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A review by our editing department has determined it was Marc Aramini. I apologize. J.…
24 May 2011, 21:54
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As I read this story, its the other way around. The translators have erred in reading reference such as "Mt Olympus" or such in the myths as metaphorical language referring to ot…
24 May 2011, 16:18
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If one isn't _quite_ familiar with the Bible, then the last 1800 years of history and literature will be viewed through a fog. 150 years ago, any school girl could discuss obscur…
24 May 2011, 16:12
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Acts gives both names. Of course, the names Wolfe selects do not always have an obvious purpose to them. So it's understandable that even a "bible thumper", as Antonio calls peo…
24 May 2011, 13:10
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????? Are you winding me up, Antonio? Almost all of Part II and all of Part III are lifted out of The Jungle Book and has zero relation to the life Romulus. Part IV has parallels …
23 May 2011, 22:23
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Confirmation bias. It doesn't fit with what I expected, therefore it is invisible. J.…
23 May 2011, 22:06
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Erase the names and colors? Shall I also leave out the names of Juno, Rhea Silvia, and Mars? And all the "color" that is similar to the life of Romulus? Get real. Expanding on An…
23 May 2011, 22:05
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Why do you not say that this is the story of Mowgli with a few details of Romulus thrown in? The name "Mowgli" actually _means_ 'frog', and there are at least as many parallels a…
23 May 2011, 21:36
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Well, it means that Ymar is of some sort of royal stock. That like Severian, he has a twin (probably fraternal). Since he is being raised by the Torturers it is clear that he has…
23 May 2011, 19:56
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And yet I think Wolfe created Severian to appeal to that sort of audience. He has said repeatedly that initial seed to Severian was that he wanted a character fans could easily c…
23 May 2011, 19:05
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The flower used by Juno to conceive Mars is unidentified. Robert Graves posited that it was the "whitethorn" -- a type of European hawthorn with medicinal uses that Graves assert…
23 May 2011, 19:00
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Additionally, check out the story "The Tree is My Hat". It takes place on Cassie's island. (that's what Wolfe called it).…
23 May 2011, 18:30
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Interesting. This is the same way I say "The Story of Frog" should be read and "The Story of the Student and His Son". But because the "answer" hasn't been provided, people contin…
23 May 2011, 18:17
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Spring Wind is Hercules? You justify this with supposed comparisons to *Zeus* rather than Hercules? And you have a problem with flimsy evidence? My evidence is based on the clear…
23 May 2011, 18:12
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Right. "NOT likely".…
23 May 2011, 16:15
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Exactly. But the significance of that back-story strikes me as something unique to Wolfe. That Weer is dead (and not dying and crazy). That Sandwalker is a Shadow Child, and the…
23 May 2011, 16:06
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Jason, I rather than a response, I recommend to you this essay as a starting place: http://www.irosf.com/q/zine/article/10536 Wolfe seems to deliberately write his stories with mu…
23 May 2011, 15:29
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This is true of all history. That, I think, is a lesson we are expected to learn from Wolfe's first person-narrative fiction. J…
23 May 2011, 15:13
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The Gospels and Suetonius are history. Their numbers were not selected by an author unless it was God. There's the difference. J.…
23 May 2011, 03:14
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Why call Juno, Rhea Silvia, and Mars by direct cognates and call Romulus and Remus by Frog and Fish? There's no "Fish" in the "Jungle Book". I think it is an easy call that Ymar …
23 May 2011, 03:09
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Well, my objection is this. It seems to me we agree that the term "megatherian" is *related* to the giant alien powers--because Abaia is called a "Great Beast". The only doubt i…
23 May 2011, 02:54
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Reading Wolfe is a very particular skill. I never recommend "The Book of the New Sun" as anyone's first Wolfe novel, but his other stuff is not much easier. It's just that their …
21 May 2011, 23:59
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Yeah, but I get that its aesthetic. It's just that it still leaves open the question "Why 17?" "Who did they rule?" We at least know something of monstrous undersea rulers. A ref…
21 May 2011, 05:36
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No. In the Commonwealth they call them "great beasts". Um...It's tougher than recognizing the Silver Surfer as Jesus or the Soviet Union in 'Animal Farm', but not that terribly h…
21 May 2011, 04:54
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I think it was this that sort of irked me: So should we assume that "The Lives of the 17 Megatherians" refers to 17 very famous giant sloths? Here's the deal: 1) Abaia is calle…
20 May 2011, 22:32
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Gerry, I think your responses to Lee's points were argumentative without touching on the point he is making. The point is: Why are there 17? Why did the Ascians choose to have 1…
20 May 2011, 19:38
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Sergei, This one went through. urth at lists.urth.net is the right one. However, if you use multiple accounts make sure you are SENDING use the account you used to subscribe to …
20 May 2011, 17:36
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Somehow I think an Ascian book is more likely to be a book of political history. Even if there are only four at Severian's Time (which is not required although I like it for reas…
19 May 2011, 22:50
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Not for *some* followers of Abaia (I extrapolate that all of them saw it that way). In "Urth of the New Sun", Severian meets sailors--followers of Abaia--who oppose Severian as t…
19 May 2011, 20:55
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The caloyer says in _Claw_ in his prayer to the Increate : "You, the hero who will destroy the black worm that devours the sun; you for whom the sky parts as a curtain; you whose …
17 May 2011, 20:11
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Yeah. And if we had negative energy and negative mass, we'd probably be going backwards in Time anyway. J.…
13 May 2011, 19:56
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I don't see why this seems unimaginable. The vibration rate of a quartz crystal is no less random a time-keeping sequence than the cycle of the Urth around Sol. A sun-dial that m…
13 May 2011, 19:18
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I don't think that is what Sev is saying. He is saying "Although Gurloes sent me, my training is PRIMARILY received by Palaemon...but not entirely. I consider myself Palaemon's a…
13 May 2011, 19:11
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/13/gene-wolfe-hero-neil-gaiman-sf…
13 May 2011, 15:22
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For the same reason, I always thought the problem was with "us apprentices". But this is really a style issue rather than a grammatical one. Perhaps it was a pet-peeve of style g…
13 May 2011, 14:23
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Sure they do. It's the yearly cycle of the sun. And that cycle (and fractions of it) can be used to synchronize anything. But I got the idea somewhere that the actual mathematics…
12 May 2011, 20:35
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I understood that only traveling @Lightspeed that was contrary to relativity and that that was the problem wormholes were supposed to circumvent? Unless space-time is determinis…
12 May 2011, 18:32
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I would think you could. Any regular tick-tock could analogize a time using a different synch. It would be incredibly complex though since a day somewhere else would be represent…
12 May 2011, 17:59
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I can't find anything determinate on this. Does anyone else? I've missed this particular question being discussed. Lee thinks they are working in concert and others wonder how a …
12 May 2011, 17:51
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The Dying EARTH of course... heh heh…
10 May 2011, 18:58
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Pleasure I get from The Dying Urth stories is the irony and subtle humor. It's the way that whenever Cugel is about to be outsmarted, he refers to himself as "Cugel the Clever". I…
10 May 2011, 15:59
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All *comprehensible* art is derivative. Language is metaphor and metaphor is by definition derivative. Irony is derivative. Homage is derivative. Response is derivative. Humor i…
10 May 2011, 14:48
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Actually, that was to Sergei.…
06 May 2011, 15:03
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Mo, That's interesting observation. What specific ideas did you find unconvincing? Have you seen the movie "The Lives of Others"? The only thing that *might* be unconvincing to …
06 May 2011, 15:01
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Wolfe, Vance, and CS Lewis are genre-busters. They need a category for themselves. I suppose Burroughs' Mars stories would go there. Maybe some of Bradbury's stuff. The new Docto…
02 May 2011, 21:50
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Ah. Sorry Wes Craven. Brain-fart. As for the lasers...well, I just liked the way it sounded. (Incidentally, the ST movie didn't use lasers either as far as I remember). J.…
01 May 2011, 19:01
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Okay. But starting from Wolfe's view of Realism vs SF, was there actual value in telling it as a SF story? I'm not planting a flag. I'm just exploring Wolfe's argument. Personal…
01 May 2011, 05:11
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"Lasars" was only intended as a cipher for a SF. "ST" is at its core a fictionalized military service memoir. Honestly, I was only attempting to consider SF literature from the PO…
01 May 2011, 04:11
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I think Wolfe's problem with it was that there was no reason not to have written the story in the Realistic genre. It was a Naturalism story with SF scenery. Pointless. It didn't…
01 May 2011, 00:15
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Well, I understand that Wolfe is saying, among other things, that Naturalism and Realism address solely what *is* as opposed to What Might Have Been and therefore cannot state au…
29 Apr 2011, 22:43
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