-
None of these are insurmountable, and all are far more likely than the framestory in TBOTNS. (Oh, in the incredible vastness of space, the translator found a tiny object floating a…
29 Mar 2010, 21:19
-
If the compiler is Bax, then why does he drop in quite explicit hints that the letters' dates have been tampered with and that Bax may be lying about how he obtained the house etc.…
27 Mar 2010, 14:57
-
The hound of horror would be very checkable, especially if the archives really do bristle with stories.…
27 Mar 2010, 13:48
-
I've not figured that one out either. It's not a body part, and it's apparently square or rectangular, and is likely made out of wood or metal, since paper wouldn't stand being wet…
24 Mar 2010, 19:50
-
OK; I'll reiterate - how could Bax have planned the inheritance, the various events that made George willing to come, George's offer, the two pistols, Faerie, and the independent c…
23 Mar 2010, 22:53
-
According to the message from George, they both make a will in favor of each other. Bax has a good reason to want to replace George and not just kill him: there will be zero questi…
23 Mar 2010, 21:21
-
On pg 238, I had took that as the metaphorical use of 'hand-holding': Millie was in the middle of saying how her grades were terrible except for that professor helping her out.…
23 Mar 2010, 16:10
-
John C. Wright: http://johncwright.livejournal.com/322189.html "Between the time I wrote the original post at 4.00 AM and now at 10.00, I have reached page 33. Thoughts so far: Mi…
23 Mar 2010, 13:21
-
Re-reading it, the last letter becomes ever more obvious: the style is like Bax, the few hours in faerie he mentions is like Bax, the signoff is like Bax, the sudden turn-around in…
23 Mar 2010, 13:01
-
I would point out that all the entries in Google Books are either not available or cut you off at roughly half the contents - usually around 150-200 pages, I'd guess, based on how …
22 Mar 2010, 19:19
-
A list of online reviews I've seen thus far: - http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/121553-the-sorcerers-house-by-gene-wolfe/ - http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view…
21 Mar 2010, 14:55
-
I did notice Wolfe explained more of the onomastics than usual. I wonder how much we could possibly deduce about Goldwurm. We aren't told a heck of a lot, after all. Here's one o…
20 Mar 2010, 03:46
-
I'm not sure. I just set it down, and while it's more readable than _Fifth Head of Cerberus_ or _Peace_ or _An Evil Guest_, I don't know whether I enjoyed it or not. I kept waiting…
19 Mar 2010, 21:27
-
Well, even if we take Cassie at her word - I knew a woman who was in her 40s for an awful long time - we can do better than that; the cop who picks up Cassie guesses (pg 29) 'Forty…
17 Mar 2010, 16:25
-
That'll teach me to go with Super Saver shipping on my preorders - it's not predicted to arrive until the 23rd!…
16 Mar 2010, 19:24
-
But this isn't really magic, and in magic payment is usually to 'outside' entities; the powers are like a loan. Cassie isn't borrowing anything from anyone; the star power, as Gide…
15 Mar 2010, 20:22
-
Working off the wiki page summarizing the various bits of evidence that Margaret is a major player: http://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=AnEvilGuest.MysteriousMargaret As …
15 Mar 2010, 13:10
-
Checking the PDF leads me to http://www.revolutionsf.com/fiction/eastersunday/01.html Which definitely puts itself forth as by Gene Wolfe. The style is similar, but the twist stri…
08 Mar 2010, 01:00
-
Dan Simmons, in the introduction to the first story in _Prayers to Broken Stones_, tells a funny story about Harlan Ellison wherein he gives much the same advice.…
05 Mar 2010, 21:22
-
While searching for something entirely else, I ran into http://bearsite.info/General/Library_of_Science_Fiction_and_Fantasy/Wolfe,%20Gene/ It's an eclectic but large collection of…
04 Mar 2010, 19:19
-
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/wolfegene.html#house "The Sorceror's House is a beautifully subtle new novel by master fantasy and SF author Gene Wolfe. The novel's protagonist is…
01 Mar 2010, 23:44
-
I wonder about that. Allegories and analogies are treacherous territory. Who is the Angel, then, and what are the pieces running off into the woods? If this story is an allegory o…
24 Feb 2010, 14:52
-
The excerpt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_mEpLK8cWE (linked from http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2010/02/a-2006-video-interview-with-gene-wolfe/ ) The apparent full 3-part in…
17 Feb 2010, 15:14
-
Gah! What kills me is that I know Gene probably only has a decade or two more at most (if he was born in 1931 that puts him at ~79), which means that time is short if I ever want t…
04 Feb 2010, 17:29
-
"Gaiman got his start as a journalist-for-hire, in England. He didn’t go to college. His first book was a Duran Duran biography he finished in three months, using a clip file from …
18 Jan 2010, 14:53
-
http://www.penny-arcade.com/2010/1/13/ It's funny because the insult is 'dog'. But it's also worth noting that the link is to Wikipedia. Since penny-arcade.com records a few hund…
13 Jan 2010, 13:10
-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.php?title=Gene_Wolfe&curid7426&diff36438974&oldid36408664 Has anyone ever seen Wolfe & Tolkien's correspondence?…
12 Jan 2010, 14:22
-
This is my interpretation. 1. Baden gets sick in Uganda, and becomes an impediment and danger to all the other Agency workers doing good useful work there. 2. The agency doesn't w…
08 Jan 2010, 19:22
-
It's pity because she knows he doesn't deserve the job but he's getting it for old time's sake. Like nepotism. It's not pity like sending a man off to die. When one does that, one …
07 Jan 2010, 00:13
-
OK then. But we're not given any feeling like 'go there, stay, and shut up'. We really are given the feeling of a not-so-efficient aid agency pensioning off a worker in a cheap is…
06 Jan 2010, 13:39
-
I thought that too, but that suggests a different sequence, in which the president offers to legalize it and split the proceeds with Reis. Given all the uses of gold transmutation …
06 Jan 2010, 01:00
-
Another thing that bothers me about AEG is the initial premise. Why does the USG want to hunt down Reis? Gold, it's insinuated, is the reason. Why is creating gold a problem? I su…
05 Jan 2010, 02:20
-
Which would be? Woldercon? The intuitive arguments are for exactly the opposite: if your lifespan is indefinitely long, you jeopardize indefinitely many years with violence or ris…
04 Jan 2010, 21:19
-
On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 11:24 AM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote: ... Ah, but why should we assume that she's much older? If we can accept Cassie's musing that Cassie is m…
04 Jan 2010, 20:52
-
I forgot to include this in my tone email, but another thing that bothered me coming from an engineer is the apparent sloppiness with his scientific assertions. Reis claims that e…
04 Jan 2010, 16:07
-
Re-reading the passage, it mentions *photographs* of Pavlatos. Going by the same logic, this is even more damning. Portraits are very easily faked or altered, but photos take effor…
04 Jan 2010, 15:23
-
... I'll take it by 'Casey' you mean 'Cassie'. I had the same thought too (not sure whether I glanced over some Urth emails that primed me to it), but I ultimately rejected it. W…
04 Jan 2010, 13:52
-
So I've finally read it, and it was very interesting. The depth, if it is there (I'm not yet convinced), is much better hidden than in _Peace_ or _Fifth Head of Cerberus_ where hal…
04 Jan 2010, 06:32
-
Seconded. Reading through, the very first time, even before the rumbling was mentioned, I thought, 'Didn't I read a story with that already?' I didn't even need to look up Doctorow…
04 Jan 2010, 05:50
-
On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 4:42 AM, Mr Thalassocrat <thalassocrat08 at gmail.com> wrote: ... I favor the Squiddies. We are told that they are arrogant, they are loners and outcasts, …
04 Jan 2010, 05:50
-
I'm still catching up, since I *just* got it and read it, but it is without a doubt an ATF reference. There's even a Waco allusion in there!* * If I'm not reading too much into th…
04 Jan 2010, 05:50
-
An old but interesting posting: http://iansales.com/2008/09/21/new-sun-old-sf/ "I should add that I didn’t like The Book of the New Sun because it’s a classic. I still think it’s …
28 Dec 2009, 23:38
-
Fortunately, that's not quite it - even Borges's Library of Babel doesn't contain itself. (Something of a contradiction.) What I think you're referring to: "There is …
23 Nov 2009, 17:45
-
Well, besides all the many gobsmackingly obvious parallels, I believe Wolfe in interviews has said as much (I'm sure I've read him say Ultan=Borges in some of the interviews in _Sh…
23 Nov 2009, 16:11
-
It would be nice, but it's hard to do. I mean, if I were reading through _Shadow_ again and I saw the Kafka ref, I wouldn't say 'hm, I wonder if that's on THE LIST already; I'd bet…
22 Nov 2009, 02:49
-
Well, Vodalus isn't really a rebel, and she's only associated with her sister, but anyway; that seems like a possible reason, but that's terrible - the method of execution chosen f…
21 Nov 2009, 22:03
-
I was reading Thomas Metzinger's _The Ego Tunnel_, and he mentioned that there was a disorder called 'alien hand syndrome' where one hand attacks the rest of the body or pursues se…
21 Nov 2009, 17:24
-
I'm amused that you find cloud nines - basic physics & geometry - to be less mundane than magical invisible water conjured by wizards!…
11 Nov 2009, 23:30
-
I think it's pretty decent, and not too long. The language is sometimes a bit affected where I suspect Wolf would've been terser. eg. I feel Wolfe might've written 'But I find I am…
11 Nov 2009, 01:01
-
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091108215604AAFwQWS I don't know whether to be more chagrined or amused at him. (I thought of resurrecting my Yahoo account and telli…
09 Nov 2009, 23:59
Urth Net