Posted from 2 addresses as Jeff Wilson, Jeffery Wilson clueland.com, Jeffery Wilson
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Back in ~1980, I believe the isotopic decay source was the only one generally recognized, and it's possible that the metal depletion mentioned in the Book would be of *radioactive*…
08 Sep 2013, 22:07
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Aha! When Severian is struck by the Jailers' weapon, Urth trembles and the curtain wall section falls to match its place in his native time. His survival is attributed to the earth…
07 Sep 2013, 18:52
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There's no reason to think they would have stopped any earlier for natural, gradual reasons. A loose black bean might be involved somehow, but evem if that took effect instantly, i…
07 Sep 2013, 18:31
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I'm not sure if we've discussed it recently, but I believe the tectonic issues are moot because Sev's recognition of constellations from his era being visible over Apu Punchau's pa…
07 Sep 2013, 04:39
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Not the blabberer, the blabberer's gatekeeper. That is, taking a sufficiently persuasive rebuttal to the site editor that he asks the guy to clean up his act. I'm sure you would ag…
07 Sep 2013, 04:26
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I doubt Cook is salvageable, but the site editor might be. He seems willing to defend Cook against "ad hominem" attacks, but a list of quotes obviously referring to the green Lune …
06 Sep 2013, 15:58
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I look forward to the time when I accumulate sufficient years to become infallible as well.…
06 Sep 2013, 07:36
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Perhaps a front of misdirection on the part UK, parallel to their assembly of scale factory mockups to draw Axis bombing attacks away from actual factories during the war.…
24 Aug 2013, 18:25
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I've always taken this to mean his previous time-loop instances, or from earlier drafts of the life-play he finds himself in. I suppose it is natural for him to think of himself as…
02 Aug 2013, 23:34
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He may have read material from periods where the "ka" was treated as a kind of poltergeist or id monster, more suitable for guarding tombs than staffing a brothel.…
02 Aug 2013, 23:30
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I thought part of the conceit was that the translator of BOTNS did not invent any words, but did use obscure ones that had previously been used in English before. Wolfe's said his…
02 Aug 2013, 19:09
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BTW, I cannot find "khaibit" nor "kaibit" at OED.com. If the coffins are connected to the succession of Severians, who or what is in the other two closed coffins?…
01 Aug 2013, 18:33
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It's possible the ancient machine is set to project an eidolon of what the audience expects to appear, so of course an archetypal Katherine is produced when the Brothers are gather…
01 Aug 2013, 01:00
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Here's my shot at making it implode: I meant to write "the torturers' benefit" above, but perhaps the Increate guided my hand. If Holy Katherine *is* an eidolon form Sev's mind, th…
31 Jul 2013, 23:12
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1. Not necessarily, there are any number of still-functional ancient machines around the Citadel and the House Absolute and other places, plus "new" installations overseen by Typho…
31 Jul 2013, 23:03
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Mass is sticky and inert energy, sure, but it makes more thematic sense to me that matter is not native to Yesod but can exist there, since that makes it more spiritual. There alle…
31 Jul 2013, 20:54
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Yes and no; the Yesod-source supposition is true at least some of the time; Apheta explains Yesod is naturally all energy and the only material bodies there are the ones the Yesodi…
31 Jul 2013, 17:42
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Yes, and I believe the the pagan gods in the SOLDIER books are intended to be literally that, as Wolfe has professed his belief in the existence of lesser gods like those recorded …
29 Jul 2013, 18:39
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The girls at the bawdy house called Echopraxia are said to be khaibits, which is supposed to be the Egyptian word for "shadow", and echopraxia is a medical term for the involuntary…
29 Jul 2013, 18:31
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I'm still not seeing why a particular timeline is privileged above the others and made the recipient of their Severians when he keeps dying. Do the other timelines not have Yesodis…
29 Jul 2013, 15:13
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Yes, but.... The Yesodis do seem to have machinery that spans time, and they can use long-forgotten Urth technology across times, like the projection of aquastors and eidolons, b…
26 Jul 2013, 02:40
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Often, both at the same time.…
25 Jul 2013, 22:33
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yes…
21 Jul 2013, 04:20
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Gerry is correct; the other Vodalarii received the memories and loyalty sentiments despite there not being enough brains for everyone each time, nor did they enjoy Sev's wondrous g…
15 Jul 2013, 21:43
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I have to say, it's the apparent literal handwaving of the simian and the patient but not especially comprehending attention of his canine audience that sells it for me. It's also…
17 Jun 2013, 14:23
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In the story, ships travel through a medium that inflicts horrible, almost universally fatal pain that requires frozen passengers to travel under the care of crewmen with nigh-perp…
10 May 2013, 05:48
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The passing of the white fountain causes unprecented tides, earthquakes, and tsunamis, drowning Nessus and the House Absolute before the expanded icecaps have time to melt back int…
09 May 2013, 04:13
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But are the others capital-A Archangels of that most exalted rank, or archangels as in higher than the average angel? Do the additional names of the archangels come with better pro…
08 May 2013, 23:07
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Aside from the New Sun's light illuminating the depths, floods are never permanent, and whenever people survive to view the aftermath of the deluge, they see all sorts of unknown c…
08 May 2013, 20:41
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G, M, and R are scriptural, and Uriel/Ariel is the extrascriptural name usually given to the scriptural Destroryer. .…
08 May 2013, 20:29
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I agree, it might even be made largely of wood! Usually four.…
08 May 2013, 20:14
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I mean any kind of technology that lets them see hidden things. Or it could be both, ultrasound and X-rays have medical uses as well as industrial and spying applications. The Witc…
07 May 2013, 21:49
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Possibly, or the hairless, crippled animals could be the way people appear with some kind of security scanner they are using, similar to the way they look with our recent backscatt…
07 May 2013, 20:38
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Ewwww. The line is, "I freed her breasts, each nearly as large as her own head, and those wide thighs, which seemed to hold a new-hatched chick between them." Chicks can be num…
06 May 2013, 16:15
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I see no paint unless that's a palette in the subject's right hand, but is there a black cat at the top left? And other figurines on the fireplace mantle?…
03 May 2013, 19:42
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I can buy Rudesind being Fechin, or at least having taken Fechin's identity. But I don't recall Fechin being old, and a handsome teenage boy gaining carnal knowledge of a teenage g…
03 May 2013, 19:33
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So Agia and Agilus don't just play dress-up, but do hair and make-up as well? That would explain the elongated eyes...…
01 May 2013, 18:41
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IIRC, we're told only that previous minds that awake inside Severian include some relatively humble people including children and charwomen. They may or may not have been Autarch i…
22 Apr 2013, 19:42
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Remember, he attended an all-white military academy (a figurative if not literal citadel) in the middle of Texas, itself a place where Europeans were injected into the midst of the…
22 Apr 2013, 19:29
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Meh. The servants seem to have no trouble maintaining loyalty to the new Autachs, and it would make the Torturers, Witches, Librarians, and Stewards curious exceptions to the auto-…
21 Apr 2013, 01:56
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Too late, but there's a cave open for you now.…
01 Apr 2013, 22:26
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Planetary year is independent of planetary gravity. The book *was* important to Marsch, it was his journal. If any of the entries are genuine, VRT would have seen Marsch spending …
25 Mar 2013, 13:37
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Yes, and even if surface gravity were essentially the same, as for Mars and Mercury, the difference in radius changes the perceived rise due to curvature of that surface. St Croix …
25 Mar 2013, 07:24
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Was it discussed why ballistic tables for one planet could be mistaken for another?…
25 Mar 2013, 04:21
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It's possible the alzabo was made for some nefarious plot by a human culture previous to the advent of Inire, but the creation of anpiels and mastiffmen, etc, are attributed to Ini…
07 Feb 2013, 22:07
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Well, it doesn't hurt that Severian was born with a very tenacious faculty for memory and somehow came by the power to manipulate time....…
07 Feb 2013, 16:54
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The assimilation of devoured prey memories is almost certainly a product of genetic engineering by the Yesodis, if not Father Inire himself, to use the analept to produce a truly e…
07 Feb 2013, 16:48
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The non-fading of the unrelated religions in India and China fail to support this hypothesis of Christian Manifest Destiny.…
24 Dec 2012, 21:21
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Horus, the posthumously fathered son of Osiris, represented rebirth. Osiris stays dead and represented the flesh of the dead nourishing life. If the images are taken from Egyptia…
23 Dec 2012, 03:21
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Yes. Typhon already was victorious; he conquered Urth and many nearby worlds. The diminishment of the sun led to his downfall, but that same diminishment leads to Ash's timeline…
23 Dec 2012, 03:15
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