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Yes. So what to do with that? You can try to discuss the evidence you see that Horn is still there. Perhaps he will see that he has missed some things and say he was wrong (heh. h…
22 Nov 2011, 16:55
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Yes, that's what I was trying to say. Though it isn't "everybody else". I think Marc could be right though I don't currently come to the same conclusion as he. Perhaps Gene Wolfe …
22 Nov 2011, 15:13
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Antonio, Marc has devoted years of thought, research and writing to his theory. Is he really not supposed to be offended when someone acknowledges his years of thought and method b…
22 Nov 2011, 13:31
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I agree fully, Marc. I have used the old/young woman optical illusion and the House Absolute/Secret House as analogies for the same principle. It is to no avail for some people. T…
22 Nov 2011, 13:19
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I am wondering if this "vegetative state" is your explanation for Jesus' death and resurrection 3 days later. Nothing wrong with that explanation, but I don't think that's the p…
22 Nov 2011, 04:28
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Well, a good point to consider. Though not as good at it as Neighbors, perhaps humans have a limited ability to share their soul with each other? If so, Horn and Nettle have surely…
21 Nov 2011, 20:06
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Yes, James. And the original source of them were the dark things curled around the root of plants or whatever it was. A clear thematic connection to inhumi and Neigbors, vines and …
21 Nov 2011, 20:00
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Sort of a silly question if the beings in question are plural in nature, not individuals. We have a clear example of such in Tzadkiel. Not a copy. A shared portioning. Soul is l…
21 Nov 2011, 19:47
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Well, goats, pigs and deer all have short stiff hairs, hooves (hides and sinew) and horns (if you count tusks). I see little problem in Wolfe spreading his fauns across a range of …
21 Nov 2011, 19:20
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Yes. But it sounds like you have a good sense of how Dionysus, Pan and fauns of the Greeks evolved through the Roman, spread across Europe and eventually became such characters as…
21 Nov 2011, 16:54
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I disagree. Ushas may be warm but it is not a jungle planet. Ushas differs from Green in one very important aspect: oceans. This issue was discussed recently but I think it is so…
21 Nov 2011, 16:27
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The Wolfe quote about angels and Apheta was from the James Jordan interview, toward the end. http://mysite.verizon.net/~vze2tmhh/wolfejbj.html#urth2 I respect your view, Gerry and…
21 Nov 2011, 14:19
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I shouldn't have said the Neighbors hunt, true. Horn finds them while on a hunt. But they are gathered around a fire. If they were living as advanced spaceage beings, wouldn't th…
21 Nov 2011, 04:43
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No Gerry. Try to focus please. Neighbors are fauns, not whales. No fins, no blowholes. Just horns and hairy arms and a bit of magic. Were you unaware of James' theory that Si…
21 Nov 2011, 03:04
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There should not be any debate. It simply isn't very hard to see. The chapter title, the text formatting, the dialog; they all make it as clear as you could hope to get from Wol…
21 Nov 2011, 02:56
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Hm, yep. Gerry weren't you asking for fauns a while back? I think you've found them. Add some bristly hair on the arm to those eyes and that snout and multi-limbs for their faeri…
20 Nov 2011, 18:33
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My answer exactly. Sexuality is of the flesh. A spirit entering a gendered body will respond according to the house it finds itself in. A demon becomes an incubus or succubus dep…
20 Nov 2011, 04:05
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I agree Babbie is an odd element from beginning to end. Why do you find his species name unlike other indigenous species? Because it seems like a Whorl-Urth based name? Could thi…
19 Nov 2011, 09:26
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Yes, I meant to mention that but forgot. I don't think it is so simple though. Who is Severian's grandfather? We don't have to consider his connections to Father Inire but we can'…
18 Nov 2011, 21:01
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Ahem! That's themes begun in BotNS ;- ). perhaps "cacogen" is another word for it? Those three items track sufficiently to Dr. Talos for me. I won't even mention Father Inire …
18 Nov 2011, 19:26
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I'd like to put it in another way still: This is not the real world we are discussing. This is a world created entirely by Gene Wolfe. Gene Wolfe is devoutly Catholic and deeply im…
18 Nov 2011, 16:53
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Fair enough. Marc may not appreciate me saying this, but I have sometimes wondered if his sometimes overly literal interpretations and provision of unnecessary scientific detail…
18 Nov 2011, 16:36
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18 Nov 2011, 16:10
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I'm completely with Marc on this. Brilliant analogy. The connection between inhumi and lianas (and trees and Neighbors) is primarily spiritual. There is a biological connection i…
18 Nov 2011, 14:04
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I concur. Moreover there is some evidence that Wolfe is intentionally shifting his allusion from Greco-Roman myth allusion of Urth to the sea neigbor/rival Egyptian mythology for t…
17 Nov 2011, 21:22
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Not at all since those are your words, not mine. Don't worry Gerry. Nobody thinks you are stupid. And "lying" is such a harsh word. I think playacting is much nicer. If you are wor…
17 Nov 2011, 21:11
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You are right. In some manner they are. The reason you know it is because you recognize you are not reading a science book, you are reading science fiction/fantasy; a work of art…
17 Nov 2011, 18:14
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Mythological allusion, giant beings who bud off pieces and "animated vegetables" are not only serious, they are in the text. Gerry you are being dragged, kicking and screaming, to…
17 Nov 2011, 14:58
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Double ditto. Oreb is only given two words and with them I think we may trust that he is always right and never lies. Just an authorial constant. I see Oreb less as a character an…
17 Nov 2011, 14:27
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There is. The obvious connection is what you say: pigs should be associated with Phaea. For me the implication is that the gods, like the cards which sometime represent them, are b…
17 Nov 2011, 14:18
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Lee Berman wrote (17-11-2011 03:41): Heh. My typing has been too sloppy lately but I don't even know how I managed to triplicate that sentence fragment. "Good fishing.. good fishi…
17 Nov 2011, 13:36
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Good catch, James. Yep, in fact in chapter 5, page 3 of Calde', General Mint asked some soldiers for their names and the first one calls out, "Babirousa" which is an Indonesian w…
17 Nov 2011, 06:14
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Heh. And I think you correctly refrain from calling it cannibalism. It has been a topic of debate, but I don't think the Typhons were human. They think of humans and sheep along …
17 Nov 2011, 03:41
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They are not explain (clearly) so we can't "know" what they are. But we can make some guesses. First, names are very important in all the Sun Series so we can be pretty sure that…
16 Nov 2011, 21:34
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I CAUGHT THE BALL, I WON THE GAME I have a different interpretation. What I think is being forgotten is (IIRC) that Silk catches the ball and wins the game for the younger boy…
16 Nov 2011, 16:38
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I think this is clearly the case, at some level. We only have a handful (9+) of Mainframe gods. When some of them track to embodied beings, it can't be ignored. When you have a mon…
16 Nov 2011, 15:16
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Heh! I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree covered in parasitic vines Neighbors and inhumi if you read the signs…
14 Nov 2011, 21:14
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As David demonstrates, he is not married to his theory to the point of blind rage if he is gainsaid. He tossed out an idea which eventually led to a point of interesting discussio…
14 Nov 2011, 21:09
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Does Krait become Horn's son by acting like it? Purely a ruse? A little of both? Who would waste their time arguing against such a reasonable guess? After all, Horn seems to facil…
14 Nov 2011, 18:42
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Yes, that's good! Just the track I was onto. I was stuck on plutonium as radioactive fuel, so all I could think of by way of analogy was, "my little chili pepper" or something li…
14 Nov 2011, 15:17
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I think this is a reasonable supposition. Chems have such individualized personalities. It doesn't seem like an efficient way to make a tool in this manner. I wonder if this migh…
14 Nov 2011, 13:49
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Speaking of dicks... ("haha", indeed)…
13 Nov 2011, 14:35
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co-stalker and co-slayer of Niobe's children, cast in bronze at his Pompeii temple in the same archery pose as his hunting goddess twin sister's bronze at her Pompeii temple? T…
13 Nov 2011, 04:24
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An excellent point upon which I agree fully. Judging by their posts I think others might be at least grudgingly in agreement.…
11 Nov 2011, 19:25
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Because I enjoy being proven wrong or at least shown viable alternatives to my views. That's how I learn. And I've learned plenty by that process here in the past seven years. I,…
11 Nov 2011, 17:58
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Thanks Jeff. I appreciate the feedback and accept any hard science SF author as a substitute for Niven in my comparison. I guess I was trying to think of a story where the scient…
11 Nov 2011, 14:11
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"Awake, for the Morning in the Bowl of Night, has flung the Stone that puts Stars to Flight" Aw, c'mon, 'fess up! This is bending over backwards and twisting sideways to avoi…
11 Nov 2011, 02:59
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In the sky, the sun isn't the Hunter. Orion is the Hunter, a mythological fact of which Omar Kayaam was as aware as most of us here. The constellation rises in the east like all…
10 Nov 2011, 22:34
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Yes. David came up with a scenario which would allow the Big Dipper to come into play but perhaps Kayaam meant the stars of Orion's bow or perhaps Taurus as the noose. Could be, …
10 Nov 2011, 21:26
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It could be. The planets move faster in the sky than the stars. Of course the "stone" that really "puts the stars to flight" is the sun, and it moves in the sky faster still. I t…
10 Nov 2011, 20:02
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