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Seconded. Excellent book. -Rostrum…
27 Aug 2002, 01:32
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Great post. Great title. Great discussion. Maybe Ascia is what you get when Mao reads Orwell. That is, I agree with Dan'l that Ascia's ("say only this") policy has more of a M…
29 Jul 2002, 21:17
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This objection is so obvious, I'm surprised we haven't articulated it before -- I feel like it's been in the back of my head all this time. The only answer I can think of would …
18 Jul 2002, 14:34
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This is my strongest objection to the theory, which you didn't respond to. I guess I'm not clear on this point. My understanding of Pig's story was this: Pig and other mercenari…
17 Jul 2002, 12:58
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Isn't there a passage in the Long Sun books that all but says this explicitly? Maybe when Silk is talking to Sand about all the cities having armies and being set against each oth…
16 Jul 2002, 15:53
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I don't think this works. For one thing, the only way I can swallow Horn steadfastly refusing to acknowledge the obvious during his return to the Whorl (that he is a spirit posess…
16 Jul 2002, 15:47
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Well, the whole bandwidth issue is waved away with a magic wand anyway, but you might only need a terminal for full up/download of a personality, whereas the (hypothesized) ubiquit…
16 Jul 2002, 15:18
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Also, maybe the closest parallel to Horn's situation, dead Fava's spirit somehow still wandering around in Mora's dreams and enabling them both to posess Vadsig. How so? I assume…
15 Jul 2002, 19:05
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The climate has changed quite a bit, what with the Sun getting dimmer, so South America is probably a lot more habitable for fair-skinned, light-eyed folks.…
15 Jul 2002, 18:43
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Well, the church was pretty disasterous for Christ, in the sense that he got crucified for it. Doesn't Paul essentially say in Ephesians that the marriage in which the husband is …
15 Jul 2002, 18:40
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Is it too late to lobby for calling it the Grue System, in honor of Dave Lebling's presence on the list? -Rostrum…
15 Jul 2002, 18:31
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Yeah, but how common are destriers in South America? The real question is how rare blonds were in the Commonwealth in Typhon's time. -Rostrum…
15 Jul 2002, 18:29
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I think Pig gives us the most insight into how this works. Downloaded personalities can only stay in contact with their Mainframe versions if their eyes can make contact with a te…
15 Jul 2002, 18:23
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Interesting theory - and kind of sinister - instead of Silk conquering Pas in Mainframe, Pas is secretly still around pulling all the strings. But the Narrator can't be a complete…
15 Jul 2002, 18:14
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"Pas" has no genes from which to make Silk. Typhon did (skin cells from his head, or germ cells frozen from his original body). And Typhon is dead by Silk's time. Silk might be …
15 Jul 2002, 18:05
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Also, Severian tortures others for their sins. Silk tortures himself for his sins. -Rostrum…
15 Jul 2002, 17:59
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Nettle was as much a disciple of Silk as Horn was. If Horn hadn't gone to search for him, Nettle would have. Now that Horn is dead, following Silk is the natural thing to do. Fo…
05 Jul 2002, 14:24
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I don't think that interpretation has achieved consensus yet. I don't agree with it. I have a half-completed write-up of my interpretation of what happens to Horn that I hope to …
03 Jul 2002, 12:06
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Took me a moment to realize you are saying Typhon is not a citizen of the Commonwealth, rather than that Typhon is not a saint, which would disqualify most uses of the convention..…
20 Jun 2002, 19:07
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Is Silk a godling? Surely Silk was the body planned for Pas, what with his near miraculous charisma. And the symmetry with Piaton is too good to ignore. (i.e. an intended host b…
18 Jun 2002, 01:54
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Yeah, what I meant is that it's all a mishmash that might have seemed funny to Typhon: "Let's have Christianesque priests worshiping a pantheon of Gods and doing animal sacrifices…
17 Jun 2002, 11:55
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If you're going to count the intros/appendix where Wolfe talks about translating Severian's manuscript, Wolfe directly refers to all the stuff of Severian's time being in the futur…
12 Jun 2002, 16:15
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Not at all strange. One of the chief virtues of BoB is Hughart's ability to maintain a light (and often hilarious) tone while telling about grim events, and yet still managing to …
06 Jun 2002, 20:03
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I don't see how that can be a plausible reading, given the bit attributed as a direct quote from God. If Cain is given some sort of divine protection that makes it impossible for …
05 Jun 2002, 16:53
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I think the Christian way of expressing this is that death by smallpox is evil (one of the evils unleashed by humanity's estrangement from God) and murder is sinful. The humanist …
30 May 2002, 18:03
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I agree with you, but I remember before the SS series came out, there was quite a bit of speculation on this list about whether Severian would appear in the next book, whether Seve…
30 May 2002, 14:17
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If the Bible says Adam and Eve were the parents of all humanity, and Cain's wife was human...QED. -Rostrum…
29 May 2002, 17:48
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OK. I thought you were saying that inhumi souls were fake and human souls were real. OK, I agree that they want to be human and never can be. But I think in the course of trying…
28 May 2002, 19:38
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This has happened to me several times, not just with Wolfe. I guess I'm just particularly dense. Urth of the New Sun - I disliked this because I had too many wrong interpretation…
28 May 2002, 15:50
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I don't see how you can hold to that view of mind/body relationship and still view chems as persons (which Wolfe obviously does). If a soul is only 'real' if it is part of a human…
28 May 2002, 15:30
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[...] Or maybe he edited it out because he wanted to show us the similar story of how Jahlee became Silkhorn's daughter, and having both seemed too repetitive. Of course it's not…
23 May 2002, 19:58
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One of the Neighbors (or maybe it was Silkhorn) said that the Neighbors made the Inhumi their slaves, and thereby brought their own ruin. I think one of the temptations Silkhorn r…
23 May 2002, 19:52
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At the least, I'd say the inhumi are evil in the sense that a thing might be called evil (atom bombs, torture devices, pornographic movies, crack coccaine, a computer virus). That…
23 May 2002, 16:20
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I think this has been pretty well refuted, but oh, how I wish it were true. I really believed it for a minute. It seemed like such a Wolfean idea, him being an engineer and all, …
14 May 2002, 14:22
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When I read the story, I thought Wolfe might be pastiching Barry Hughart's _Bridge of Birds_ (which is possibly the most wonderful fantasy novel I've ever read, Wolfe's works inclu…
13 May 2002, 18:57
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This theory would also account for the difficulty we've been having pinning down how much manual dexterity the abos have. As much or as little as the person thinks an abo would ha…
10 May 2002, 03:05
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I'm undecided about whether 'A Story' is "true," but I'd like to take issue with your idea that it would be a waste if it weren't. 1. It's an entertaining novella on its own. Ma…
06 May 2002, 19:30
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I don't know of any natural phenomena we understand as well as the things we make ourselves. Naturally, we try to explain what we don't understand in terms of what we do. -Rostru…
24 Apr 2002, 18:15
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I thought sure those comments in the Appendix were jokes. They made me laugh. -Rostrum…
24 Apr 2002, 18:11
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Maybe this is what you mean by "evoked potentials," but I always assumed that the eye thing was merely a trigger, that the Holy Hues put the brain into some sort of receptive state…
24 Apr 2002, 17:35
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[...] Classically, Pride is seen as the chief of sins, and one that is least connected to our animal nature. Thought to be the source of If angels (e.g. Satan) can sin and fall…
24 Apr 2002, 17:27
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Which raises the question again, are there no more rainbows on Urth? (Other than the one Severian pulls butterflies out of, that is.) -Rostrum…
19 Apr 2002, 19:20
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Wow. How is it I've never heard of this? What years would this be? Extremely fascinating! You're thinking of "When I Was Ming the Merciless." I believe that in the story there …
18 Apr 2002, 13:26
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This just further supports the theseus that "A Solar Labyrinth" is about reading Wolfe's books. I'm not sure which way Occam's razor cuts. Should one assume that an author's work…
18 Apr 2002, 13:20
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If it makes you feel any better, I read that group regularly, and there are some people who don't like Wolfe, but also many eloquent defenders of his work. Here's a few good posts…
17 Apr 2002, 14:07
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I agree with this, but I think it is a symbolic connection rather than a literal one. That is, I don't think we should expect #5 to look like our own Mr. Wolfe nor look for clues …
16 Apr 2002, 18:58
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Really? I thought the name thing was just a joke. Not that the character is supposed to have any real relationship or resemblence to the real Wolfe. -Rostrum…
15 Apr 2002, 17:15
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My introduction to Wolfe was the New Sun books, followed by the Soldier books, all of which I loved. Then I read 5HC and didn't like it very much. If that had been my introductio…
12 Apr 2002, 13:13
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I agree. Wasn't Wolfe already being hailed as a genius for 5HC before people had even read any of the New Sun books? I mostly agree with this. One of the main reasons I dislike …
11 Apr 2002, 14:13
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While I don't buy this theory (I think Wolfe would have done a little more with the concept if this was truly going on), I think it's my favorite of your theories. The idea of Sil…
10 Apr 2002, 14:30
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