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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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Yes, it is amazing. McKenna may have read Wolfe, but I have zero doubt that Wolfe never heard of McKenna. I know little about Lafferty himself, but I agree---it would be easy to …
28 Nov 2012, 13:43
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Those are cool too. But it WOULD make a great band name. The way McKenna wonders whether the hyperspace elves are also the elves of the "magic light of childhood" also reminds me…
28 Nov 2012, 12:44
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On the other hand, is that really a threat to them? We already know that violence and addiction etc. harm us. Inhumi would hardly threaten us enough that we'd see such an advanta…
28 Nov 2012, 02:46
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Yes, indeed. From his writing, he seems to have had enough of a classical education to "get" Wolfe's allusions. One must wonder. I notice his Eschaton comes on December 21, 2012.…
28 Nov 2012, 01:52
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What? no takers? I thought it was an easy question. The phrase that caught my eye was this: SELF-TRANSFORMING MACHINE ELVES OF HYPERSPACE !!!!…
28 Nov 2012, 01:05
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Does anyone recall a passage in which the narrator suggests inhumi are derived from plants? (Please excuse it if I've brought it up before.) I'd have to look at it again to conf…
27 Nov 2012, 20:58
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27 Nov 2012, 20:31
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27 Nov 2012, 20:21
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27 Nov 2012, 19:52
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I agree that the mention of Cuba comes across as very odd, a bit like a 1950s judgement transplanted to the 1990s, or something like that---disconnected and out of place. I took …
27 Nov 2012, 14:23
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Speaking of visions (sort of), I encountered the following description of a "prototypical" hallucinatory (DMT) experience in Sam Harris' response to the new book "Proof of Heaven…
27 Nov 2012, 14:21
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Interesting in this context that a venomous fang may be used to produce its own antidote (by injection into horses). The origin of the Rod of Asclepius was discussed here some ti…
27 Nov 2012, 00:18
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Typhon was certainly THE Serpent, but was he A serpent? Is Severian something like the thorn of the field raised up to the degree that Typhon/Satan is a raised-up serpent of the …
26 Nov 2012, 13:08
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You have to wonder how far to take this. If a rose is one of Severian's symbols, and a serpent is not, then what does that mean? Is the thorn of the field at least an honest adve…
26 Nov 2012, 03:24
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I think it's meant along the lines of a classic cultic double meaning: one esoteric (Jove's eagle) and one esoteric (the clawed serpent). These two meanings balance perfectly, si…
23 Nov 2012, 18:38
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That's good context for this interpretation of the Claw. And the below snippet is perhaps especially suggestive, because it involves or invokes the combination of plant and anima…
23 Nov 2012, 18:31
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Yes, of course. "Perhaps too pat" indeed. It all but instructs us to look elsewhere, doesn't it? Away from the pagan and toward Genesis, maybe.…
22 Nov 2012, 21:54
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Very well thought out! If the thorn is the key to the meaning of the Claw, and fangs do seem to occupy a space adjacent to thorns, they are therefore a link to the Claw. It occu…
22 Nov 2012, 13:25
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Me too. Chris seemed to me like a more or less "good" (or at least civilized and self-aware) person who does bad things, some of them necessary but by no means all.…
03 Nov 2012, 21:49
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Probably.…
02 Nov 2012, 00:40
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Thorns might be considered to resemble claws more than fangs. But Severian's blood the Claw sheds is perhaps more important than the Claw itself. It seems like a stretch, but "n…
02 Nov 2012, 00:23
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15 Oct 2012, 15:12
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I think Mist and Arete demonstrate the above to be false, but I can understand it for Sidon.…
10 Oct 2012, 01:27
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That's very interesting. I've read very little Milton outside PL, so I can't follow you too far. But you almost seem to be saying that Severian's "magic" is a /moral /or spiritua…
04 Oct 2012, 13:12
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Spirit (mind) is usually said to animate or organize matter (body). This makes spirit active (light) and matter passive (dark), which usually translates to male and female principl…
02 Oct 2012, 18:17
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01 Oct 2012, 19:20
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01 Oct 2012, 18:54
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Dan'l, I see I not only got the names backward, but you were way ahead of me.…
01 Oct 2012, 17:40
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01 Oct 2012, 17:38
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01 Oct 2012, 14:33
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How would that work, exactly? ---If a female creator spawned (through parthenogenesis?) a male creation? ---Or if a female creation developed from a sperm cell? Parent-offspring…
30 Sep 2012, 17:12
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Good clue. Counterfeit = Deceiver? I actually don't know anything about this. Without necessarily getting into details, what's the broad story there?…
30 Sep 2012, 17:04
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That too. But I had not thought (not being a physicist) of scattering, which helps to obscure the stars for us. But wouldn't stars themselves tend not to emit infrared visible ov…
28 Sep 2012, 22:19
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Yes, exactly. I had almost added to that "or else the playwright would have to explain about the demons etc." I assumed that would be taken as implied, but of course given the co…
28 Sep 2012, 19:35
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That is a helpful clarification, thanks. We all thought you had gone wobbly on us. Strike the scaffold, boys!…
28 Sep 2012, 19:30
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I was thinking a short story, at least. ;)…
28 Sep 2012, 18:35
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Right. Or they are too alien to care, or don't need the sun. But the inhumi are plainly only as inhuman as their inability to feed on us makes them. i.e., they are a classically …
28 Sep 2012, 18:34
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Absolutely. Still, it should make enough scientific sense to be roughly predictive. In other words, Chekhov's famous gun needs to work by explosive combustion, not fiery demons …
28 Sep 2012, 18:23
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Which argues for Krait as blind to the sun, or merely insensitive to it?…
28 Sep 2012, 18:18
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I know. For me, he's too obviously a liar to be lying. If that makes any sense.…
28 Sep 2012, 18:17
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Another angle would be that since Krait is lying about flying through space (assuming he is lying), he is lying about the super-vision that goes along with it. It also lets Wolfe…
28 Sep 2012, 17:42
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Regarding the vision thing: I've struggled with this question for years. I can think of only two possibilities. Either (1) Krait's vision sees all wavelengths but modulates its …
28 Sep 2012, 17:22
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24 Sep 2012, 15:09
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24 Sep 2012, 15:06
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I can't argue with that, although there is no "ship" or island in that scene, so the particulars are still up for debate. Those women do appear to be flesh puppets, not possessed…
24 Sep 2012, 12:57
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