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Mark Millman, Good summary of the possibilities. Interesting how native lifespan figures into time travellers: OB&F (dog lifespan); Inire (past his years); Father Thyme (physical…
02 Sep 1998, 13:52
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Tony A. West, Interesting point regarding the two "first" meetings of Severian and OB&F on ship Tzadkiel (chapters 4 and 26 of URTH). Here are some observations: In the meeting …
01 Sep 1998, 16:42
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Hello there Tony A. West (formerly of Florida, if I'm right), and welcome aboard! The mysterious eclipse. For myself I've decided the shadow was caused by the starship _Tzadkiel_…
30 Aug 1998, 15:29
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Rostrum, Re: pushing Bobby Black as the major fork in Weer's life-path, again this reminds me so strongly of the killing of the frog in "The Changeling." In the case of "The Chan…
25 Aug 1998, 20:22
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Rostrum, Re: FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM (which incidentally ties in with PEACE by way of NECRONOMICON). I know what you mean in saying "we want more mysteries, not answers," and I know …
25 Aug 1998, 20:21
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Dan, Re: "The Books in THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN," yes, that is an important piece (collected in PLAN[E]T ENGINEERING, published by NESFA, and rather hard to find), but to my mind i…
20 Aug 1998, 16:23
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Matthew, Yep, traffic on the list really has sunk to near nothing. =mantis=…
20 Aug 1998, 00:15
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Hello Jonathan Laidlow. Re: book(s) listed in Joan Gordon's GENE WOLFE; pertaining to THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN; specifically (?) Gene Wolfe writing about how he wrote TBOTNS (?). …
19 Aug 1998, 14:08
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GriffJon, Re: volcanos on Urth. Nope, they've been only legends for a looong time in Severian's birth-time. Re: stars visible during the day. Right, the =easiest= solution to t…
05 Aug 1998, 21:53
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Adam, Good luck with the move and we (speaking for everyone here rather than the royal multitudes within myself) hope you can find your way back online soon. =Michael=…
05 Aug 1998, 03:49
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GriffJon, Hello and welcome aboard. An immediate problem with giving Urth a new solar orbit is that it will seriously mess up the calendar--that is, the solar year can't be 365 d…
04 Aug 1998, 19:16
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=New Products from Sirius Fiction= (Autumn 1997) "LS-1: Characters of the Long Sun Whorl" (1997) is the first booklet in the "LS" series, the successor to "Q&D" ["The Quick & Dir…
04 Aug 1998, 19:15
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prion, Could we have a text citation for that "aquastor" tidbit? Author, title, publisher, date of publication, page number of item. Thanks in advance! =mantis=…
02 Aug 1998, 14:57
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Adam, Unless you are joking (and surely you must be), I most certainly did not say to "stop making sense" of the first half of URTH. I said that if trying to force scientific log…
23 Jul 1998, 20:54
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Adam, Perhaps you want to argue that hereditary autarchy imparts "nobility" in the first generation. But the aristocracy of Urth is the exultant class, and exultants are forbidde…
20 Jul 1998, 23:11
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Adam, FWIW I didn't take your post in a querulous mode. And I'm glad that something I wrote seemed clear and enlightening, but of course I was only shooting in the dark and I can…
20 Jul 1998, 04:11
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Dan, Re: the incident with the Book of Mirrors. Granted that Appian knows more about Severian's destiny as future autarch than Severian (who is clueless at that point), and grant…
16 Jul 1998, 20:10
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Dan, Right, that's the thing: Tin Soldier is crippled (as is Jonas); Tin Soldier is attracted to ballerina's beauty and her "crippled" nature (as Jonas is attracted to the Jolenta…
14 Jul 1998, 15:57
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Adam, Actually I believe raster's primary concern re: authentic autarchs is the same as my own--the brain eating bit. It seems to define "autarch" as distinct from "monarch," "su…
14 Jul 1998, 01:48
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Dan, Right, not all the buildings in the Citadel are former ships--just the towers, and maybe not all of them. The buildings: the picture gallery is made of brick, I think; then …
13 Jul 1998, 21:28
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Dan, Re: signing up on ships/the Ship. Pressgangs are possible; and don't forget that slaves are one of the chief exports of Urth, so there's another case not too different from …
13 Jul 1998, 16:32
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Adam, A thousand pardons! I was confused. Your initial post of 9 Jul is entirely focused on how Valeria couldn't be regent and how Severian has abdicated. There is no positive …
12 Jul 1998, 22:20
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Add to the rumors of Inire's death mill: The scene--survivors floating on the Flood waters, circa 50 S.R. The speaker--Odilo (III), responding to Severian incognito, who asked if…
12 Jul 1998, 00:58
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raster, Right, Appian is playing so many roles he rivals Kokkor Hekkus of THE KILLING MACHINE! Thea would certainly recognize Appian--after all, Thecla-in-Severian does--so does …
11 Jul 1998, 21:27
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raster, Right, I only meant leaving Inire in charge seems like a dumb idea if you know in advance you are going to be gone for more than a year. I'm quite comfortable with Inire r…
11 Jul 1998, 21:00
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Then again, Severian =was= an Ascian slave for a year, early on in his reign, and the Commonwealth ran fine without his body on the throne itself, so there is some model or structu…
11 Jul 1998, 18:32
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Adam, As I pointed out, Severian has =just seen his cenotaph=, so he knows that something is afoot. Something rotten in the state of Denmark, er, the Commonwealth. OTOH, he seem…
11 Jul 1998, 18:08
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corncrake, Re: the Atrium not =traveling= in time. Well, in certain applications the Botanic Gardens don't "travel" in time, either--they are just static windows, each in a diffe…
11 Jul 1998, 14:47
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Dan Parmenter, Re: score of years. Right, there are all these different races hinted at, yet so few investigated in any detail, so "20 year lifespan" might =not= apply to Inire a…
10 Jul 1998, 22:57
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Mark Millman, No need to apologize--valid remains your main point about the parallel between old buddies who grew up together then had wildly different adult lives, one became an …
10 Jul 1998, 22:56
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Mark Millman, Ah, but the dead woman in the water of "The Map" isn't Maxellindis, is it? It is the second girlfriend =after= Maxellindis, an adventuress named "Syntyche." (The f…
10 Jul 1998, 21:05
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Whoops--Eata says that some of the gold coins had Severian's face and some had Valeria's face, "or anyway some woman's." (So it wasn't two faces on one coin as I misremembered; an…
10 Jul 1998, 17:42
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Okay, things become more complicated! The quote raster mentions (ch. 34 in URTH) has a context: Severian still thinks he has returned to his era (he doesn't guess he is in Typhon'…
10 Jul 1998, 14:23
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Dan Parmenter, Right, we don't have very clear pictures of the size of the citadel complex, beyond vague sizes: "citadel size" (as opposed to "town size"); "hill size" (as opposed…
09 Jul 1998, 20:41
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Matthew Malthouse, Rather than the JFK riff, I shoulda followed my first impulse: "Would it be easier to grasp if you considered Sev's ship time and Yesod high jinks as a sort of…
09 Jul 1998, 03:33
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Adam Louis Stephanides, First, thank you for buying a copy of LEXICON URTHUS. Perhaps even more importantly, thank you for your kind words about it! "Lexicon Urthus: Additions, …
09 Jul 1998, 00:35
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Well, when John Clute calls me to bat, I go. However unready I might be. My recollection about things being said (not by John Clute directly, mind you) regarding "A Solar Labyrin…
07 Jul 1998, 05:05
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Damien Broderick, I'm glad you mentioned the "missing neutrinos" belief! This led to scientific scenarios ranging from a black hole in the Sun (as the ultimate source of the fusi…
06 Jul 1998, 13:59
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prion, You saw-bird, you: a slow black hole could be used to "stellificate" a jovian world like Jupiter. Secretly we'll call this the "2010: Odyssey Two" scenario, but in public …
05 Jul 1998, 19:55
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prion, IIRC, the purpose of the "days of the week and associated gods" experiment was related to divining some of the hidden structure to Doctor Talos's play "Eschatology & Genesi…
03 Jul 1998, 03:42
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"Nevermore!" quoth the prion, as he picked up his hammer and saw.…
03 Jul 1998, 02:10
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Roborski, Right, just when we thought we could cool down, take a breather, suddenly prion comes along and turns us into mad cows . . . or maybe just a raving two-headed moon calf?…
02 Jul 1998, 21:33
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prion, Beuzec is teasingly mentioned in "the Lexicographer's Introduction" (of "Lexicon Urthus: Additions, Errata, &cetera") but doesn't have an entry in the text ("Additions and …
02 Jul 1998, 14:45
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Roborski, Don't forget the Bath-sheba angle! Hellen is she, and that makes Daw into David. More direct "Star Trek" references: "The Adopted Father" (1980) has one right at the e…
01 Jul 1998, 21:31
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4 Legs Good, 2 Legs B/a/d/ =Better= "Let's hear it for the new Ortho Doxie!" =mantis= o/~ o/~ "There's a kind of fluff <oo-oo-oo> All over the list, tonight All over the list…
30 Jun 1998, 21:51
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("For I saw with my own eyes the Sibyl hanging in a jar at Cumae, and when the acolytes said, `Sibyl, what do you wish?' she replied, `I wish to die'" [Petronius, SATYRICON, ch. 48…
27 Jun 1998, 23:28
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alga, Whoops! My asking =specifically= about your sense of abo tool use within the entire context of 5HC was received by you as me being "hopping with rage" about your dismissal …
15 Jun 1998, 20:04
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Or vo' che sappi che l'altra fiata chi'i' discesi qua giu nel basso inferno, questa roccia non era ancor cascata. Ma certo poco pria, se ben discerno, che venisse colui che la gran…
15 Jun 1998, 00:07
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alga, Not to belabor any points, since I'm not trying to change your mind about Jeanine as abo, nor change your mind about anything else, nor do I mean to badger you in any way. …
15 Jun 1998, 00:06
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So attempts to link "racial" characteristics to geographical details ("Caucasians are pale because they lived in caves and/or dark forests"; "Asians have a yellowish skin because o…
14 Jun 1998, 19:46
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