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Just to hammer it all out and down: Olivia: had sexual relations with Peacock before her marriage, and had relations with Macafee after her marriage. She is unhappy, and the sour…
21 Oct 2002, 23:40
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Maybe. First off, what are/were the Cardiff Bretheren, anyway, who sent missionaries to China? (Sounds more like free masons to me!) Granted Mr. Lorn is an Approved Methodist, b…
21 Oct 2002, 23:03
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Having made my rule about ghosts, then yes, Mr. Tilly was killed by the ghost of his wife (case solved!), and Santa Claus switched the presents for Mab and Mrs. Weer (case solved!)…
21 Oct 2002, 20:26
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I trust that Roy (and anybody else) can answer this quick question. It is quite possible we've been through this before and I've forgotten. That Margie is sure a little vixen! T…
21 Oct 2002, 18:41
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No apology necessary! Messages cross, and I'm glad we agree so tightly on that particular point. I fell behind in my schedule of reading . . . yesterday I chopped down a 70 foot …
21 Oct 2002, 14:57
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At Macafee's 41st birthday party, Olivia tells the China Pillow story. We've talked about this at length, but now I see two distinct readings. The personal message to Macafee seems…
21 Oct 2002, 04:48
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The more graphic passage in the "Gold" section (or p. 180 in the old Berkley edition), begins with describing how Olivia ballooned in size during the first years of marriage, and t…
21 Oct 2002, 04:15
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Yes, and if still alive they would be past their life-expectancy age of 50. As for Smart's parents sudden death, if they were in their 20s when they conceived him, then they would …
19 Oct 2002, 15:18
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I'm re-reading PEACE now, taking a section per day in a Weer-ish sort of way. What a neat book! Anyway, the question of Smart having closer relatives than Weer. Yes, Smart does …
18 Oct 2002, 22:42
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LOL! Very convincing! Deserving of Special Award! (And here I was wondering if the hand in question was a left hand, noodling on that flimsy angle.) =mantis=…
16 Oct 2002, 16:58
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Lest anyone suppose I was joking when I wrote of proud Jonas wanting to awe Jolenta with his repaired shine, the "These Are the Jokes" section of CASTLE OF DAYS offers some suggest…
15 Oct 2002, 17:06
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Roy C. Lackey's post on Smart. Again, that delightful feeling of seeing someone else write what I was on the verge of writing a week ago! So good, we are thinking along the same …
14 Oct 2002, 23:26
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Ladies and Gentlemen, We have a John Crowley fan, name of Terry D. Scroggin, who lives in Valley View, Republic of Texas. Email tjscoggin at ntin.net He ordered a chapbook and I se…
12 Oct 2002, 04:25
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Rostrum wrote, quoting Roy: I myself have not read the story, either. But Robert J. Sawyer, who wrote the article, seems to be saying (in the entire article) that the competition…
10 Oct 2002, 20:35
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Since I am relatively sure that Roy Lackey does not have a subscription to "The New York Review of Science Fiction," I trust that his recent essay on "Bio bias" was not influenced …
06 Oct 2002, 17:12
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Re: Olivia the adultress, ach -- that couch! Of course, how could I have forgotten that couch. Apologies to Roy. =mantis=…
05 Oct 2002, 20:03
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Roy, Interesting post on Bio bias and the potential of disguised chem slavery. Very meaty. The situation of the chems at points comes close to "wage slavery," but even then, the …
05 Oct 2002, 14:58
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Hartshorn wrote about living dolls: The story whose name he fogot might be: "The Toy Theater" (most likely) "It's Very Clean" (less likely) Name of tank, noted: Pinocchio. =man…
26 Sep 2002, 19:55
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Okay, so Roy continues to ask what Jonas would do with Jolenta once he got ahold of her, and he insists that whatever Jonas feels, it ain't "Love." (Or wait: Roy kinda sorta argues…
26 Sep 2002, 16:32
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Jerry Friedman and Roy Lackey disagree with my casting Jonas as wanting to become fully bio. I guess I should have preped my statement with qualifiers, since while I believe "Jona…
25 Sep 2002, 20:17
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I'm not sure what is going on with Jonas, what he means by his intent to become repaired (presumably it means he wants to become fully biological so as to be better suited for Jole…
25 Sep 2002, 17:28
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Thanks to Nick for posting the toc for WW&W. Argh! Still no sign of "Talk of Mandrakes"!! This is the "phantom title" which, according to Gene Wolfe, is not unwritten (he wrote …
25 Sep 2002, 17:06
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Now that we're plunging into the question of how many personalities are in/make up Maytera Marble, I'm reminded of the 1970s book and tv movie "Sibyl" that was all about the woman …
24 Sep 2002, 19:20
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It might just be me, but I find myself confused to distraction by your use of number of trips in this case. (Not that it is your fault, just that it is all confusing.) I mean, we…
24 Sep 2002, 14:25
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Roy wrote about the painting and the trunk. I'll address the trunk part. [snip] [snip] Let's stop there. Fact: Marble hasn't been there in 184 years. Fact: Marble supposes tha…
24 Sep 2002, 01:09
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I've just read Algis J. Budrys' novel MICHAELMAS [1976]. I have previously read ROGUE MOON, THE THORN OF AMSIR [iirc], SOME WILL NOT DIE, FALLING TORCH, and HARD LANDING. I haven…
21 Sep 2002, 23:55
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The text has it that Jonas was the name given to the crippled sailor after he was fitted with prosthetics, to soften his reception among the humans -- and this works on at least tw…
09 Sep 2002, 21:13
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Hartshorn and Nutria have been talking about Cordwainer Smith and the puzzling mystery of "How can Wolfe not know Smith's work?" and seeming convergent evolution between Wolfe and …
09 Sep 2002, 20:21
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I agree with Nutria. I would also add that, aside from the act of cheating, Hy showed evidence of not loving Silk the way that Silk loved her; furthermore, Silk was wondering if h…
09 Sep 2002, 16:41
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It was mid-afternoon on Thursday when I arrived at ConJose. (As it turned out, Gene Wolfe's first panel of the con was on "Working with Damon Knight" and it was Thursday at 1 -- I…
06 Sep 2002, 23:45
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Andrew asked if Jonas was a chem. I will add my voice with those saying that Jonas is not a chem. Yes, he is a robot, but of a different evolutionary line of descent: he is a "ho…
06 Sep 2002, 16:26
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Well, er, yes and no. If Weer is lying about his age at the time (invalidating the big anchor for the current operating timeline), then the coldhouse death could be his own, just …
26 Aug 2002, 17:59
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The coldhouse prank was in 1938. Weer met Sherry around 1954. Sherry was only just born at the time of the prank (1954 - 16 = 1938). Which is rather weird, come to think of it. …
24 Aug 2002, 01:30
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Oh dear, we're circumcising the flea again! And here it is my fault, since I do not have a Dickens work in mind that is significantly driven by letters (then again the so-called "…
21 Aug 2002, 22:24
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Granted we do not have as much extra-textual material in the case of the letter as we do with the stories. In part this is what makes it feel like a case where Wolfe is taking off…
21 Aug 2002, 18:59
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Well yes, but these cases of frametale vs. main-tale interaction oddities do not rise to the level of puppetry as proposed in the case of Unicorn Charlie (where Baton and Birkhead …
21 Aug 2002, 16:37
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How about "haunting the coldhouse (of the non-corporeal memory mansion that Weer inhabits, if not all the time, at the very least, during the frametale)"? (Though I suppose one mi…
21 Aug 2002, 00:24
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1) At first Weer seems disturbed that French would tell the reporter about the prank (and we assume we know why: because it is bad news, however old), and French's explanation of h…
20 Aug 2002, 22:48
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If we are considering Charlie Turner as a "unicorn" then we might also consider the ghost of the coldhouse prank as one, too. This immediately makes a lot of sense, really: since …
20 Aug 2002, 19:36
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[snip] To go along with Roy's belief for a moment: there is, I think, a strong sense of disintegrating barriers in the final section of PEACE, climaxing in the voice of Olivia com…
20 Aug 2002, 13:51
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That is interesting! Just to be sure I comprehend, a timeline would look like this: 1934 (Weer at 20) Weer buys car as college junior 1935 (Weer at 21) Weer graduates from coll…
19 Aug 2002, 02:59
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Roy Lackey started this thing and my first reaction is that the "Miss" thing is simply mid-century corporate sexism, where secretaries hired on as nubile sex-objects retain their m…
18 Aug 2002, 20:12
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An early Wolfe story (collected in CASTLE OF DAYS), "The Changeling," is set in the same town that the later novel PEACE is set in. While I've always been a big fan of the story, …
18 Aug 2002, 19:35
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IIRC, without seeing the source text again, my impression was quite different. That is, I did not see it as being a case of: astral-Silkhorn is the aquastor Malrubius that Severia…
17 Aug 2002, 01:11
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True; it mainly dates Miss Hadow, I guess. Meanwhile, I've been fixing my sense of sepia. Sepia is not an artifact of aging (i.e., discoloration), it is only a style, one of two …
11 Aug 2002, 05:11
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Ach. Scratch Tilly from the sepia roster. Still, Tilly is connected to the episode by way of his ties to the carnies; Smart is connected by his inheritance of Tilly's business. …
10 Aug 2002, 15:05
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Okay, I found "A Christmas Carol" on Project Guttenberg. Getting spooked as I read it . . . the cold chill of Scrooge recalls the cold house ghost . . . the Ghost of Christmas Pas…
10 Aug 2002, 00:27
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Yes, this was my other creepy thought: that the three relatives of Tilly might be hereby revealed. I had not quite made the Rodney-as-giant connection, but that is possible, too, …
09 Aug 2002, 22:24
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Here is something I wanted to mention before. The photo of the giant and the man: as an advertisement (goes well with the photo of Candy as an advertisement; perhaps fits well wit…
09 Aug 2002, 19:27
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Tricky. "Vance Space" might show up if you used all the different used book search engines (there were a few dealers who bought quantities, iirc). "Q&D," wow, unlikely (no sales t…
09 Aug 2002, 18:32
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