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I think there's some truth to this last; such prejudices do exist, though they're hardly "enforced"--I've heard lots of people express the opposite prejudices (especially against w…
21 May 2002, 22:26
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Incidentally, Wolfe may have made up this sense of "bloodstone" (though I wouldn't be surprised if you could find it in earlier pulpish sf). The only definition at <http://www.m-w…
20 May 2002, 22:24
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I'm not sure what you mean by that. On our world, many languages and cultures and some ethnic groups have been wiped out, but I don't think all the evidence has disappeared. Or w…
20 May 2002, 22:20
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I feel about them the way people who dislike BotNS feel about *it*: a thoroughly unsympathetic character goes through one pointless episode after another. There was enough inventi…
20 May 2002, 20:39
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... One possibility is that Starling can't tell whether adjacent lights are nearby windows or two panes of a single window. So if 1L represents the left pane of window 1, here ar…
15 May 2002, 20:07
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Indeed, Victor could be telling us the story of his own writing career: for some reason he lost the opportunity to write the normal way, and once he learned to hold the pen the wro…
13 May 2002, 21:58
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This wasn't the part I was worried about. I'm sorry if I put you to trouble I could have gone to myself. That's a better clue. Thanks! So it's in the category of "presumably", …
10 May 2002, 19:58
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I smiled at "I like a man of spirit." "And he likes you." Also at "But anyone who rescues her can have her. The enchanter has promised her that." (Sure it's not a threat?) Glo…
08 May 2002, 22:26
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Right, but that's totally consistent with the statement that open fires cause a net loss of heat in otherwise heated buildings. Of course it's far better, when you're cold, to com…
07 May 2002, 15:47
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"The Festival", according to the Invisible Library (which doesn't mention the Bierce story, though--I'll tell the Librarian about it). How certain is it that the _Marvells of Scien…
07 May 2002, 15:25
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I noticed that our contribution to the Invisible Library <http://www.invisiblelibrary.com/ILCatalogf.htm> (for those who joined the list since those discussions, it's a catalog of …
06 May 2002, 23:34
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They're not quite that similar, if I remember correctly. Number Five sees one robot go berserk and kill a number (15?) of prisoners; V. R. T. dreams of several non-berserk robots …
03 May 2002, 17:43
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Apparently! The officer does have the male slave (a Gene Wolfe clone, right?) draw the officer's dagger and cut the ropes on the package. On the other hand, later the officer draw…
02 May 2002, 21:54
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--- Tony Ellis <LittleSense at necronomicon.co.uk> wrote: ... Well, thanks to Robert Borski, it's settled now, and you were right. (Despite the discrepancies Adam Stephanides pointed…
02 May 2002, 21:42
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Well, of course not. I also can't disprove the existence of the ahool, a Javanese bat with a nearly twelve-foot wingspan that you can read about on a few Web sites. In fact, it …
01 May 2002, 22:20
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... Very tempting--sort of "Fondly Fahrenheit"-ish--but I think you have to assume that afterwards Marsch revised his journals, at least to say that Victor has unusual green eyes,…
30 Apr 2002, 19:41
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Or senile. Or the younger Culot could be lying. Or just mistaken. By the way, you were the one who said the real Dr. Marsch was stupid for not recognizing Victor's clumsiness as…
29 Apr 2002, 20:42
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... One of these days... Sorry to hear that! Is your doctor as good as Dr. Makee? Anyway, I hope you recover well and quickly! Jerry Friedman…
29 Apr 2002, 20:32
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Victor again. If he fantasizes that he's an abo, you would expect him to pretend to be ham-fisted, or he may be taking "advantage" of and even "developing" his natural clumsiness.…
27 Apr 2002, 19:27
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How come you guys are all so convinced the abos exist? It seems ambiguous at best. The alternate theory would be that, inspired by his father's con and escaping his squalid life,…
26 Apr 2002, 21:10
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--- Tony Ellis <LittleSense at necronomicon.co.uk> wrote: ... "'We had no names before men came out of the sky,' the Old Wise If you take the OWO seriously, this is good evidence of…
26 Apr 2002, 20:44
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An interesting point about the style, though I don't think we're expected to believe that Earth's ancient civilizations have a monoply on alliteration. I think Jeff is talking abo…
26 Apr 2002, 16:37
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---------------------------------------------------------------- This message has been truncated, as it exceeded the maximum size of 0k as specified by the system administrator. Th…
18 Apr 2002, 18:01
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--- Andrew Bollen <abollen at cybercityhk.com> wrote: [A little thread splicing for a combined reply] ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message ha…
18 Apr 2002, 17:42
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(For me it was the white hair.) ... I too was really impressed. There's one I never thought of. ... An excellent point. Or maybe Severian had a Christ-like incident happen to…
17 Apr 2002, 22:10
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As I said in an earlier e-mail, Wolfe has survived to the 21st century and there's no need for holding onto names. More to the point, the possibility that he could be cloned somed…
17 Apr 2002, 21:48
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Being nice to fans and having a richly subtle sense of humor (I do like that offer) strike me as totally consistent with arrogance. [snip story] Different one--the panel mention…
17 Apr 2002, 15:45
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Thanks, fur-bearing one! This comment and your previous one were helpful. If Wolfe is going to suggest that the main character of "5HC" is himself, I think it's all right for…
16 Apr 2002, 19:15
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--- John Barach <jbarach at telusplanet.net> wrote: ... A connection to the marshmen? Victor? Borski speculates that Victor R(oy?) Trenchard added the middle initial after killing …
15 Apr 2002, 23:41
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Well, Mr. Million is number 1 (or 2, being Number Five's great- grandfather?), so maybe he _is_ the author, which is what I said. I missed the "merely born" thing, though. On the …
15 Apr 2002, 23:18
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Your timing is perfect, folks, since I just read 5HC. Keep it up! The above made me think about the library scene, with its plug for Bernard Wolfe (I haven't read the Wilhelm sto…
15 Apr 2002, 16:52
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--- maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu> wrote: ... The only possible orbits, once the disrupting force has stopped, are the familiar ellipses and the parabolic and hyperbolic escape or…
11 Apr 2002, 20:44
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I quite agree. Not that I've ever heard. See for example <http://www.astronomynotes.com/angmom/s2.htm>, <http://www.ridgenet.net/~do_while/sage/v2i2f.htm>, and with the least det…
11 Apr 2002, 19:56
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... ... It's the dialogue between the baby's ape-like father and robot-like mother. I like its companion pieces, "Against the Lafayette Escadrille" and "Robot's Story", consider…
11 Apr 2002, 16:56
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One Mark Barratt translated a rather long Dutch joke word for word into English in alt.usage.english at <http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&threadm=1fafb33.9s3ssl3ywvluN%40de-st…
10 Apr 2002, 21:45
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Thanks for both, Roy! The second one seems to shoot down my long-period-satellite theory--and leaves me again with no idea of what Wolfe might have meant.…
09 Apr 2002, 16:58
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I think this is a very good question. ... First of all, the distance to Green is probably the *most* overtly unreliable information in the trilogy. Silkhorn says that Inclito sa…
08 Apr 2002, 20:19
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I don't think that follows. If you see planets from space, you can't tell which is bigger unless you know which one is closer, and it's hard to see how Horn could have had any inf…
08 Apr 2002, 20:08
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This proves that the trees on Green are herbivorous, not carnivorous. ... Interesting. Horn himself told us about Patera Quetzal's eating or drinking beef tea. Was it just for…
03 Apr 2002, 23:50
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Like Rostrum, I haven't noticed anything about the trees' eating people, although I do remember a strong hint of their sentience (when Horn sees through the dying Krait's eyes). A…
28 Mar 2002, 20:32
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--- Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com> wrote: ... I believe the narrator says quite explicitly, shortly after recounting the prophecy, that he (as Horn) was riding a beast wi…
28 Mar 2002, 20:18
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For what looks like the full story on Brust and 17, see <http://world.std.com/~mam/Cracks-and-Shards/seventeen.html>. In college, I took a course in mathematical logic from Paul …
27 Mar 2002, 21:57
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I must've been absent that day. But now that you've mentioned it and I've spent a little time at a saint site, I'll look in the archives if I want more information. I'll forgive …
27 Mar 2002, 21:46
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You mean there's a Saint Baldanders and a Saint Foila? But for Pete's sake and heavens to Betsy, if all the people of the Commonwealth are named after Catholic saints, isn't it ob…
26 Mar 2002, 22:38
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That's *very* thick bark. How much room does something bigger than a man need to live (not "sleep" or "den")--ten feet? The biggest sequoia is about 26.5 feet thick <http://www.…
26 Mar 2002, 21:18
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Not quite. It should never be an exact disk except when it's in opposition (and when it's in conjunction on the *other* side of the short sun), and if its orbit is only a little b…
26 Mar 2002, 17:31
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--- Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com> wrote: ... Doesn't the narrator tell Incanto and his dependents that creatures bigger than a man live in the *bark* of trees on Green? …
26 Mar 2002, 17:16
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--- Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com> wrote: ... This is interesting, but my guess is that the eponyms are saints, like the eponyms of San Francisco, Marylebone, pe…
26 Mar 2002, 17:12
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Is "Marcus" the right case? Just curious. Stop it! Polyploidy has nothing to do with extra limbs, as Marc has agreed. Or by assuming the Short Sun books aren't in the Green Man…
26 Mar 2002, 17:10
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--- matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk wrote: ... The acceleration, either for a straight-line path (speeding up and slowing down) or for a curved path, would have to be negligible …
26 Mar 2002, 17:00
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