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No, but what's the likelihood of finding the right 100 bits you need to reassemble a given card? -Rostrum…
10 Jul 1998, 11:58
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I think this makes sense. I'll just add that the breaking of cards into bits is a tragedy unforseen by Typhon (not to mention a nifty pun). Except I don't know enough economics t…
10 Jul 1998, 08:49
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I always interpreted that remark as Wolfe playing with the ambiguity of the phrase "Seekers of Truth and Penitence." Silk is literally such a seeker in the sense of seeking truth …
09 Jul 1998, 17:24
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Aha! The torturer's guild descends from Episcopalians! -Rostrum…
09 Jul 1998, 17:19
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On Tue, 7 Jul 1998, Jim Jordan answered: I don't think "A Solar Labyrinth" is about the Severian Cycle, I think it's about *reading* the Severian Cycle. It's about figuring out a…
07 Jul 1998, 18:15
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I don't think Wolfe is "God" in "The Last Thrilling Wonder Story" (I'm not even sure that the "author" is Wolfe, but that's another argument). The protagonist prays to God and t…
07 Jul 1998, 18:02
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I asked: On Mon, 6 Jul 1998, Marc Coleman answered: So Ushas and Urth are in the same universe? Ushas is simply Urth some years later when the newly restored sun has melted the …
07 Jul 1998, 16:12
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[...] [...] [more comparisons snipped] My problem with this analysis is that, if "A Solar Labyrinth" is an attempt to capture something of the Christian life in a story, then I …
07 Jul 1998, 11:17
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Ok, all this discussion of the black hole/white fountain has made me realize that, although I thought I understood, I still don't get it. Urth's sun is dying for some reason. Sev…
06 Jul 1998, 14:27
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This is my favorite reading of the story to date. So if mazes in general are SF/F, then the Solar Labyrinth is Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. Making Mr. Smith into Wolfe himself. …
06 Jul 1998, 09:42
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This is not the place for a big debate on this (I'd be happy to discuss it in private e-mail), but this needs some qualification. There are plenty of Christians who would not agre…
01 Jul 1998, 13:10
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I forward this post from rec.arts.sf.written with Mr. Gilbert's permission. I'd be interested to hear what others think of the way Wolfe writes about women and sex roles, but I do…
30 Jun 1998, 13:53
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I don't think this bit says much about Severian's identity. It sounds to me like the way many people might describe their experience of prayer, but few if any would mean by it tha…
30 Jun 1998, 09:30
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Ah, yes (no, no, yes, no, yes, no)! I get creeps just remembering some of the instructions in the wife's handbook. Does anyone know where the word/name "Forlesen" comes from? D…
25 Jun 1998, 10:43
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Or maybe URTH OF THE NEW SUN? -Rostrum…
25 Jun 1998, 10:38
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In what sense? Did you feel Severian was, unknown to himself, the "reincarnation" of the Conciliator, or did you guess that he would end up time travelling and becoming the Concil…
25 Jun 1998, 10:35
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Ack. People keep referring to this novella and I've got a note somewhere about how much I liked it, but I can't remember what it's about. Could someone please e-mail me a brief s…
24 Jun 1998, 16:17
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I know this happens in the Soldier series in several places, and I think I remember that kind of thing happening in FREE LIVE FREE too, but I can't remember any specific examples. …
24 Jun 1998, 12:16
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On Mon, 22 Jun 1998, Dan Parmenter quoted: As I read this (with the hindsight of URTH), Typhon recognizes Severian, and thinks Severian is playing coy with him. I doubt Typhon su…
22 Jun 1998, 17:33
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Anyone care to make a prediction whether we'll be genetically re-engineering eye color before or after we have interstellar colonies? -Rostrum…
22 Jun 1998, 14:31
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Also, I forgot to mention that the disposition of the immortals when the protagonist meets them reminds me somewhat of the episode of Stanislaw Lem's _Cyberiad_ where one of the co…
22 Jun 1998, 08:27
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I submit Jorge Luis Borges's short story "The Immortal" for the those looking for Lupine precursors. The narrator's journey reminds me of tBotNS in ways I can't put my finger on.…
19 Jun 1998, 13:45
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The difference being that Wolfe seems to have great affection for popular, less demanding science-fiction and its readers, both of which get sneers from academic critics. He's jus…
18 Jun 1998, 17:00
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A fascinating, but at best difficult exercise! Some might argue it is impossible, that having read Urth, there are some possibilities we just won't be able to see in BotNS anymore…
18 Jun 1998, 10:22
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Wow! I've been considering for days now how to ask this very question. Like many people, I read the BotNS and was entranced but knew I wasn't getting all of it, and now know that…
18 Jun 1998, 10:15
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I'm not sure I know any such thing. My impression in reading that bit was that Blood's talus had been an important enough character that Wolfe (Horn?) wanted to give the reader so…
12 Jun 1998, 13:36
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Well, Horn doesn't write it in all caps, so if it originally was an acronym, it's probably one like 'radar' or 'scuba' where most people don't know what it stands for or even that …
01 Jun 1998, 21:10
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There's the passage (in Citadel?) where Severian is on the beach and comes across the rose bushes and sees that the thorns all look just like the Claw and he removes his boots reco…
21 May 1998, 10:10
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Although I would not be surprised if Wolfe had read Pausinas, I think a more obvious source is St. Paul in the New Testament: Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus …
18 May 1998, 16:53
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The way I read that business is that Typhon et. al. wanted to erase the starcrossers' memories of Typhon the Tyrant and replace them with memories of Allfather Pas the Omnibenifice…
18 May 1998, 10:31
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Hmm. Maybe I was answering the question "Why did Wolfe name it 'Whorl' than why did Typhon name it 'Whorl'. But maybe not. Typhon knew he was creating an artificial world, compl…
15 May 1998, 09:18
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[Theory about Severian getting power from Urth, Old Sun, etc.] While these ideas are tantilizing, I just wanted to go on record as really liking the time-twisting ideas about Seve…
15 May 1998, 09:13
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It's been too long for me to remember where that passage comes, but could it serve as a kind of Christ fasting 40 days in the wilderness episode? Does he face either major temptati…
15 May 1998, 09:00
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Two-headed Zaphod (Beeblebrox), President of the entire Galaxy (Universe?), but really just figure-heads for the dark and mysterious actual rulers (is Typhon really a pawn of the U…
15 May 1998, 08:53
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For the travelers, Starcrosser is their whole World, but since it spins, they call it the Whorl. There are lots of passages where people use the same syntax as if they were going…
14 May 1998, 09:56
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This sounds very much like how C.S. Lewis describes the situation in _The Great Divorce_. He claims that the redeemed in Heaven will look back on their earthly life and see that t…
04 May 1998, 13:45
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Perhaps it was that "debunking" sort of answer that offended people, to Weer's surprise. I find people are often disappointed rather than gratified when you debunk a story with so…
30 Apr 1998, 15:56
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As an aside, I've just recently given Vance a try. I adored THE DYING EARTH, liked but was lukewarm about EYES OF THE OVERWORLD, and was bored by the short-story collection THE AU…
22 Apr 1998, 13:53
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I got such enlightening responses from Paul, Tony, Adam, et. al., that I'm going to throw out another question I've gotten no takers on before. The story of Finn M'Cool and his ca…
17 Apr 1998, 14:32
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I asked this question a while back in the middle of a longer message about Peace and didn't get any takers and I hope y'all don't mind me taking another shot. I love the story of …
14 Apr 1998, 11:11
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Jeannine = "Gene #9"? -Rostrum…
02 Apr 1998, 13:43
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I'd always understood that quote to mean that, Weer did not kill "many" of the other characters of the book, not that he didn't kill anyone. I doubt Wolfe would have had to think …
02 Apr 1998, 13:36
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Thanks for the interesting article. When I first heard about Peace, I put it at the bottom of my list of Wolfe books to read because I'm more of a SF fan, but it turned out to be …
02 Apr 1998, 13:29
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The idea that the sledge at the end is the same one Cutthroat has been chasing seems pretty popular, and I agree it has a certain closure to it, but I can't picture it. Even if …
27 Mar 1998, 09:31
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It depends on how the drug works. And what it's like to have a memory like Severian's. And whether you can draw a sharp line between memory and self. If Severian's memory is mo…
26 Mar 1998, 11:29
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I wonder if there could be some difference attributable to Severian's memory. Perhaps for everyone else the sharing of Thecla is a fleeting thing, but since Severian can't forget,…
24 Mar 1998, 10:39
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On 20 Mar 1998, Tony Ellis wrote (quoting mantis): Been a while since I was familiar with theories of how stars form, but isn't a star (and thus a quasar) a gas cloud that is "for…
20 Mar 1998, 08:33
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That seems kind of a stretch to me. This story has always been unsatisfying to me because I can't find a good fit for the third dream. The other two dreams are straight re-telling…
05 Mar 1998, 12:07
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Which parable is the last dream (the one where the woman watches her husband fly to pieces when he orders the Stranger shot)? -Rostrum…
03 Mar 1998, 09:00
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Kind of like plugging a hole by putting the other end of the hole in the original hole? Or maybe a bathtub drain that leads back to the bathtub, refilling it? If so, it might be …
12 Feb 1998, 11:45
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