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John Barach whipped up a very nice list. Good job! (I wish you'd done it 12 hours earlier, but still.) UME reports this as being a group title for 4 pieces: At the Volcano's Lip …
22 Mar 2002, 02:42
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Is it? Dang! I was just cringing at the Ultan's Library typo (which may in fact be correct according to your title), so I double-checked against "Urth Man Extraordinary" (not "Ur…
21 Mar 2002, 22:03
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Right. Well you've just caught me at a bad time for such a thing: recent discussion about a story that has bugged me for 20 years ("Hour of Trust"), and then the rediscovery of a (…
21 Mar 2002, 19:52
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As I was posting my Rostrum's pitchfork list, what did I find already there: Huh. Hmm. My ranking, you say. <Sigh.> I'll see what I can do. But don't expect anything today, I…
21 Mar 2002, 17:45
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Rostrum, Okay, we have found the list at Ultan's Library! (Some of the library rats were using it as a slide for a theme park based on Chutes and Ladders.) Well, it needs to be …
21 Mar 2002, 17:37
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Matthew quoted & queried: No, you were right before: it is BRUSH not BUSH. At least in the first edition hardcover. And first edition paperback. And Easton Press edition hardco…
20 Mar 2002, 14:19
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I recently read the Hartwell/Cramer anthology THE ASCENT OF WONDER: THE EVOLUTION OF HARD SF. It is a good antho; it is a thick antho; it has two Wolfe stories in it ("Procreation…
18 Mar 2002, 21:14
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Hey, wait a second! Jonathan Laidlow had a nice list of uncollected Wolfe fiction at Ultan's Library back before it moved, but today I looked and I couldn't find the list. Was it…
18 Mar 2002, 16:38
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Hartshorn, he Q&Q'ed: I didn't take any notes in reading the Short Sun books, alas. (Or hooray.) So I don't remember. I remember the discussion we were having around here as eac…
14 Mar 2002, 19:02
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Another possibility that I don't think we ever discussed around here is that Green might be so far removed from "nature" that, rather than thinking of it as a world or a terraforme…
14 Mar 2002, 17:34
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Experiment: build a model in our solar system. Let Blue = Earth, move Venus out a bit, rename it "Ishtar," and let's see. I want Ishtar to orbit within Martyn Fogg's "Moist Greenh…
14 Mar 2002, 02:30
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New experiment: we want to see how far away Earth-like planets would be in order to have an angular diameter about equal to the Moon and the Sun seen from Earth (0.52 degrees). Th…
13 Mar 2002, 22:52
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As a matter of fact Typhon represents an alien invader, and it seems probable that he brought the exultants along with him. From how far afield they came (perhaps as nearby as Sku…
13 Mar 2002, 02:53
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Another way to approach the Blue/Green conjunction is to determine the size of Green in the sky of Blue, from its "usual" size to its greatest size at closest approach. For simpli…
13 Mar 2002, 02:19
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No. The sequence itself is rather non-chronological (as I recall), but it was published in the following order: THE PASTEL CITY A STORM OF WINGS IN VIRICONIUM (also known as THE F…
12 Mar 2002, 19:07
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Industrial pollution doesn't seem to play a large part in the Commonwealth. The poisoning of the water seems more a result of the city's large population than any residue of previ…
12 Mar 2002, 14:18
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Jerry Friedman quoted and queried ". . . the Forests of Lune, fifty thousand leagues away" (III, ch. 32, para. 4). "LEAGUE, a unit of distance equal to three miles" (AMERICAN HER…
12 Mar 2002, 00:46
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Right. I don't. He seems to have intent; and from the text he seems to have the ability (unless that power stopped once the white fountain was in place). There are half-glipmses o…
10 Mar 2002, 02:53
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My most recent numbers are: ===== 80 PS (pre-Severian's Reign) Odilo I born, Sancha born. 66 PS scandal in reign of Autarch Appian: Sancha (age 14) in disgrace, Lomer (age 28) se…
09 Mar 2002, 04:06
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Adam Stephanides asked about some stories. I'll quote Joan Gordon by way of reply, adding a little: "Wolfe's first published science-fiction story, this is an initiation story sh…
07 Mar 2002, 21:09
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It has been written: Back up a bit. The Revolutionary is: 1) a device which behaves in a manner somewhat recognizable in 20th century terms, i.e., like an electro-shock therapy …
07 Mar 2002, 00:05
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Does he ever actually "draw it" from that position on his back? (Offhand I don't recall a case, but I could be forgetting something.) My sense of him unsheathing it when it is in …
06 Mar 2002, 19:10
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In "Languages of the Dying Sun" (Damien Broderick's EARTH IS BUT A STAR; also in NYRSF No. 149) I wrote something somewhat similar. I was talking about how Wolfe uses techniques t…
05 Mar 2002, 16:03
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Assuming that Lune Diameter = 2160 miles, and Orbit = 150,000 miles . . . And using formula S = 57.3 * D/R Shows us that the angular diameter (i.e., size in sky from Urth) of Lun…
04 Mar 2002, 00:17
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Right. Technically the rebels cannot possibly be "barbarians" in the classical sense (external non-members), they must be the alienated proletariate. So I apologize for that--the…
02 Mar 2002, 04:44
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My thoughts were more toward using old folk songs. Turning "Greensleeves" into something like: "Alas, Thecla, you do me slight Your final friend, your last boy-slave When I have l…
26 Feb 2002, 21:50
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I hardly need to mention it, but gee. And we have such proven talent around here--alga's paean to Cordwainer Smith "Miyameefla" (sung to tune of "Mona Lisa") springs to mind. I b…
26 Feb 2002, 19:00
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Well I'm glad someone besides me is watching "Futurama"! :) I had no idea of Turangalila (amazing catch, Nutria!). I had a vague association with the movie . . . hmm, what was it…
26 Feb 2002, 14:20
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I was looking for something else at a cavernous used bookstore. A Bova anthology popped up, and it had the Gene Wolfe story "The Blue Mouse" in it. Reading the first page I couldn…
24 Feb 2002, 01:09
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FWIW, and it may add to your argument, Wolfe does use the word "fulgurator" in chapter 7 of SHADOW. =mantis=…
23 Feb 2002, 03:57
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Yes, I think this is the reading that satisfied our friend Adam Stephanides (whom we haven't heard from since, hmmmm . . . check for burn marks!). That is to say (my sense of it, …
21 Feb 2002, 23:24
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I guess it only really matters in the sense of "where's the bomb?" which, as you note, even granted the difficulty of the naked ken-kin, becomes somewhat more difficult post-coitus…
21 Feb 2002, 18:10
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But this was one of those cases where, once I had sent it, the doubts came in. The tree farm, etc. Things that the military/industrial complex is not assuredly involved in. So th…
20 Feb 2002, 20:47
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There I was, writing about Nihilism ("Nile-izm," as I pronounce it) and I mentioned the helmeted astronaut in passing (probably Neil Armstrong; with that whole thread created or re…
20 Feb 2002, 15:35
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Good point, to bring in the Library as another group/mode. But eek, we're lost on that ending again! Definitely--I tried to make clear that it was our questions that were causing…
20 Feb 2002, 04:12
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Roy Lackey wrote a solid message, beginning: Roy went on to point out more notes on the title, saying that the "hour" in question is pinpointed at the death of the three ken-kins;…
19 Feb 2002, 19:57
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I do not know much about textual differences in various foreign language translations of TBOTNS. In fact, I know practically nil. However, I do know this: the first volume of the …
15 Feb 2002, 23:29
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Um, because they are descendents of invaders who arrived less than the magic mutational number of chiliads ago? (My recollection was that in Severian's musing it was 10 or more chi…
12 Feb 2002, 14:36
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My strong impression is that Bloom enjoys Lindsay and Crowley so very much because their work (well . . . A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS, let us say, since I've never seen Bloom mention any …
11 Feb 2002, 21:58
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Thank you, Bibliographer! Ah, so your sense is that it was a hoax? =mantis= SIRIUS FICTION booklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley 57 Lexicons left until OP! http://www.siriusfict…
11 Feb 2002, 02:56
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Rumored to be a book published by Tower Publications: "The Making of a Classic: My Experiences Writing The Book of the New Sun" by Gene Wolfe. Google search turns up nothing. Any…
11 Feb 2002, 01:10
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No, no! The losing side fails because they are decadent, corrupt, and bungling; they lack the creative vision, and only lead through dominance, manipulation, and coercion, rather t…
10 Feb 2002, 19:55
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So the short form would be to say: "The signature phrase 'hour of trust' applies equally to both the corporate and the rebel forces, not just the corporate forces as one might beli…
10 Feb 2002, 15:37
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I must also be at fault: I thought I was using "evolve" as "change from one state to another state." I then qualified it as being good or bad with regard to human institutions suc…
09 Feb 2002, 22:24
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You are banging that evolution gong again. This is where we disagree: I see kamikaze pilots as devolutionary to both sides. You see it as evolutionary, as in the next bit: Where…
09 Feb 2002, 20:51
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In a similar vein, I thought at first Wright was perhaps over-simplifying by presenting two monolithic groups, colonizer and colonized. After all, we are certain that the colonize…
09 Feb 2002, 19:34
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Well, yes. There is truth to what you are saying. However, the imp in me is reminded of similar things done comically--was it in ZORBA THE GREEK that the woman determined that the…
09 Feb 2002, 19:07
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FWIW I read the essay and enjoyed it. It is mainly about things and issues surrounding Colonizer/Colonized, a reading of 5HC that addresses Colonialism. It starts off with a survey…
09 Feb 2002, 02:36
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Joe, your memory is quite good, but your word-hoard contains a few false coins. "Algophilist" is not "ghoul-lover," nor does it function as a synonym for "necrophiliac" as you sug…
05 Feb 2002, 00:03
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Yes, exactly so. I was trying to keep it within genre, and the Aldiss novel had recently come up anyway within a Wolfe context. I will agree that the delicate phrasing makes this…
03 Feb 2002, 16:25
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