-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
Ah! Then perhaps the culture of Gaon is Napalese. J.…
17 Apr 2009, 16:40
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
eh...okay. I think I'm technically right, but I'll conform to avoid antagonizing the list. J.…
16 Apr 2009, 22:19
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
"...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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
The man is in his 80s. If he plans to mellow, he'd better get on with it. :-) J.…
30 Mar 2009, 16:53
-
Of course, the following quotation is Enamel's although it looks like it is mine: --------------------------------------------------…
27 Mar 2009, 20:29
-
Disiri? Lara Morgan? Nettle? Hyacinth? Also, in a Wolfe novel, romantic love is an Earthly sacrament for the love of Something Higher. It's actually a far more developed view of lo…
27 Mar 2009, 20:24
-
That is sooo like the secret of the inhumi!…
26 Mar 2009, 21:58
-
Inhumi can only give birth and rear their young on Green. True. But it is merely a twisted *human* form of civilization. I think they are capable of surviving by feeding on non-h…
26 Mar 2009, 21:55
-
I don't think this resolution is exactly what Horn suggested; however, it is only a formula for bankruptcy if one of the following is true: A.) The leaders of a government cannot…
26 Mar 2009, 20:03
-
I find no support for this. If he grows, I don't see it occurring through his sexual relationships. Possibly, he has (if he has) through other events and by managing to focus les…
25 Mar 2009, 16:22
-
Wolfe doesn't typically set his scenes in "naturalistic" settings so I think you are comparing things that don't map. For example, while the sexual relationship between the chara…
24 Mar 2009, 14:10
-
In the LS the Outsider is an actual character who goes on quite a bit about his relationship to the Whorl gods and his intentions. That's what I was referring to. He's almost as …
23 Mar 2009, 19:26
-
Even in places like Hawaii or the Amazon rain forests, making a living is apparently a very specialized trick. Lots of people stranded in the Amazon have perished unnaturally--prob…
23 Mar 2009, 02:45
-
I'd say it is exactly the issue of identity in the books and I don't suppose we're going come to a meeting of the minds on this. To the extent that Rose becomes Marble, Sinew becom…
22 Mar 2009, 23:18
-
Well, there are doubters about almost everything in a Wolfe novel, isn't there? But there's a scene where Jahlee comes into a bar after feeding on a drunk victim. The Raja hears he…
22 Mar 2009, 22:32
-
Incidentally, the SS Wolfe does a capital job of illustrating how complex successful sustainable farming is. J.…
22 Mar 2009, 22:26
-
Of course they would not last a month as farmers. They would have to beg their way into the indigenous tribes and learn to be hunter gatherers in order to survive. Anyone who wan…
22 Mar 2009, 21:37
-
In some way that I haven't got my mind around, the Neighbors are trees on Blue and the Inhumi are vines. The story talks about the vines being the brides of the trees IIRC and th…
22 Mar 2009, 21:16
-
Here there be spoilers. The thing about the unresolved questions in Wolfe's stories is that even though he does not always leave a decent trail of breadcrumbs that someone can a…
21 Mar 2009, 20:56
-
Well, Witz. They didn't really explain any of the big mysteries here except one: "Did the writers have any idea what were the answers to the puzzles and weirdo-visions they've b…
21 Mar 2009, 14:42
Urth Net