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I actually don't think that is terribly remarkable---that's how blinds work. They can't see him if he doesn't move and Severian himself seems in a kind of stasis. But that is a g…
20 Dec 2013, 19:47
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Definitely! Good observation about RTTW too. Technically, Severian is a demigod.…
20 Dec 2013, 16:52
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On the Ship, he clearly leaves his ruined body behind, so only that and the stoning should count as deaths. But since 5 is the Number of Man, it works best for there to be exactl…
20 Dec 2013, 14:16
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I don't think so, but that is after all part of the attraction. There is certainly a subtext going on, but it's already been identified, more or less. Since he uses no special "…
20 Dec 2013, 13:19
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Nicely done. The Green book (one of my favorites) contains a wide variety of stories, of course, including The Three Little Pigs and The Golden Mermaid. But about a half dozen a…
20 Dec 2013, 02:19
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Possibly. Well, it's not like they handed him a golden key, Oz-style. (I don't trust anyone in UNS.) I had forgotten about the three backward-travelers in time. They would be t…
20 Dec 2013, 02:12
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Interesting point, and another connection between the two. But where the Atrium is reached by traveling through an underworld, increasing the sense of temporal isolation, the mau…
19 Dec 2013, 13:47
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Yes, I definitely meant that in terms of timestreams/iterations, but it would depend on how you construct the five timelines: Are they simultaneous, sequential, or concurrent? Ar…
19 Dec 2013, 03:58
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Thematically, yes. Some of those lines suggest merely great age and stasis, while others do hint of something more. But he did spend many hours there, and the "first thought" abo…
19 Dec 2013, 02:10
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"(Is it strange that Wolfe doesn't make up suits for us--rockets and chips, for instance?)? " Great name for a starport eatery: Ships'n'Chips. Or would that be more like a Radio S…
18 Dec 2013, 18:09
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Well, he knows the words, or seems to, though AFAICT none of these usages is Severian's, though ultimately all cases are the translator's usage. One is Jonas's. But let's take th…
18 Dec 2013, 17:00
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"If she is all her family's daughters and sons, then either she is merely the only one (meaning her family is about to die utterly with her) or she is genetically identified with o…
18 Dec 2013, 15:48
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The cloning theory is well grounded, but temporally dislocating the mausoleum is new AFAIK. In a way, I don't like this, because it seems to move the explanation further away rat…
18 Dec 2013, 14:20
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I did not know that! Sounds almost like "good Gene." Or, maybe, "good /gene/." I want to repost here Mantis' workup of parallels between BNS and Wolfe's life (perhaps you meant …
18 Dec 2013, 13:29
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Or the second to last.…
17 Dec 2013, 12:58
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That works out a lot better than solitaire=elector=jack. One of the HR electors was an actual king, so there can be several kings/princes; there can be only one autarch, and he i…
17 Dec 2013, 02:19
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Blue cheeks are cheeks with one-day stubble (if you have black hair and pale skin). Otherwise, I agree. The Solitaire question is especially interesting, since Wolfe could not p…
16 Dec 2013, 23:35
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Well, NOW you've got me interested. That's one of my all-time favorites. On Tuesday, December 3, 2013 11:50 AM, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote: _Last Letters from…
03 Dec 2013, 17:54
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Possibly. Plenty of species do that, including some fish. Many species migrate in response to stress, too, though most don't hollow out an asteroid. Also, here's a tidbit about …
02 Dec 2013, 23:32
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As a side note, "venant" as a name apparently would mean "He Is Coming." On Monday, December 2, 2013 11:37 AM, DAVID STOCKHOFF <dstockhoff at verizon.net> wrote: Also, towar…
02 Dec 2013, 16:45
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Also, toward the end, Remora seeks a confession from SilkHorn, in regard to whether he has had sex with Nettle since his return. He has not, though some excuse is used rather than …
02 Dec 2013, 16:37
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Good point. I hadn't seen Andrew's question or Dan'l's response. But I eagerly await further revelations. I wondered if Silk "finds" Seawrack through Horn's memories of her. Tho…
26 Nov 2013, 22:26
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That all fits, with caveats. But Seawrack behaves as though she is no longer an eater of dead sailors. She reads much like other Wolfe characters who are "not themselves," though…
26 Nov 2013, 00:27
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Point taken. But did Moses also marry a prostitute? On Monday, November 25, 2013 1:51 PM, Fred Kiesche <godelescherbach at gmail.com> wrote: No, he's Spartacus! Does th…
25 Nov 2013, 21:47
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Any chance she is a projection of Hyacinth/Kypris? She couldn't possibly have her own personality. Something suppresses the memories of eating dead sailors and allows her to comm…
25 Nov 2013, 13:13
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I can confirm all that. The Thag "cycle" was the first I read of Wolfe.…
12 Nov 2013, 03:31
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I suppose you have considered that the multiple-legs pattern of Blue life as observed by Horn corresponds to E.R. Burroughs' Mars? What happened to Lune, then? I recall a previou…
10 Oct 2013, 13:49
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Either way, it adds up but I can't get my head around it. The biggest question (I know we've been over this but I don't recall a satisfactory answer) is, "What is Blue?"…
09 Oct 2013, 11:42
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Marc, where did these humans come from? Were they earlier settlers? Or is Green Urth?…
08 Oct 2013, 15:45
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And of course it echoes the magical Tree of Knowledge with its Talking Serpent.…
08 Oct 2013, 15:35
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And yet, remember the Secret is referred to as a "weapon," which means violence is not exactly ruled out. Indeed, if "love" is a weapon in this "war," I think Silk would get that…
08 Oct 2013, 15:33
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Yup.…
07 Oct 2013, 23:00
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Ah, of course. I should note that I haven't read the story---yet I felt a kind of recognition on seeing that title.…
23 Sep 2013, 18:35
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thanks! I'm left wondering what it is about "Frostfree" that makes it such a Wolfean story title. Laconic, self-negating, familiar, engineering-related, punning? . . . ? Also, IC…
23 Sep 2013, 16:07
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And the same for breaking the carbon cycle, if the hypothetical tectonic suppression actually progressed to total stasis.…
11 Sep 2013, 13:10
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That's very well put. There seems to be a consensus here, if I may presume to summarize it: (1) The Black Worm, whatever its nature, was put there to dim the sun. We are…
11 Sep 2013, 12:59
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Which is why I don't like the idea that the object has non-Newtonian effects outside/beyond the Sun.…
09 Sep 2013, 12:46
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You're right---glass, not plastic. I suppose the plastic is gone.…
09 Sep 2013, 12:42
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Right. As I suggested, a cosmic drain pipe, eventually replaced by a fire hose.…
09 Sep 2013, 12:41
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That's basically what I was getting at. If we can't settle on a plausible physical explanation, there's always literary magic. The black hole (which after all is never called tha…
09 Sep 2013, 12:39
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Actually, I think his logic is not bad, given his lack of information: ... the first hawk to build one cannot have inherited its instinct to build from its parents, since they di…
09 Sep 2013, 12:13
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Exactly. Severian doesn't call it plastic, but he refers to colored bits of something, so it has already crumbled. Possibly it's a stretch and simply put there as a general clue …
09 Sep 2013, 11:49
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That, and the bits of plastic everywhere. Well, that would do away with any need for truly geologic time scales to explain Severian's remarks.…
09 Sep 2013, 02:38
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How far down would humans have to strip the mantle (using robots, of course) to mess with tectonics? Wouldn't the entire planetary surface have to be mined? or just where plates …
08 Sep 2013, 22:40
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You're right---I had forgotten.…
08 Sep 2013, 21:45
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Absolutely. Here's a clear summary of the four forces that create heat: isotopic decay (85%?), latent heat (5%?), residual heat (5%?), and gravitational differentiation (5%?): ht…
08 Sep 2013, 16:20
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I'm intrigued by Jeff's idea: The slowing of geology processes and the refrigeration of the earth in somewhat of a historical time scale was once the current scientific thought in…
08 Sep 2013, 12:41
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Edit.…
06 Sep 2013, 18:28
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Interesting thought. Could the New Sun restart Urth's tectonic activity and thus its CO2 cycle? Would that put Floodmaster Severian and the Evil Twins on the same side? As it hap…
06 Sep 2013, 18:04
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Here's another gem: "(Let’s set aside the morality of investing our interest in a character who tortures people. Remember, the violence in Wolfe is partially influenced by the o…
05 Sep 2013, 22:42
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