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When I spoke to Wolfe at the Locus event in Seattle last year, he said he was making progress on a third novel (after Pirate Freedom and Evil Guest, and which Mantis later told me …
26 Mar 2008, 17:34
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Anyone else think that Pirate Freedom can be seen as an expanded version of the Wolfe short story "A Cabin on the Coast"? -- Rostrum…
16 Jan 2008, 19:15
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Michael Swanwick's essay about Wolfe in the F&SF special issue mentions an essay by Wolfe called "What I Know About Writing (in no particular order)." Here's Swanwick's essay: ht…
21 Jun 2007, 16:13
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The bulk of Wolfe's writing is either short-stories/novellas or multi-volume stories. Even Wizard Knight is way too long to do any justice with a movie. So if you really want a …
12 Apr 2007, 15:57
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Re-reading Soldier of Arete, I came across a passage that I think sheds light not only on Latro but also Able and some of Wolfe's other characters. Polos is shocked to see Latro c…
01 Dec 2006, 17:31
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Holy essential background reading, Batman! I wish I'd known that ten years ago. Now I'm wondering what else I need to have read. Essential: 1. Story of Spartans slaughtering t…
30 Nov 2006, 22:17
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I just finished re-reading the first two Soldier books in preparation for Soldier of Sidon. I'm convinced that they are Wolfe's very best. But, wow, to completely follow the plot…
30 Nov 2006, 06:04
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I'm trying to remember the name of one of Wolfe's older short stories. It's told from two points of view - one, some sort of archeologist type character writing a report and seein…
02 Jun 2006, 17:07
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I just finished "Pale Fire" by Nabokov. I read it because someone said "If you like Wolfe you'll like this," and it was mentioned a while back when we tried to put together a rea…
16 Apr 2003, 15:46
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A couple questions for my Latro supplemental reading: 1. Which works of Herodotus and Xenophon are the most relevant to the Soldier books? 2. Are there good public domain trans…
27 Jan 2003, 16:59
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There's a *much* stronger connection. According to G.K. Chesterton's biography of St. Francis, Francis began his career when he heard a voice saying to him, "Francis, seest thou n…
25 Jan 2003, 01:54
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I have to say that this cracks me up. The difference between a bunch of folks sitting around talking about which interpretation of a story makes for the most fun reading and the e…
28 Dec 2002, 22:56
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Well argued. I think you're almost certainly right. But it is possible (although the text doesn't do much to support it) that Jolenta is not, for Jonas, a Siren but rather Dulcin…
26 Sep 2002, 15:58
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Excerpt here: http://www.locusmag.com/2002/Issue09/GaimanWolfe.html I won't spoil the hilarious last line by quoting it. -Rostrum…
05 Sep 2002, 15:07
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Some have said that Silk, an able augur, ought to have no difficulty killing himself if he wished. On the other hand, Silk is very hard to kill. These two probably cancel out. O…
15 Jul 2002, 18:08
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Sphigx? I see her in an embryo enhanced for physical strength (Chenille, maybe), if not a godling, but, are the godlings bios or chems? I'd think a nuclear-powered, moisture-eati…
18 Jun 2002, 02:33
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I assumed that these were deliberate parodies of Islam, Judaism, Christianity, etc. by Typhon et. al. But since Typhon thought it was all bunk, he inadvertently incorporated bits …
12 Jun 2002, 19:33
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To me, at that point it became obvious the whole thing was a joke and not meant to have any real bearing on Severian's story. -Rostrum…
12 Jun 2002, 19:13
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Thanks to mantis, John Barach (whose bibliography I've cut/pasted from below) and all the others who helped recommend uncollected Wolfe shorts. Here's my list of most of the short…
11 Apr 2002, 15:47
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I was thinking about Wolfe's apparent modesty with regard to whether or not his next novel will be published. Wolfe is a SF fan, he knows what's popular, and he knows that his boo…
11 Apr 2002, 14:01
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I recently found out that another SF writer is enamored of the number seventeen: apparently most of Steven Brust's novels have 17 chapters (starting with the first Dragaera novel, …
27 Mar 2002, 17:01
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Regarding the similarity of Urth and Blue/Green lifeforms and their ability to eat each other, this is an old standard convention in science fiction. Let's remember that the Short…
26 Mar 2002, 16:16
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Perhaps my least favorite bit from Mr. Gevers's excellent interview with Wolfe was when he said he didn't see a new short story collection on the horizon (although perhaps that's j…
18 Mar 2002, 15:00
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One of my favorite pleasures in reading science fiction short stories is being dropped /in medias res/, not knowing where or when the story takes place, not knowing if the protagon…
14 Mar 2002, 15:24
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As a little break from our more involved discussions, here's a down-to-earth question that probably has a straightforward answer. How does Severian quickly unsheath his sword when…
06 Mar 2002, 17:48
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Near the beginning of RTW, "He" (the person whose adventures are chronicled in the third-person passages) has a dream that had me quite confused. I'm refering to the one He has th…
17 Feb 2002, 02:42
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1. Y'all probably caught this the first time, but it was only on the second reading I noticed the real purpose of the fireworks at the Battle of Blanko: cover for Incanto so he co…
11 Feb 2002, 03:32
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On Wed, 2 Jan 2002, James Jordan wrote: [regarding "Olmo has fallen" = "Elm has fallen"] Yes and no. I was sorta joking. Horn's ghost is in there, but I think there's evidence …
02 Jan 2002, 20:38
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"To demonstrate the singular hold the Qur'an has in Muslim society, Cools tells of a woman who for thirty years communicated exclusively with quotations from the Qur'an." Daniel P…
05 Dec 2001, 14:41
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Ack! What a great catch. This proves the narrator is a ghost! -Rostrum…
03 Dec 2001, 13:28
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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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I didn't get into that specifically, but, yes, this is exactly what I had in mind too. One of my favorite parallels: Luke and Acts are thought to have been written by the same pe…
11 Jun 2001, 09:10
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Horn's statement about having a mania for recording coversations struck me as a key insight into Wolfe's writing. Could it be that Wolfe's eliptical style is largely based on a pr…
10 Jun 2001, 15:48
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[...] I remember feeling this way at the end of tBOTLS, the idea that some of the wonderful things Horn had told me about Silk might have been exaggerations or wishful thinking ga…
10 Jun 2001, 15:40
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The explanation came to me right after I hit send. Lilith and Adam and Eden are post fall, as shown by Cain having already killed Abel. It's just that, even after the Fall, it to…
10 May 2001, 09:11
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Need I point out this last bit is probably a reference to Cain and Abel? I hate to say it, loving Wolfe as I do, but this whole dialect thing strikes me as a cheap way of making b…
06 May 2001, 21:43
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While I agree that Horn has serious flaws, I think you're exaggerating things here to try to make your point. I'll give you most of this one, but my impression was more that Horn …
16 Apr 2001, 17:32
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Don't have the passage in front of me, but in OBW, Horn tells Wizer that he wants to see Silk again and talk with him more than anything else in the whorl, and "Nettle feels the sa…
11 Apr 2001, 08:33
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Rereading OBW, I was trying to make sense of the Rajan's musings that Silk might be on Blue somewhere, or have died or Green. Could Horn be that deluded even after the confrontati…
10 Apr 2001, 22:38
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I can't find it in the archives, but I could have sworn there was someone complaining about Horn going on and on about corn genetics at the beginning of OBW. I'd forgotten all abou…
03 Apr 2001, 16:23
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Could it be that when Horn talks of the secret returning the inhumi to the vermin they once were that he is speaking metaphorically? Humans currently view the inhumi as intellig…
03 Apr 2001, 16:02
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I should also point out, in the part you quote above, I was referring to the downloaded mainframe version of Silk, aka Passilk. I didn't mean to say that the human Silk had consum…
01 Apr 2001, 16:49
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Is there more than one Silk-god in Mainframe? Is there a Silk-alone god (Silver/Silent Silk) as well as a Pas+Silk god? I find that hard to accept, since we don't know of any oth…
29 Mar 2001, 15:04
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Several people have mentioned the "surprise" twist at the end of RTTW, some even disparaging it as Hollywoodesque. But why is this a surprise? In every other case of a spirit in…
28 Mar 2001, 21:11
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When we sent off a list of interview questions to Wolfe about the Long Sun books, mine was about whether Horn and Nettle had to make up some of the scenes that they wouldn't have h…
28 Mar 2001, 10:09
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There is an idea in Christianity (with parallels in other religions, I imagine) that one must not cling too tightly to one's own desires and expectations, lest one miss the good th…
28 Mar 2001, 09:50
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Folks have complained that Horn's children wouldn't write that way, that it is implausible that they would write a narrative that deliberately hides the protagonist's identity unti…
28 Mar 2001, 09:24
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Yay! Finally finished RTTW and wading through the archives and can post some of my thoughts. Y'all can put me in the camp that thinks this series is fabulous--I don't know if I c…
28 Mar 2001, 09:11
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Nice to see the theme continue from Nightside's "You were their best player. It wouldn't have been fair to them if you hadn't played your best." and OBW's "I have snatched the bal…
31 Jan 2001, 14:27
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I think I've made it through all the archives now, having at last finished IGJ (and recovered from my amazement at how good it is), and I can't believe no one has mentioned this so…
31 Jan 2001, 14:19
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