Posted from 3 addresses as Kevin J. Maroney, Kevin Maroney
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The Elephant is a piece in the Chinese member of the _Chess_ family, _Xiang Qi_. It is the direct ancestor of the Bishop; it moves two spaces diagonally. This piece was probably pr…
18 Nov 1998, 14:29
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Well, I'm quite fond of _Sandman_. It's very easy to overpraise it, but there's some really first-rate work in it, especially in the scattered short stories. Wolfe is, by evidence,…
08 Nov 1998, 18:12
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The Gaiman fact is pretty well-established--there's a character in _Sandman_ who is clearly Chesterton. (Gilbert, who features prominently in the second story arc, "A Doll's House"…
06 Nov 1998, 17:25
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"Silk was gone. It had to remember that." (These are the first sentences of Wolfe's "The Night Chough" in the anthology _The Crow: Shattered Lives and Broken Dreams_, ed. James O'…
03 Nov 1998, 13:42
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The Butler was available online. I actually can't remember what translation I was reading when I first encountered this scene; I read it in WH Auden's _The Greek Classics_ (Viking …
03 Nov 1998, 10:49
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At 07:46 PM 10/29/98 -0500, alga quoted Julian Jaynes: By complete coincidence, I just happened to be reading part of _The Iliad_ only a couple of weeks back--I'd never read it be…
02 Nov 1998, 19:45
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Yes and no. I can say this about the conclusion of _Snow Crash_ without spoiling it (and it's a fun book, well worth reading even with its significant problems, some conceptual, …
31 Oct 1998, 14:16
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Crowley delivered the manuscript to Bantam in August '98, I believe, which indicates a publication date somewhere in early-mid '99. _Deamonomania_ is the belief that everything in…
31 Oct 1998, 13:45
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In fact, the most recent NYROB piece on Orwell was about _The Complete Orwell_, a 20-volume scholarly edition of literally everything the editors could find ever written by Orwell,…
20 Oct 1998, 12:28
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Think about the stroke involved in beheading a prisoner. The sword is raised overhead and brought down in a smooth circle. Gravity, not the centrifugal effect, is what moves the qu…
19 Oct 1998, 12:48
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"Memory" doesn't seem to me to be a theme, but a subject matter (just as, say, time-travel is a subject matter). "All of life is a fragmentary memory, even as we are living it" w…
16 Oct 1998, 10:54
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Actually, I thought it was overrated as a book-object, but I've always felt that about Cheap Street. Perhaps it just shows that I'm not enough of a bibliophile to pick up on the th…
15 Oct 1998, 16:11
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Minor bit of detail: "Al lah" was indeed originally two words in Arabic, "Al" (the) and "lah" (god). Before Mohammed (bbhn!), the Kabbah was a shrine to a goddess known only as "Al…
28 Jul 1998, 15:27
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Well, there's no guarantee that the Cards are program chips--they could just be pure memory, or power, or something else interchangable. If they're not interchangable, then the w…
10 Jul 1998, 12:35
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<MASSIVE SPOILER> What, the story of a young torturer's apprentice growing up, becoming king, wrestling Satan, and evolving into God isn't grand enough? And in the sequel, he bot…
22 May 1998, 23:15
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I'd forgotten that one. But the use of the Outsider in the standard prayers in _Long Sun_ is quite similar to the Unknown Gods in Pausinas--as a catch-all for those Gods who are po…
18 May 1998, 17:15
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Strictly speaking, I believe the only other name we're given for the Outsider is Allah. I was interested to discover Pausinas's description of altars to "the unknown gods" in his…
18 May 1998, 12:42
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Lady >of Clown Town." Or even "Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons." Yes yes yes. There's just so much good Smith. :-)…
12 Sep 1997, 12:40
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Hmm. I've read only the Smith stories that were in the Del Rey "Best of" volume (boy, I miss those!)--I have the NESFA volume and just haven't read it yet. I seem to be alone in li…
12 Sep 1997, 11:22
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I had forgotten that poor customer service voided copyrights. My mistake. Forget I said anything. Anyone want some really great Jenny McCarthy scans?…
09 Sep 1997, 13:31
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Believe me, I find it equally frustrating that The "New York" Review of SF can't be purchased off-the-rack in its home state. However, copies are readily available by mail-order, w…
09 Sep 1997, 11:26
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Hmm. Well, I don't want to be *too* picky, but all of these works *are* copyrighted.... Anyway, I think it's pretty clear that the Outsider is both God and a burst blood-vessel i…
08 Sep 1997, 17:30
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I'll have to check those references out. Does my memory about Rose/Marble's decimal point ring any bells? I would think so, given Wolfe's explicit statement that Pas did not know …
08 Sep 1997, 11:03
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This is more or less what I think was meant. Wolfe seemed a bit distressed at the people who think there are infinite layers of subtle meaning piled into his stories. Incidentall…
04 Sep 1997, 13:12
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I do not regularly contribute to Whorl, but I've been reading the archives, and I had some comments. First, re: Seven American Nights and the egg: I believe that I have read a de…
02 Sep 1997, 17:24
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Yes, unmistakably, but very obliquely. The connection could be severed and not significantly alter the _Long Sun_, as nearly as I can tell, although it was a great little shiver wh…
08 Jun 1997, 04:35
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Ascia is not Asia. Really it isn't. "Ascian" means "those who cast no shadows", and is the Commonwealth's term for the people who live closer to the equator. It is clear that the A…
13 Dec 1996, 16:32
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There are maybe a hundred people in the world who respect Wolfe more than I do; I certainly think he's the greatest living writer of f & sf, and one of the greatest living writers …
13 Dec 1996, 00:19
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