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Hey, that book seminar sounds like a lot of fun! As for the charts. IIRC, the aliens are kinda sorta robotic rather than "pure thought" A.I. entities. Possible reasons for physi…
11 Feb 2003, 16:28
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as a feeble joke. In fact the ancient Roman calendar is very tricky to me. Let's see, in March the nones falls on the 7th and the ides falls on the 15th. March 22 -- 8th day bef…
10 Feb 2003, 17:22
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No, not at all. Thanks for raising the point -- bringing it up -- drawing it to our attention. For all I know "Attis" might have a similar etymology (aside from association). Sp…
10 Feb 2003, 16:25
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Roy Lackey, regarding the nurse accomplice, wrote Maybe. But I think this would be ruined by the bush-mail system: every patient already knows that Gloria got Al, so she's alread…
09 Feb 2003, 22:06
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The only quibble I have is that, very technically, the real Greek "siren" was not a mermaid but (yet another) woman-headed bird (see also harpies). I often make the mistake of thin…
09 Feb 2003, 03:54
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Yes, I did think North was trying to kill Lara, and it is still a possibility. The problem was this: North seems so "political" in his action, and I could not see much point in No…
09 Feb 2003, 03:54
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LEUCOTHEA One of Lara's names is "Leucothea Fitzhugh Hurst" (276). "The most warlike of the remaining Pelasgians were the Centaurs of Magnesia, whose clan totems included the wryn…
07 Feb 2003, 22:27
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So we are all in agreement that the narrator is female? =mantis=…
07 Feb 2003, 18:23
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It is a given that the American Civil War did not happen in Otherworld, and as a result there is still slavery. (I think this also suggests that the O-USA is far more agrarian, le…
04 Feb 2003, 00:19
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Yep. If this is "The Planet of the Apes," then where are all the "apes"?! Could it be that the capital city of the nation has a high concentration of a numerical minority? Oops, …
31 Jan 2003, 17:25
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BTW I took a look at the Captain Billy's Whiz Bang ref, Adam. Pretty neat stuff. Yes. In my defense I would say that we are now arguing over what the bill claims to be about ver…
30 Jan 2003, 21:59
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I mentioned the fiction of Samuel R. Delany before, and since then it has occured to me that it would be a real scream if Green's hidden/encrypted name were decoded as "William Dha…
29 Jan 2003, 14:51
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True, but I was referring to messages before that one (and that one still doesn't capture what I thought I remembered). My fault. (And now to argue: if the doll is a socialization…
29 Jan 2003, 00:13
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That is one of the funnier and puzzling bits (I could've sworn Roy Lackey was complaining about Tina's Daddy knowledge as being a weird bending/blending of the worlds where there s…
28 Jan 2003, 16:15
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Once again I find my recent investigations put me on the same page with Roy. I agree with everything (Klamm is a visitor; Klamm is Lara's ex-lover, and he isn't dead; Klamm is in …
27 Jan 2003, 18:41
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I can go along with that, but I'd add that there must be plenty of Otherworld women who do not want children, either because they do not want to commit murder or simply because the…
26 Jan 2003, 18:49
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Whoops, we've lost track of the point that the men are marrying for love, the women are marrying for socially sanctioned reproduction. (Then again, maybe I'm wrong on that supposi…
26 Jan 2003, 16:25
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Hello there John Vik, That sailor is Hethor, and his "crazy" speech contains perhaps our first glimpse of the many faces of Tzadkiel, who is captain and figurehead and ship and mo…
24 Jan 2003, 17:56
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Yes, something like 14.67, nearly double the previous rate of 8.25 (or at least it is still higher than the probably more accurate 11:1 ratio proposed by Stone Ox). So do we agree…
23 Jan 2003, 17:03
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First I'd like to give my sense of the dolls, as I've been meaning to do Previously I pointed out that women are pretty much against men having dolls: they will destroy them (the …
23 Jan 2003, 17:00
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Ah yes: "Post coitum omne animal triste." Tami Whitehead pointed out the Gravesean 13-month lunar calendar in THE WHITE GODDESS. Yes, precisely: the thing is there, already made,…
22 Jan 2003, 02:04
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Sure. But since I've been tracing the copper/electric/technology thread of Lara in TAD, it is perhaps too easy for me to say that Lara, the White Goddess, is also something of a g…
21 Jan 2003, 17:24
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Respectfully I disagree. The intriguing "Viridian" passage at the beginning of the book might at first seem like a Wolfean lexical exercise -- "Typical," one might say. Erudite. …
21 Jan 2003, 17:18
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Probably. If the question is "what number(s) am I using for a month in these figurings," I've been pretty lax -- sometimes using 28 days, often using 30 days. No, wait: if the Ot…
21 Jan 2003, 14:31
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Well, ah . . . the "doors" themselves are all copper! The frame on the street that he passes through the first time, which is the one that is being dismantled when he next returns…
21 Jan 2003, 05:59
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I understand. Another possible spin at that early stage is that "Green" is the name of a persona (of an unhinged person who thinks he is someone else) or a personality of a man wi…
21 Jan 2003, 03:20
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Right, I've been puzzling over that "3 Christmases" thing. At first I thought it was less than one year (since Green is extra loopy at that stage and "Christmas" as he is describi…
18 Jan 2003, 06:31
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Exactly. The differences being that Silk is intelligent and highly educated (in contrast to dumb Green), Silk is melancholic (Green seems optimistic), and Silk sees through the ma…
17 Jan 2003, 03:31
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Hey Roy! (And everybody else.) What you think -- is the city of TAD the same city as the one in FLF? The city in TAD is: -- On the eastern seaboard. -- Far enough north that th…
17 Jan 2003, 01:16
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Glad you wrote that: it occured to me after I'd posted, so now at least two of us are thinking it. OTOH, it would be a clincher if the tattoo were "RMN," since North is clear on t…
16 Jan 2003, 17:27
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Right. It is a pagan-sympathetic novel, even more so than the Soldier books set in pre-Christian times. In that interview that Nutria performed, Nutria made a sketch or two at li…
15 Jan 2003, 19:57
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In the big "White Goddess" pattern of Robert Graves, the goddess has a place out west (direction of sunset, i.e., place where sun dies) that mortals cannot visit. It is appleland,…
15 Jan 2003, 05:27
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So far people have been mainly wondering about the hero's name (singular). This is valid, of course, and could lead to something, but it seems at the moment to be a (perhaps tempor…
14 Jan 2003, 21:53
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Thank you, Andrew Bollen, for the research on the Chrasmological Writings! Good job! It reminds me of Charles Dye's work in April 1997, where he traced the influence of Marcus Aur…
30 Dec 2002, 19:56
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If the quadrumvirate rules over the microverse Oz-as-house (validating the paranormal thread present at the beginning of the book yet gradually abandoned for the scientific/conspir…
23 Dec 2002, 17:19
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Thanks for the plug, but "Vance Space" has been out of print for a while. No plans to reprint, no plans for a new edition. =mantis=…
21 Dec 2002, 02:26
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If you decide to read THERE ARE DOORS then let me know: I'll reread it and you will have someone to talk to. (It is next on my list, anyway.) =mantis=…
19 Dec 2002, 20:47
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Shell is a fine Vironese name -- in fact, it was used in the text! Shell first helps Silk when Silk is imprisoned by Oosik after being shot with a needler (III), and he turns out …
19 Dec 2002, 20:25
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I should mention that a lot of inspiration for the Liberty Four came from Mrs. Baker's comment to Robin Valor: "But look at the way we do here. We don't try to change the way thi…
17 Dec 2002, 02:12
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It is not that late, really! I'll start with the last bit first: It is a common staple of myths, fairy tales, and genre to have prophesies come true, but with a surprise twist --…
16 Dec 2002, 23:56
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I will agree that from an Oz-book perspective it is pretty superficial, but the obverse, from the Oz-movie(s) perspective of 1980s American society at large, I continue to think th…
15 Dec 2002, 22:01
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I don't see the contention yet. "Ten years of hard living" (in 1807-1819) -- check. "Has not yet gone on Lewis & Clark expedition" (1804-1806) -- check. Still no contention visi…
13 Dec 2002, 15:49
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My timeline fragment shows that the 53-year-old deserter did =not= go straight back to 1803, he went back to 1807. Maybe he did this to acclimitize himself to 19th century life be…
13 Dec 2002, 01:07
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One of them (Bob, the Army pilot?) asks where they are in time. The other one (the Naval pilot) says they are in the 1980s, "Pretty far up." Presumably this is from their briefing…
12 Dec 2002, 15:33
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When Buck Whitten brought his team from August 20, 1942 to November 5, 1982, they came in the B-17. Presumably the gizmo on High Country can be set to project outside of the High …
11 Dec 2002, 23:01
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Good points. I took the pinkness of her fingers as pointers to her pale skin color. Her pink and black clothes were worn, iirc, when she was "off duty." In any event, I believe …
11 Dec 2002, 17:28
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Catharine Margaret Garth, aka Candy, is the massive (250+ pound) pale prostitute who wears white (a virginal color) which is sometimes (e.g., as she is singing at the bar in the Co…
11 Dec 2002, 01:46
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Just to keep it "real" and text-bound: iirc, Severian's return to Briah from Yesod was not by ship but by some technique which looks very much like teleportation. He and Gunnie we…
04 Dec 2002, 17:17
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I strongly disagree: not mentioning it upfront was what made it a back-alley ambush of a housewife by an academician. In the animal kingdom this is predatory camouflage. I think …
04 Dec 2002, 17:08
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This is another piece of what I was writing about before, where I wondered how Whitten could be vague about his own desertion: But I think that in the example Roy is looking at, i…
03 Dec 2002, 13:41
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