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Further support for your thesis: comparing traditional modernist detective stories with Umberto Eco's postmodern detective story, _The Name of the Rose_. In which there is no patt…
22 Aug 2001, 10:42
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Your description actually reminded me more of Bradbury's Martian Chronicles than FIFTH HEAD. -Rostrum…
16 Aug 2001, 09:02
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Alex quoted from PANDORA: This explains why Nero Wolfe is GW's favorite. Given GW's love of playing games with his name (wolf motifs, the narrator of FIFTH HEAD, etc.), his perso…
16 Aug 2001, 08:57
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Welcome! You may not be aware that there is also a list specifically for Wolfe's Long Sun and Short Sun series. It was established as the books were coming out to keep people in …
08 Aug 2001, 09:31
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Have we so soon forgotten Castleview? "We are all Arthur's descendents." Go back far enough, and killing one person could effect most of the gene pool of a 20th century continent.…
06 Aug 2001, 08:46
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Dan'l said most of what I wanted to say except for this: Many Universes means all possible universes exist. I can't belive this is a possible universe. This is actually a radica…
03 Aug 2001, 14:15
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Welcome! Good catch. Horn does indeed promise to bring Scylla to Blue. Although I'm still unconvinced that Pas made it to blue except inasmuch as "Pas" is now partly or mostly S…
02 Aug 2001, 11:20
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Well, if you're willing to admit it's illogical, I can't argue with you, but I think dismissing objections as "just the Crushed Butterfly theory" is ridiculous. All of human histo…
02 Aug 2001, 10:05
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I haven't read TGC either, but it can't be as egregious in this regard as Wolfe's _There Are Doors_. TAD may be more tolerable since it doesn't focus so much on the alternate worl…
02 Aug 2001, 09:48
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Wow. I've never read Delaney, but that title alone makes me want to go out and give him a try. -Rostrum…
02 Aug 2001, 08:34
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Does Weer say that the tree was mature? Maybe it was a sapling that fell. I don't like that idea. The language implies a full-sized tree. If it were a sapling one would be mor…
18 Jul 2001, 09:11
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Another point of the Bible story: When the zombie empath shows up, the woman asks the aliens something like "Is that my husband?" And they say something like "The question is dif…
29 Jun 2001, 15:47
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Sorry I wasn't clear. I mentioned that more as the exception that proves your rule. It's a nifty engineer's spin on "solved by technological means" that I wouldn't have thought t…
28 Jun 2001, 14:16
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Except maybe "Alien Stones." -Rostrum…
27 Jun 2001, 16:41
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I think of it this way. Imagine reading a story in which spaceships can use a certain doohicky to move faster than light (not hyperspace, but actually moving faster than light). …
26 Jun 2001, 14:02
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I would have put it the other way around. Wolfe is probably also refering to Holy Communion, but the idea of getting memories from somehow consuming someone else's brains/RNA is a…
25 Jun 2001, 12:57
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The fact that he felt like he would need to tear up the whole account made me think he was referring more to the way things were written, the things he focused on, the things he le…
22 Jun 2001, 09:16
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And isn't a Mary Sue generally thought to be the author's fantasy-self? Isn't that a major part of the ickyness of it: watching the author imagine herself a terrific-in-every-way…
20 Jun 2001, 12:37
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I disagree on two grounds. 1. I think this business of objective vs. subjective narration is an important theme of the Long/Short Sun books. Wolfe is asking us to examine the as…
14 Jun 2001, 09:41
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In the Peace universe, NECRONOMICON is a fictional book made up by HPL which Gold then "wrote," inspired by HPL's idea, in order to dupe someone into thinking that the book really …
13 Jun 2001, 15:20
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Inevitably, some scholars suggest there may have been a later writer using Luke's name, but I don't think they make a very good argument. I sort of agree. I think Wolfe is clearl…
11 Jun 2001, 16:01
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You're right. Blish was not Catholic and I don't think he did a very good job capturing Catholic thinking in Case of Conscience. I seem to remember him saying that in the book's …
11 Jun 2001, 15:43
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So what you're saying is that lots of people have noticed this already, but I didn't get it until Wolfe pointed it out himself. -Rostrum *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene …
11 Jun 2001, 09:14
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But can we get the guy who directed _Showgirls_ to pay for it? -Rostrum *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.…
04 Jun 2001, 12:39
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Silk isn't whole when he's astrally traveling - he's separated from his body. So it's reasonable that any healing that Severian initiates might not bear fruit until after Silk's s…
01 Jun 2001, 08:54
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This is kind of a joke isn't it? Isn't the whole point of that scene that the "Claw" is merely a common thorn that is holy and powerful only in the sense everything made by the In…
01 Jun 2001, 08:33
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Ok, I see your point. My only disagreement is that Christians in the tradition of Augustine and Aquinas would deny that Lilith or Satan could be "completely evil" (nor Adam "compl…
24 May 2001, 11:59
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Is this a joke? That's the very thing that Christians have always used to say "Manichaeanism is not us." Satan is the opposite of Michael the Archangel; there is no counterpart B…
23 May 2001, 22:44
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This is cool, but I still can't figure out the ending of Wolfe's version of the story. It seems to be some sort of joke or clever twist of wordplay, but I can't figure out what it…
23 May 2001, 09:53
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Better yet, Lewis's Perelandra, in which a human from Earth becomes the agent of evil attempting to orchestrate a second fall on the Edenic Venus. I like the idea that, disasterou…
18 May 2001, 08:26
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SOLDIER OF SIDON! SOLDIER OF SIDON! SOLDIER OF SIDON! -Rostrum P.S. Pretty please?…
11 May 2001, 13:19
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That's funny. I assumed that the Christian holy man and baptism were the parts Wolfe had added. Neat to see that the nifty part (the flock dwindling to a single bird) is from Wo…
11 May 2001, 08:52
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So, don't keep me in suspense--what happens to the children in the original version? Does it have the bit about the flock dwindling to a single bird? I think that's the coolest p…
10 May 2001, 16:23
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Still, that's a big problem - Cain and Abel, and murder particularly, are definitely post-Fall, so it's hard to see how Adam (and Eden) could still be glorified and unfallen if Cai…
10 May 2001, 08:49
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Although I'm not sure how (if?) it fits with the creation narratives in Genesis, the Lilith myth seems to take place before the Fall. There is a tradition that before the Fall, hu…
09 May 2001, 08:38
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Other good Wolfe Short Shorts: "A Solar Labyrinth," "Westwind," "How the Whip Came Back," "Peritonitis," "The War Beneath the Tree," "Useful Phrases" (actually Wolfe's translation…
04 May 2001, 12:06
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So how many people are _actually_ attacked by inhumi in a given year (not counting weddings)? Of those, how many suffer any permanent harm? -Rostrum *This is WHORL, for discuss…
25 Apr 2001, 16:00
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Interestingly, First Things, a conservative, mostly Roman Catholic journal has a mostly positive review of Pullman's series this month (May issue) by Daniel Moloney. He's not so c…
25 Apr 2001, 10:33
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That doesn't seem like it would merit a flat, "Yes." I'd expect more of a, "well, in theory, if I could get everyone else to cooperate, we could destroy them." But when she says …
24 Apr 2001, 22:57
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So you're imagining Krait dying in Horn's arms and whispering, "The one thing we fear, the one weapon that would destroy us, is if humans ever develop skins so think we cannot suck…
24 Apr 2001, 11:51
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A sword is obviously a weapon, even if it's a sword so big no one could actually use it. But a fact about the inhumi would only be called a weapon if someone were to say, "Ah! Thi…
24 Apr 2001, 11:03
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I am still unable to read "a weapon too heavy to wield" as anything but "a weapon fraught with (moral?) danger to the wielder." Or maybe "a weapon you can't control (that will des…
23 Apr 2001, 15:38
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It's not the same, but it has several characteristics in common with Silk|Horn's astral travel that Mucor's posessions don't: only works when Mora is asleep, ability to bring other…
23 Apr 2001, 12:32
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What about Mora's dreamwalking/possessions, which seem to be linked somehow to Fava's spirit? -Rostrum *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.…
22 Apr 2001, 21:48
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Never mind the wacky Typhon-is-a-neighbor theory, I don't think there's any evidence that Pas or Passilk ever posessed Silk, Horn, or Silk|Horn. Silk|Horn is Passilk inasmuch as t…
22 Apr 2001, 21:44
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I think that bit about personification is important. In real life, Envy and Pride and Lust and Avarice are often all interrelated, so any attempt to create a character beset by En…
20 Apr 2001, 11:13
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Do we see any chem to human transfers in Long Sun? Or were you just referring to Jonas? Having a robot canibalize a human's prosthetics for spare parts is not so hard to swallow…
20 Apr 2001, 08:52
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But one of the main arguments for Pig's demideity ("godlingness"?) is that comment about his ears, suggesting some kind of biological kinship with the big guy. I agree, but if the…
19 Apr 2001, 16:07
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Alga wrote: From Rostrum: If anything, the extreme brutality of what happened makes me lean more toward believing that Seawrack's song produced some kind of irresistable compulsi…
19 Apr 2001, 11:11
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I think the key has to be each one's temptation scene. Stubb's seems to be appealing to his desire to be thought smart and essential for an important case (and appealing to the yo…
19 Apr 2001, 09:39
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