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See, I found Severian's voice and prose engaging. He's a liar (maybe), and certainly not above shading the story to paint him in a better light than the facts might justify, but I…
10 Nov 2009, 05:33
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Link him here! Fresh meat! I found TWK heavy handed in it's symbolism and an attempt to recapture the heavily stylized prose of BOTNS without the organic nature of Severian's …
10 Nov 2009, 00:26
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Outraging logicians is never a good idea. We come armed with syllogisms. Sent from my iPhone…
23 Jul 2009, 15:30
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I go out for one nice dinner with my wife and look what happens! In brief, let me say that anyone who is interested in actually listening to a commie pinko about these things can …
20 May 2009, 05:56
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So your democratically-elected government gets to serve at the pleasure of a small but violent minority? I understand frustration with graft and waste, but calling for rebellio…
19 May 2009, 21:51
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I am. I became a Marxist during law school when I studied critical legal theory. It's an outgrowth of my abiding interest in German Idealism, phenomenology and Continental phil…
19 May 2009, 20:10
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No, I meant out of touch with reality. Sent from my iPhone…
19 May 2009, 18:56
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That's funny. We say the same things about libertarians. Sent from my iPhone…
19 May 2009, 18:18
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I'm a democratic socialist and a member of the US Communist party. I also do not believe in God. It doesn't affect me one way or the other that Wolfe is my opposite number on t…
19 May 2009, 15:10
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I am. Just search for my name. It's not terribly common. Sent from my iPhone…
29 Apr 2009, 16:22
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I might have been. I'm not making promises. -L.…
24 Apr 2009, 03:04
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Which makes one wonder where Severian learned a word like "gnostic," since his world seems to be rather unitary in terms of religious diversity. 2009/4/8 b sharp <bsharporflat at …
09 Apr 2009, 03:24
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Backwards. Manichaeanism was influenced by Zoroastrianism, because it was a Persian form of gnosticism. Gnosticism actually applies to lots of syncretic religious beliefs that fl…
09 Apr 2009, 03:01
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I just can't bring myself to support the NRO. Is there a transcript somewhere? Sent from my iPhone…
30 Mar 2009, 17:07
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That's what you get for expecting me to read every line of an e-mail at 4:30 in the morning. I am consummately lazy. -L.…
18 Mar 2009, 09:22
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I know. My point is that ownership or non-ownership doesn't affect violent crime rates. This is one of the rare occasions where I think both sides of the American gun control deba…
18 Mar 2009, 08:41
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Most criminologists will tell you that economic factors have more to do with the prevalence of violent crime than do things like gun ownership. The most common causes of intention…
18 Mar 2009, 08:28
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I'm not sure that I recall any sex with farm animals in the books. Are you sure they were inspired by something at A&M? Hook 'em, Lane…
17 Mar 2009, 03:59
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I have it on my "to read" list. I'll report in when I'm finished. But... I don't think it's going to be Wolfean, at least not from the description I read. -L.…
13 Feb 2009, 04:05
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In my native Texan drawl, I say them "MAY-terr-uh" and "PAH-terr-uh," as in "matron" and "pantera," respectively. I suppose saying it "PAY" like in the proper pronunciation of "pat…
07 Jan 2009, 18:18
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I never could get into Erikson's stuff, and I picked it up because it had a blurb from Stephen Donaldson on the cover, and I like Donaldson's work. Erikson's characterization wasn…
18 Dec 2008, 01:30
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If you have blind or seeing-impaired friends, ask them about getting the American Printing House for the Blind audio recordings of Wolfe's books. I listened to the "Book of the Ne…
05 Dec 2008, 21:10
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OK, so matter, form and anima. Plato and many of the early philosophers wrestled with this idea of universality. For instance, if we go and look at a red thing (an apple), we…
04 Dec 2008, 04:37
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Quit stealing my jokes. Lane…
03 Dec 2008, 22:29
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I'll explicate and clarify this later. What we're really talking about with Aristotle requires us to contrast universality of a given idea with Plato's ideas about universality. …
03 Dec 2008, 19:49
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It's also instructive to note that the Dying Earth subgenre is very pulpy, esp. in the Clark Ashton Smith (and his imitators) vein. Vance brought a little more literary panache to…
03 Dec 2008, 17:21
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Maybe all Severian has is the memory of the pain and thinks it's real. He is self-reporting all of this; there's no objective record as to whether he actually had the injuries or …
03 Dec 2008, 17:02
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If we accept that Severian died and was resurrected in Gyoll (which, contextually, seems to be right: cf. the chapter title, the child's skull, the feeling of his death), then we …
03 Dec 2008, 16:55
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Didn't the Autarch have a vial of alzabo around his neck at all times? Wasn't that how Severian became the Autarch when they were shot down? I would assume that Sev-as-Autarch had…
03 Dec 2008, 00:45
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The areas of my expertise are limited to law and philosophy. ;) So I've just about reached the limit of my depth. And my specialization isn't in ancient Greek philosophy, so I can…
03 Dec 2008, 00:19
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The etymology of these words shall help. Eidolon is a Greek philosophical term, denoting the abstract reality of an idea. For Plato, these are the universal Forms, the perfect in…
03 Dec 2008, 00:11
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Science fantasy was a genre long before Wolfe wrote "The Book of the New Sun." A part of it is not knowing (following Clarke's famous dictum). That's the point of Jack Vance'…
02 Dec 2008, 02:03
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The book very much fits within the "Dying Earth" subgenre (cf. Jack Vance) and is more closely related to planetary romance/science fantasy than what we think of as "science fictio…
01 Dec 2008, 20:52
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Nessus, if I remember correctly, is the centaur that trains Achilles. Lane…
01 Dec 2008, 20:34
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There's always a chance he was being sarcastic. That doesn't always come across in print well. -L.…
05 Nov 2008, 16:02
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Next thing you'll tell me that you think Dostoevsky was a hack and Capek is overrated! :) Lane…
16 Sep 2008, 04:26
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I haven't read the Baroque cycle be Stephenson, but "Snow Crash" continues to top my list of favorites. It's like Thomas Pynchon and William Gibson had a baby. Terry Brooks w…
16 Sep 2008, 04:07
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Let's be fair... is Stephenson really capable of something along the lines of the Shannara series? (In Terry Brooks' defense, his "Running with the Demon" series was pretty go…
16 Sep 2008, 02:00
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Even if it were a planet called Orth, it's not like Wolfe has a monopoly on the names of the Norns. Or phonetic derivatives of their names. Sent from my iPhone…
15 Sep 2008, 20:08
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Terry Goodkind is what happens when worse writers than Ayn Rand (and that's saying something) attempt to explain that hackneyed bit of nonsense called Objectivism. Lane…
08 Aug 2008, 02:42
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Some people don't like to think and read. I may not understand their alternative lifestyles, but it's not for me to judge. Sent from my iPhone…
08 Aug 2008, 01:59
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And in all fairness, one should as well pick up "Endymion" and "The Rise of Endymion" to round out the series, although the first two Hyperion Cantos are superior. But "gory h…
21 Jul 2008, 20:44
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Consider Typhon's translation that it means "this is the place of parting." I think that we're looking at is a bit of the indeterminacy of translation. First, assuming these r…
21 Jul 2008, 20:38
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No kidding. This is essentially how just about every government has played out in the history of the world. Lane…
17 Jul 2008, 03:31
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What about "Praise God and Pass the Ammunition?" (I know it's not a hymn; I'm just making a joke.) Lane…
17 Jul 2008, 01:46
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Please call me just Lane. If I understand what you're getting at, I think we'd agree that the Hieros have a greater capacity for moral understanding, but not necessarily the ac…
13 Jul 2008, 07:38
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It may not be that the Hierogrammates are "morally superior" to humans, in that we all have the same capacity for judging moral and immoral actions, but rather that their natur…
12 Jul 2008, 22:38
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You know, something just struck me as I was rereading Dr. Talos' play, and now I don't have my book so I can't quote chapter and verse, but look at the section wherein Nod and …
11 Jul 2008, 19:05
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Given the strong Gnostic vibe I get from a lot of Wolfe's work (not that I think he's a gnostic, mind you, but I think he mines the theology for plot points), the idea that the…
11 Jul 2008, 17:32
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I suppose I could make myself clearer. Ever a problem. The reason why human concepts of morality might not apply to the Hieros goes back to my residual Kantianism. For humans, ou…
11 Jul 2008, 02:49
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