2011, 02:44
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Ah, good. I'm actually a bit disappointed to hear that, because I always found the combination of the word "vat" to be chilling in the context of growing cloned humans. I thought…
29 Nov 2011, 01:20
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Quack!…
29 Nov 2011, 01:17
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This is a simple case, of course. Others are not so simple. I agree, for example, that if we read "X is a clone of Y" then we can have a working hypothesis that maybe Y robbed th…
29 Nov 2011, 00:15
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Awesome. My guess is that it indicates someone tried to grow a human in a vat, as in Dune, vs surgically placing it in a womb, as done by Blood.…
29 Nov 2011, 00:02
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I heartily agree (I think). Well, I wouldn't go so far as to put odds on anything, but I'm pretty sure that kind of argument pisses me off too. You can't prove negatives, so why…
28 Nov 2011, 23:58
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There is that....…
28 Nov 2011, 22:34
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Understood.…
28 Nov 2011, 22:21
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Yes, and? No, I read all of it. You didn't present an argument. Neither of which is anything you or I wrote. Tinker schminker. The critical difference is between genotype and ph…
28 Nov 2011, 22:13
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I'm not sure Typhon actually believed that his face was the source of his charisma. I think his face was simply the face his charisma was attached to, and he as much as said so: …
28 Nov 2011, 20:17
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Certainly Typhon is uncannily careless of his *body*. But recall your own theory that what many characters in TBOTNS desire is immortality. His body is now just in the way, wheth…
28 Nov 2011, 19:36
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I'd put the likely resemblance as a little stronger than "a wee bit," but if we're talking about a minimum (potentially after surgery, scars, etc.) then I agree, especially since…
28 Nov 2011, 19:24
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I don't think these are terribly difficult questions. I'd guess: (1) A big animal ran into it. Or inhumi slaves smashed it to expose the small trees inside. Depending on how long…
28 Nov 2011, 18:02
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If you think there is a real reason why "why Silk should look that much like a parody of a painting of Pas that probably was meant to glorify him" but you don't know what it is,…
28 Nov 2011, 17:57
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To the extent that the Neighbors are Faeries, Seawrack's ring is a faerie ring. So it's going to go where the faeries want it to go. Similarly, I read the ring as I would any fae…
28 Nov 2011, 16:31
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Lee, that is a great analysis. I have to agree, having never thought about it. I am not sure what damage it does to the general point I just made, though it weakens the argument …
28 Nov 2011, 16:04
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There's no real reason, even if he is a clone, why Silk should look that much like a parody of a painting of Pas that probably was meant to glorify him. How do we even know Pas l…
28 Nov 2011, 15:42
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Miles isn't his real name. Severian calls him that because he is nameless and is a soldier. It means "soldier."…
28 Nov 2011, 02:27
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Maybe the key is that the Typhonians are sacrificed, as in a sense Christ was. Osiris, OTOH, was merely murdered.…
27 Nov 2011, 15:41
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That's an interesting and suggestive quote, but I think the key word is "monstrous." The man has two heads. I think the "night sky" has gnostic overtones that are stronger than a…
27 Nov 2011, 15:00
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Red hair, either all fire or all softness…
25 Nov 2011, 20:19
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And obscuring the point I was making in the process, yes. Unless Sinew has a lander, Nettle is never seeing him again. I think there should be a large debate on just what the Sec…
25 Nov 2011, 20:15
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Sergei, I was misremembering and I said so. Do you have an answer to the question or not?…
25 Nov 2011, 19:24
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You've been holding out on us, James. The above is a work of Montague Summers (1928). The passage is: "Those whose hair is red, of a certain peculiar shade, are unmistakably vam…
25 Nov 2011, 19:22
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OK, so somebody please answer the question of what secret must be kept from Nettle. If Sinew can't return to Blue, she's already lost her son and her husband. What else is left?…
25 Nov 2011, 19:01
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If he IS just stuck on Green, then perhaps the "secret" to withhold from Nettle is that the inhumi are keeping him alive to stay sentient, i.e., using him as cattle. How that det…
25 Nov 2011, 16:37
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Or is he just stuck on Green? I haven't gotten there yet but I thought the Rajan said so.…
25 Nov 2011, 16:35
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Yes, but so what? If Nettle knows Sinew was bitten and even that he is now dead (IIRC), what secret is left?…
25 Nov 2011, 15:47
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And I'm not sure what would bother Nettle so much, except the notion that her son is not her son or her husband not her husband. But both are dead by the end, so what is worse th…
25 Nov 2011, 15:33
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So the inhumi used Neighbor ships? That's possible. Is there any evidence of any character who is an inhumu who has fed on a Neighbor? I don't see why we can't have both. Only i…
25 Nov 2011, 15:29
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This could not be more wrong. Wolfe practices science fantasy, not engineering. If the bar is "desperate need," then he must be pretty desperate because all his works feature phy…
25 Nov 2011, 14:15
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Conjunction doesn't need to be THAT close. Since the atmospheres can't actually touch (although that would be cool), the planets just need to be closer than usual. if the inhumi …
25 Nov 2011, 13:59
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It's as plain as it could be. You can't have a translator's note for everything.…
25 Nov 2011, 13:02
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I forgot to point out that the lander (there is only one) is not used just to move inhumi to Blue. It's used to move humans to Green. This can't be done via void-flight.…
25 Nov 2011, 12:49
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Agreed. But what did they do before the Whorl came? Did they never go to Blue?…
25 Nov 2011, 12:47
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It seems to be left to the imagination if it happened at all. She's after him so much it's easy to imagine it happening, and he just didn't want to tell us.…
25 Nov 2011, 12:37
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This is the main difficulty, I agree. I don't see how it could be accomplished without just ignoring the problem. You also make a good pint when you refer to "the great secret of…
25 Nov 2011, 12:35
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Ah, when Auk pushed him, yes. Quetzal is there but so is Incus, so I doubt there was any funny business.…
23 Nov 2011, 22:44
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What a tantalizing series of clues. Are you thinking of ... a bloody mangled corpse? A pistol that has just been fired? I'll figure it out ....…
23 Nov 2011, 22:21
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And also gives them a way to coevolve with the Neighbors on Blue. Depending on the theory, one may imagine them crossing to feed on Neighbors and becoming parasitic vines long be…
23 Nov 2011, 22:17
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Do you have a page number or quote for the meeting and the crash?…
23 Nov 2011, 22:05
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I forgot to mention that one trick would be to not have any water in their bodies when they fly. Problem solved. On Earth, yes. This is SF. You're way ahead of me! I'm not argu…
23 Nov 2011, 21:53
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That's the biggest, probably. They'd need to be very strong and very light with a huge surface area. They could use some other wind---like a solar wind---for lift once they reach…
23 Nov 2011, 21:43
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Well, they had just landed and were put underground by the inhumi. So there may have been somewhere. p63: "How many of us are there?" the man with the black sword asked. He look…
23 Nov 2011, 21:18
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Insofar as one may be a model for the other, I am not sure it matters. However, I was thinking of their early evolution. Which crash was that---the floater?…
23 Nov 2011, 20:57
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