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Well, I'm really only referring to this one work as libertarian/liberal propaganda. When I said "Wat/Robin Hood is an interesting exemplar of the corrupting nature of socialism",…
19 May 2009, 14:52
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I use the term "propaganda" to mean "the attempt to persuade at the non-rational level". It has a bad rap because it is typically so inartfully done. The idea is to have the audi…
19 May 2009, 03:41
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This is answer that socialist economics gives to libertarian/liberal economics. The libertarian/liberal position is that governments do all sorts of things that are not ethical. …
18 May 2009, 22:10
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He's unwittingly controlled by evil Mother Cloot, but he's not a psychopath. He's a demagogue. He cleverly pits one group against another to enrich himself and to undermine any coa…
18 May 2009, 09:34
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I emphatically disagree with statement; especially the first half. You might as well say that Wolfe is a friend of cruel, unjust penal systems simply because they occur with regu…
17 May 2009, 03:52
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I do think it's done in a more indirect sense. This novel is "about" many things, but the shadow of economic/social commentary lies long and dark over it. Wolfe starts with a her…
16 May 2009, 19:58
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Look, this is no great work, but it is a very "well-constructed" work; to a degree that it's worth examining for that reason alone. Most people are unaware of the story of the ev…
15 May 2009, 13:31
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It might have got by you at the time but Mother Cloot actually says: "Thigh bones of men. [...] Tell a lie and be a lawyer--tell the truth and be a trull. Murdered by me and their…
14 May 2009, 20:25
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Am I really the only person on this list who's read this book? Really? Okay. Here's what it is (not obvious from the summary on the back of the book). It's a re-telling Robin Hoo…
14 May 2009, 15:36
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Actually, it was a hunting bow. Your out of the game. :-) J.…
13 May 2009, 19:59
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http://www.urth.org/whorlmap/quetzal.htm At the link, above I detailed certain connections between inhumi and angels. Keep in mind that I've barely touched these articles since bef…
08 May 2009, 15:08
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This is something I have been thinking recently. It is common to think of the underwater domes Seawrack has seen as a sign of a world flood. But the dome Horn found might be a si…
05 May 2009, 18:07
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Marc, you know that I greatly appreciate your speculative attitude, but I have significant problems with each of these. 1) There's no suggestion in the text that inhumi can absor…
02 May 2009, 00:45
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To some extent you are right and yet wrong. When Horn's son sees Jahlee during dream-travel, the Rajan admits that she is --in this state-- entirely human. But he warns him that …
29 Apr 2009, 17:27
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Well, there are references to the trees and vines being at war with each other. So it implies that inhumi-as-vines are not inactive. And if they *were* inactive as vines why woul…
29 Apr 2009, 13:39
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Brian, let's posit that the Neighbors are dryads--that their steady physical form is one of the "sleepy trees" in the forests of Blue. How do the inhumi make the jump to become v…
28 Apr 2009, 12:04
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No one has ever explained this to my knowledge because I don't think the narrative explains it. Since Marble would presumably not leave Blue without her, a reasonable guess …
24 Apr 2009, 19:18
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According to wikipedia, "gaon" means "village" in Hindi, Marathi (central-east India), Assamese (west India). Is it a term in Nepalese as well? J.…
17 Apr 2009, 18:11
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Well, when I browse through the YA section of my local used bookstore, I see "Wizard of Oz", "Chronicles of Narnia", OS Card's "Ender" series, "Tom Sawyer", the "Harry Potter" se…
17 Apr 2009, 18:07
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Ah! Then perhaps the culture of Gaon is Napalese. J.…
17 Apr 2009, 16:40
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I hereby pick up the gauntlet. ************************** IGJ (HB) pg 122 "Was this you for real Incanto? Were you on Green? By Echidna's babies, I think you were!" I shook my he…
17 Apr 2009, 01:18
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Ehh....<shrug> Ha ha! Don't be silly. Quite the opposite since Oreb *died* when Silk touched him with his Claw. ;-) Could be, I guess, but I don't think so. I believe it was Pas…
17 Apr 2009, 00:52
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Sure. I don't speak Sanskrit. I looked it up (Thanks for that, Mr. Wolfe). Actually, I don' think there IS a modern term "rajan". Rajan is the term from which we get "raja" and …
17 Apr 2009, 00:04
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It is loaded with thematic content. 1) Foremost, it is a rationalization of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--the same and yet distinct. In Augustinian theology, the per…
16 Apr 2009, 22:50
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I don't mind backing down about stuff I don't care much about. In Sanskrit "Raja" is the nominative tense. Just because I'm technically accurate doesn't mean I'm *textually* accu…
16 Apr 2009, 22:42
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eh...okay. I think I'm technically right, but I'll conform to avoid antagonizing the list. J.…
16 Apr 2009, 22:19
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If I understand this properly, "Rajan" is the form of address. "O Rajan, aren't you Silk?" "Raja" is the nominative tense: "The Raja crawled out of the pit. J.…
16 Apr 2009, 21:48
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I meant, "more compelling than those three items." There is one other that I just remembered. The Raja barely eats. He seems to not really need it. He confesses that he fakes eat…
16 Apr 2009, 21:15
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Not yet, but it's on my list of things to do. I'm currently working straight through from FHoC, Peace, Devil in the Forest, etc etc etc. Still, it will be very hard to overcome "…
16 Apr 2009, 21:08
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Well, he's not the same Oreb because he's Scylla. No one else seems to wonder that Oreb was able to die and resurrect himself. It makes me believe that someone was possessing him …
16 Apr 2009, 20:37
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Counting Cats in Zanzibar would receive as little or as much FX as one chose to receive and the story could be told in 15 minutes. The dialog could be converted directly to the a…
16 Apr 2009, 20:27
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I haven't read PF, but I can pretty well guarantee that WK will not end up in the library at any junior high I know about. It's violent and overtly sexual. And it's tone would de…
16 Apr 2009, 18:21
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Well, the older myths are certainly close to the surface in SS, as they are in LS. But for literary references, I recommend you read ER Burrough's "Mars" series and Lan Wright's …
15 Apr 2009, 15:05
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I'm convinced that Wolfe must have had "The Book of the Short Sun" well-plotted before "Nightside of the Long Sun" was published. New Sun was conceived as a single novel. It was…
14 Apr 2009, 16:09
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I think I can explain this feeling. Superman in his own comic has the feeling of a god and savior. However, put him in The Justice League, and he suddenly seems like a project ma…
14 Apr 2009, 16:03
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FWIW I think it was an appropriate question. It seems I'm not the only one who thought so. J.…
14 Apr 2009, 14:37
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I would presume that it would have to be a given in that case that Ouen is a clone too (given his resemblance to Sev), and that Dorcas is Ouen's birth mother and Ouen is likely the…
08 Apr 2009, 15:20
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It connects Severian directly to the magic beans in the Spring Wind story, and identifies him as a clone one of those "children" of Typhon (Spring Wind). He never claimed that U…
08 Apr 2009, 14:35
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Although I realize some people have physical reactions to this sort of thing, a minor extension of Don Dogget's clone theory would provide a narrative (rather than a purely metap…
07 Apr 2009, 14:24
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Hmmm...I searched the archives and nothing about dwarves or barrow wights came up. Anyway, I'll require a lot more convincing. If the catacombs lent out their corpses, I'm not a…
06 Apr 2009, 16:39
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"...and quite suddenly I felt that he and I were dead..." I'm not sure I understand this explanation. At the time of this event, Severian had not eaten any corpse; so, why did he…
05 Apr 2009, 23:47
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IROSFMichael also says something here that drives me bonkers: "With the mysteries laid bare, it becomes apparent that enough clues were provided for such major mysteries to be sol…
03 Apr 2009, 13:41
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If you guys intend to get Brunians to acknowledge that he was out of line, then you are wasting your time. Rather than respond, what he should have done is what he is incapable o…
02 Apr 2009, 20:47
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Essentially it means that the attachment is to the representative system divorced from the representatives themselves. I believe "attachment to" equals "the authority upon which …
02 Apr 2009, 18:01
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You know....the more I think about it, if this were called a Gene Wolfe Convention and were organized as such with all the events and forums and hoopla one expects from such thin…
01 Apr 2009, 19:47
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I don't disagree about any of this, but how would a "groupie fest" not be a tribute to Gene? If people showed up dressed a Severian or Horn or Typhon, could that be anything but …
01 Apr 2009, 19:17
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Or maybe Freddy Krueger's politics. Anyway, it's someone who always comes back. Old farmer Johnson had troubles of his own. He had a yellow cat that wouldn't leave him alone. He…
31 Mar 2009, 12:59
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I doubt it, but you could listen to the interview at the site and just not click the ads. Then you are just leeching their bandwidth; hoisting them on their own petard, so to spe…
30 Mar 2009, 17:27
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The man is in his 80s. If he plans to mellow, he'd better get on with it. :-) J.…
30 Mar 2009, 16:53
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Of course, the following quotation is Enamel's although it looks like it is mine: --------------------------------------------------…
27 Mar 2009, 20:29
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