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Well, the meaning of terms is formed entirely by the context and the era it is used. The Reformation and Reaction was all about the meaning of those terms. For example, I could …
18 Dec 2009, 19:11
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And here we go... Well, then we have to ask who is saying it? For quite a long time the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic churches considered each other heretics, excommun…
18 Dec 2009, 18:41
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Now you sound like a Puritan. :-D…
18 Dec 2009, 18:01
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....And so Josh got the Christmas party started at the Urth List.…
18 Dec 2009, 17:53
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Well, everyone says he's dead before the cast party at the beginning of the book. And he did seem scared when he delivered the message to Cassie. J.…
03 Dec 2009, 13:17
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Although Margaret might be involved in the assault on Chase and there is a good chance that she is working for Reis (she arrived late at Cassie's apartment after the attack), I f…
30 Nov 2009, 14:17
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I now think this is absolutely true, and it is quite likely that Sharon knew it. Sharon says that the boy Chase healed was "a little piece of the man [his mother] loved and lost…
25 Nov 2009, 14:58
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E.U.-style member of the World Government) is well aware of the Storm King. They sent the protagonist there as a kind of ambassador. J.…
24 Nov 2009, 15:35
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Look, I'm not saying Wolfe hasn't read Borges, nor even that he doesn't like him. Nor that he hasn't drawn from The Book of Imaginary Beings. I know he has (even though he has ap…
24 Nov 2009, 04:03
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Well, that certainly settles where he got the name, although how it relates to Wolfe's constantly growing giant is still a mystery to me. And also Borges was a blind librarian of…
23 Nov 2009, 17:17
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Mine is translated by George Schultz-Behrend and published by Bobbs-Merrill "Library of Liberal Arts". Yellow paperback. Red titling. HOWEVER, because the translator believed cha…
23 Nov 2009, 16:23
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I've always thought the Borges=Ultan theory was tenuous. Not impossible, just not much supporting it beyond Utlan's blindness. Borges is a great writer, but other than "The Book …
23 Nov 2009, 14:00
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Looks like Ashley might have a worm. On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 4:51 AM, Ashley Crill <ash_crill at hotmail.com> wrote: Dear friend, How are you doing recently? I found a good websi…
18 Nov 2009, 17:52
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...and if you *can* buy it there, then you can probably be fortunate enough to get it signed by the author if you really want to. I certainly prize my signed copies of Lexicon Urth…
16 Nov 2009, 11:25
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I think someone probably asks Wolfe about this at every panel, but I recall it was asked last year at WindyCon. Wolfe said he would not mind doing another sequel but he's getting o…
16 Nov 2009, 11:15
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http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/cambyses-army-remains-sahara.html "Bones, jewelry and weapons found in Egyptian desert may be the remains of Cambyses' army that vanished 2,5…
12 Nov 2009, 17:21
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WindyCon starts tomorrow. The following are the panels Gene Wolfe is supposed to participate on. If anyone is going, I'm particularly interested in what is said at the Friday 5pm p…
12 Nov 2009, 14:26
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Well, honestly, the part about being a bad story-teller is true of Severian, as well (to the extent that it IS true). The Book of the New Sun was the first Wolfe story I'd read. …
10 Nov 2009, 02:18
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Furthermore, if Sharon Bench knows Ms Pavlatos, is it believable she would not say "Hey! Cassie looks almost just like Pavlatos"? I mean, Ms Pavlatos cannot be Cassie at more tha…
08 Oct 2009, 23:53
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What I know. What I know I don't know. What I think I might know. Perhaps this seems like basic stuff to everyone else, but I've had to reconsider what I thought to be the plot t…
08 Oct 2009, 23:51
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Well, I want there to be an element of time-travel, because I want the time differential between Earth and Woldercan to factor in. But, realistically, there is *barely* more disc…
01 Oct 2009, 18:12
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I do like the explanation of time-travel for Pavlatos-as-Cassie--because of the her opportune rescue and no other reason. However, Time travel does not explain why one of the Bil…
30 Sep 2009, 15:01
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Hmmm...."forty plus, and starting to get fat. The thick, round lenses of his glasses"... This does not make me think of Jack Valenti. But it did call to mind Karl Rove. Not a one…
30 Sep 2009, 14:50
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I'm going to hypothesize that the reason "werewolf" has the extra "e" is because the pronunciation requirements for an Old English speaker to say the "ehr" sound in front of a "…
25 Sep 2009, 18:39
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Tut-tut. I suppose Edith Hamilton invented mythology. And Young Adult Fiction began with Barnes & Noble labeling a section by that name in their stores. J.…
22 Sep 2009, 17:05
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If Wolfe intended this in his reference to the Woldercon of Dr. Lao, then I would presume that he intended it as a place like St. Anne, where being copied by native was a genuine…
21 Sep 2009, 16:01
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Yeah, and then Gid healed himself. I entertained this thought for two seconds until I considered that Chase and Cassie "did it". Ew. I know Sev did it with his granma, but a line…
17 Sep 2009, 14:07
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That's an interesting take. But the hops could be gravitationally influenced. As one leaves the solar system and then the galaxy, the hops lengthen exponentially or as a ratio of…
16 Sep 2009, 15:37
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Aside from the mess, it would make hash of any timeline of ambassadors. If significant time-travel can be caused just by going to Woldercan, then Chase and Reis might well have ret…
16 Sep 2009, 11:17
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Which is another potential resolution to Cassie going to Woldercan to find Reis. This sounds a lot like the planet St. Anne where a kind of fairie race copies the human populatio…
15 Sep 2009, 14:21
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I don't think it's a caricature but it's pretty obviously inspired by G.W. Bush. Since it's a NY publication, perhaps Schweitzer thought he was doing the book a favor not to high…
15 Sep 2009, 14:01
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Yeah, but almost all Wolfe's novels have epigraphs. It's not typical for him to hang the entire title on one. That still doesn't necessarily mean that the title means anything st…
15 Sep 2009, 12:05
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Lest the minor difference in spelling lead to some confusion, Wolfe pronounces it "Wolder-kahn".…
15 Sep 2009, 01:19
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More questions: Who is the "evil guest"? Gideon Chase is referred to as "the guest" on the first page. He is even characterized in ways that imply he is evil. At least the Presid…
14 Sep 2009, 17:04
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Umm...well, anything is possible, but it would be a pretty vague metaphor in any case. And it would be especially obscure in this case because "love" was not the point of the pan…
14 Sep 2009, 14:35
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[snip] Both of these are examples of me addressing your assertions. They don't involve me psychoanalyzing your motives for offering them. That's an important difference that I g…
14 Sep 2009, 14:07
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I absolutely agree with this. I made no definitive declarations about Reis's death or Chase being the impersonator. The last sentence in my first post on this subject stated "I'm…
11 Sep 2009, 18:04
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Wolfe said that "Shadow of the Torturer" had a really good cover because the publisher didn't expect much from it. As more success was expected from each volume, the art director…
11 Sep 2009, 15:43
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Questions arising as I re-read AEG: [page 13] "On Earth, this guest was known as Gideon Chase" What are his other names? And where is he known by them? He claims to the Presiden…
11 Sep 2009, 15:34
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Well, we'll see. I'm beginning to find the existence of Rian (as an actual son anyway) to be pretty suspect. As we agree, there is a serious problem with his failure to make an a…
10 Sep 2009, 21:11
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[snip] Making yourself look bigger and making yourself smaller are not the same problem. Nor is glamour the same as shape-shifting. I don't see how this is going to be key to …
10 Sep 2009, 13:30
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Roy says: I haven't started re-reading so I don't know if anyone mentioned whether the Gideon Chase who went to Woldercon had one or two legs. Few people knew he had lost it. Y…
10 Sep 2009, 01:09
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Wolfe said: I said: Allan Anderson said: I'll have to re-read AEG with this in mind, but if Chase is running around disguised as Reise in order to earn his gold and to get clos…
09 Sep 2009, 16:41
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Look, maybe this has already been said, but don't recall it. I thought I'd surely get a reaction on this quote so I'm going up the ante. For reasons, that would be compelling onl…
09 Sep 2009, 14:40
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I just remembered this. Somehow a questioner addressed Wolfe's politics. This is what he said: "The form of government I favor is Democracy, which means "Rule by the People". Am…
08 Sep 2009, 21:59
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Hmm...this posted weird on the Urth site so here's a more readable one: This is the first time I've been to Dragon*Con and I found it pretty daunting. The majority of the events…
08 Sep 2009, 21:49
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This is the first time I've been to Dragon*Con and I found it pretty daunting. The majority of the events were spread over 3 large hotels, with 3 to 7 floors each. Most administrat…
08 Sep 2009, 21:42
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Interesting. After a quick scan of a variety of his books, I think he does it very rarely if at all. He seems to use far fewer infinitives than I do and seems to avoid the inclin…
31 Jul 2009, 05:43
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Sorry for maligning Lowth without checking whether it was so. Based on the other works cited in the wiki article, it appears that some 19th cen. stylists believed that it was mer…
29 Jul 2009, 18:56
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You mean where Severian says he doesn't forget anything? I'm not trying to be dense. I just want verification before I proceed. Surely that is the most universally recognized opi…
29 Jul 2009, 15:43
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