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Incus? Why so? I say Tussah. Possibly Horn.…
21 Dec 2010, 11:35
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I don't deny that Tussah is Silk's adopted father, but there were reasons that he adopted him. Yes, he bought the embryo for an enormous sum. Remora says he knew he was buying so…
20 Dec 2010, 20:32
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1) It was pretty well proven to me that the mausoleum the Rajan and Cilinia visit was not Severian's (which strikes me as odd). Wolfe might have made errors describing the tomb, …
20 Dec 2010, 19:41
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The Pas and Kypris are restricted to being inside the Whorl. If they are The Outsider that Silk encounters, then there is nothing Outsiderish about Him. Well, I hope this doesn'…
20 Dec 2010, 19:27
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Yeah, Marc and I (rightly) recognize certain clues _as clues_ that are generally ignored entirely. But from there we radically and irreconcilably diverge. Marc at least DOES try …
20 Dec 2010, 18:18
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did NOT…
20 Dec 2010, 17:35
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Marc hasn't received any push-back on his "Pas/Kypris=Outsider" theory so I figure I'll provide some. The fundamental characteristic of the Outsider from Silk's POV is that He i…
20 Dec 2010, 17:18
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Isn't it that the man believes that the corn seeds are being extorted from him? u+16b9…
20 Dec 2010, 04:01
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I wouldn't want anyone to miss the subversiveness of Marc's theory. He's saying the Outsider is actually Typhon and Kypris manipulating him. u+16b9…
19 Dec 2010, 15:19
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"Literal-mindedness" and a lack of skepticism about Genesis is not really a small minority among _observant_ Christians, Jews, or Muslims in my experience, including observant Ca…
19 Dec 2010, 02:58
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I'm probably just old-fashioned --a meat and potatoes SF guy-- but I find it really unappealing that Neil Armstrong is not in Severian's chronological past. Part of the fun of th…
17 Dec 2010, 21:06
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Hmm...no. Do you recommend it? But _An Evil Guest_ folded in Doctorow's mountain and washing machine married couple from _Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves_ and --while the c…
17 Dec 2010, 16:55
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Apparently it refers to People of Faith who fled towns for unpopulated areas during persecution. u+16b0…
16 Dec 2010, 23:00
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I took Matthew's post to be speaking from the POV of a Christian theology to the exclusion of others. Albeit, it must be admitted that his characterization was originally defined…
16 Dec 2010, 22:56
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There's another possibility I've mentioned before. And IF I were inclined to justify tBotNS with Christian theology I would prefer it. I don't, but I would. Since the cycles of …
16 Dec 2010, 20:32
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He laughed unctuously.…
16 Dec 2010, 19:37
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A very, very Jesus-like character. Complete with driving out money-changers with a whip, being equivalent with God**, and being nailed to a cross (scaffolding). Such a Jesus wit…
16 Dec 2010, 19:04
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No Adam and Eve. No Cain & Able. No Garden. No Fall. No world-wide flood. No Babel. No "first born" in Genesis, although one could argue that there are in the Koran. And while th…
16 Dec 2010, 18:42
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I think the Cambridge lit professor had a point. IIRC he said that an allegory is a story with a series of locks, each with a key. He used Pilgrim's Progress as an example and Pi…
16 Dec 2010, 18:07
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Although Narnia was more tightly allusive than Middle Earth, Lewis emphatically rejected the label "allegory" for it. He compared it to a stew with lots of different familiar fla…
16 Dec 2010, 17:50
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Ehh...The creation story in Silmarillion simply does not jive with Genesis. I don't see how all the hammers and grease in Mordor could wedge it in. While there's nothing _hostil…
16 Dec 2010, 17:41
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I'm imagining a giant fort we built when I was 10.…
16 Dec 2010, 14:31
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You know, just because someone has beliefs does not mean that the fictional worlds they create need to be in line with those beliefs. Fundamentally, The Book of the New Sun is fa…
16 Dec 2010, 11:19
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I wish I didn't know this about the term "sci-fi". Knowing someone might be very, very offended at the use of the word "sci-fi", it will be very hard for me to avoid using the te…
15 Dec 2010, 23:34
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The more I consider it, the better I like the biohazard symbol as a candidate. It has tentacles and each one has a small pair of horns on top. u+16b9…
15 Dec 2010, 19:02
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I'm guessing you meant L. Frank Baum's tin (woods)man. Although, Frank R. Stockton's fantasy stories hit the same willing synapses as Baum.…
15 Dec 2010, 14:36
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Beast fits.…
14 Dec 2010, 19:40
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It is true that just because Jonas recognizes a drop-down ceiling, it doesn't mean it is a ship. Presumably, he's seen plenty of drop-down ceilings under lots of other circumstan…
14 Dec 2010, 03:25
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What if they don't use paint? What if the colors are burned on with radiation? What if they apply crystallization?…
14 Dec 2010, 02:12
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I'm a Buckeye too and I'd never heard the term pike or northern as a child. But after looking at wikipedia page on this, I had heard of a gator or jackfish (but then I didn't fis…
13 Dec 2010, 22:51
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Another example of how one can live in their own world and think it is universal. Probably, it came easy to me because it is also so unnatural for me to associate "pike" with fis…
13 Dec 2010, 21:18
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Only in the second movement.…
13 Dec 2010, 19:33
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Yeah, I'm beginning to realize that often my "explanations" sound to normal people like one of Auk's brain-damaged sermons---channeling voices from blind gods. But sometimes it w…
13 Dec 2010, 19:19
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Your central point is taken that there are known knowns. But, technically Triskele might be /merely/ an alien creature that is analogous to dogs. If you saw it, you might prefer …
13 Dec 2010, 19:13
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Jerry, Perhaps you are asking yourself "If that is the intended connection, shouldn't Blood have had a twin whose name is associated with water?" That's what I thought too as I …
13 Dec 2010, 18:38
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The spear that pierced Christ's side. What can I say? That's just the way I'm wired, I guess. I even thought the reference was obvious when I wrote it this morning. Clearly, I'm …
13 Dec 2010, 17:28
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There _are_ universal truths. Some questions are unanswerable because Wolfe didn't think of them while writing. But there are single answers to many open questions. But, I affirm…
13 Dec 2010, 16:36
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No. It's only in the novel. It's when Jack looks at the sun shining in the windows of the hotel and has an epiphany that everything his son has been saying about the place is tru…
13 Dec 2010, 15:36
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Off the subject, you know, I can't ever remember being confused about Blood's father. I was really surprised to learn it was a matter of dispute. I'm not bragging. I mean, I migh…
13 Dec 2010, 14:02
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Interesting theory. It seems to me the consensus has been that Jonas came from the Tzadkiel ship. If that's true and Jonas recognizes the ship, wouldn't it suggest that House Abs…
11 Dec 2010, 20:31
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Well, Milton didn't invent Lucifer. I don't know exactly when Isaiah 14:12 was first linked to Satan/the Devil but it goes back at least to St. Jerome. And the Gospels use Satan …
11 Dec 2010, 01:03
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Properly, Silk BECAME Odin, just as Horn became Silk. u+16b9…
11 Dec 2010, 00:51
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From Cecil Adams: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1173/why-is-a-raven-like-a-writing-desk Lewis Carroll himself got bugged about this so much that he was moved to write …
11 Dec 2010, 00:47
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Sorry. Didn't mean to whine.…
10 Dec 2010, 04:19
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There's a real leap. That's about as obscure as identifying Cain and Able as the children of Eve. Or Mary as the mother of Jesus. Or Romulus as the child of Rhea Silvia. Umm....…
09 Dec 2010, 23:08
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What I meant was that *for purposes of literary allusion*, all that mattered to Wolfe is that Dionysus is called "the god of the vine". Yet, the term "liana" was still deftly cho…
09 Dec 2010, 22:05
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I don't know about this. A thesis is usually a written paper arguing a point, not a person fighting Ogres. I apologize without regret for the snark, Andrew, but this makes it cl…
09 Dec 2010, 20:37
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You know, these objections *might* possibly carry more weight with me if BEFORE I read The Book of the Short Sun, I had NOT noted that Quetzal tracked nicely with Dionysus and ar…
09 Dec 2010, 20:31
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This is actually pretty perceptive (no pun intended), although it isn't the *quite* the way I learned it. The Myers-Briggs website puts it this way: "...when it comes to dealing …
09 Dec 2010, 02:48
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So...we agree that he's is the god of the "vine", not just grape vines. I do not believe specific species of vines mattered to Wolfe for this association one little bit. Dionysus …
08 Dec 2010, 23:34
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