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What I'm thinking of is that both narrators have a tendency to report extraordinary events in an almost casual way sometimes neglecting to go into detail about what we would consid…
27 Oct 1999, 22:14
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I'd also like to add "The Immortal," a story which reminds me more of Wolfe's style than any other. For instance, the narrator gives offhanded comments from which one can infer hi…
27 Oct 1999, 09:32
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Speaking of tales out of context. The tale of the Sidhe at the end of _Peace_ is still one of my favorite things Wolfe has written. I tried to tell it from memory to some friends…
26 Oct 1999, 09:29
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[...] [...] As I first read this, I wondered if you weren't conflating Wolfe and Severian. That last paragraph seems like handwaving, unless we have some evidence that Severian'…
25 Oct 1999, 12:56
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In referring to "trust," I meant to include issues of error as well as deception. Don't forget "Seven American Nights," in which the narrator purposely keeps information from the …
18 Oct 1999, 11:01
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On the other hand, I think it's still possible for a skeptic to read the Long Sun books and side with Dr. Crane on the question of Silk's enlightenment. For that reason, I think i…
18 Oct 1999, 08:23
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Or vice versa. -Rostrum *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.…
18 Oct 1999, 08:06
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Here! Here! Huzzah! Amen! Me Too! -Rostrum *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.…
13 Oct 1999, 08:26
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That last bit gets at the possibility I was wondering about. No one reading Tolkien thinks that Aragorn is Christ-like because there was Christianity in Middle Earth's past. The …
08 Oct 1999, 12:49
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This touches on the difference I was trying to express between these two series. Does one get the feeling, reading the New Sun series, that even in Typhon's time anyone would reme…
08 Oct 1999, 11:10
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How much was Wolfe involved in this project? If he helped condense things, I'd think what he choose to keep and what he choose to leave out might be very enlightening. -Rostrum…
07 Oct 1999, 18:23
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Oooo! A tricky question. How much do details from the Long Sun "count" in interpreting the New Sun books? Somehow I feel that's cheating. On the other hand, I don't feel that w…
07 Oct 1999, 18:22
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I know we've been through this some before, but I was curious in what sense you think Christianity played a part in "the teaching and church of the Conciliator." -Rostrum…
06 Oct 1999, 13:53
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One wrinkle is that we don't know how much human physiology has changed between Severian's time and ours (or between ours and Severians, depending on how you want to think about th…
29 Sep 1999, 17:21
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A few more tidbits about Watchmen/Severian (plenty o' spoilers) It's been pointed out in newsgroup discussions, that Veidt's plan is particularly suspect because he gets his infor…
17 Sep 1999, 08:47
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True North or magnetic North? -Rostrum…
20 Aug 1999, 14:33
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One problem with the cargo=cattle idea: Even if you imagine that the cargo are being sent to set up a "real" colony which will then be harvested in a "sustainable" manner by the …
02 Jul 1999, 10:43
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[...] A few other good ones: Hofstadter, Douglas R. The mind's I : fantasies and reflections on self and soul / composed and arranged by Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Denne…
16 Jun 1999, 09:30
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Ian A. York recently posted some insightful thoughts about Wolfe's writing in TBOTNS to the rec.arts.sf.written newsgroup. There are three posts you can find here: http://x35.dej…
03 Jun 1999, 13:39
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WARNING: SPOILERS for Blish's CASE OF CONSCIENCE and Lewis's SPACE TRILOGY I don't think that really fits. Lewis's aliens wouldn't have caused Blish's characters any problems bec…
03 Jun 1999, 11:42
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SPOILERS for CASE OF CONSCIENCE here. The central dilemma of Blish's book was hard for me to take seriously. Humanity discovers an alien race which seems to have no knowledge of …
02 Jun 1999, 12:14
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I always thought that Severian gave him the stone out of compassion, not just as a reward for his services. Or if compassion is the wrong word, maybe respect, or perhaps out of di…
27 May 1999, 09:42
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Perhaps the best Wolfe-fan-fiction Mr. Borski has written to date. -Rostrum…
26 May 1999, 16:36
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I'm not sure how much you can conclude from that one example. I'd think even the most "plan-ahead" type of writers occasionally come up with a cool scene they want to write withou…
11 May 1999, 10:27
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That may be one of the more hair-raising Gene Wolfe short stories I've read yet. -Rostrum…
10 May 1999, 14:33
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If you want to see more of the ethical dilemmas of radical self-modification, you should read Greg Egan's works such as Diaspora, Distress, and especially Permutation City. He ima…
06 May 1999, 08:36
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On the other hand, see "The Last Thrilling Wonder Story" where the Author get's his comeuppance for taking that metaphor too seriously. -Rostrum…
04 May 1999, 08:48
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Vernor Vinge's new book "A Deepness in the Sky" is partly about the issue of whether you can have a cohesive interstellar empire with stl sleeper ramships. And it's a great book. …
03 May 1999, 08:43
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If Wolfe were writing in the same way as Lewis, that is, in a future meant to be a literal extension of ours, then it would make sense to ask, "If Tzad is really an Angel of God, w…
29 Apr 1999, 16:10
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Heh. The reply I was working on to Ori has been made redundant by Jonathan Laidlow who summed up what I was trying to say with this: So I'll just add a few minor observations. …
29 Apr 1999, 09:49
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For most of the series, I assumed that the "Conciliator" was a set of poorly-remembered stories of Jesus (I forget how I fit Typhon's statements into that interpretation), so I was…
28 Apr 1999, 08:36
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On Fri, 23 Apr 1999, Peter T. Cash recommended Banks's INVERSIONS Speaking of other authors that remind one of Wolfe, I've been reading Vernor Vinge's new book, _A Deepness in the…
26 Apr 1999, 10:19
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Using the author's biography and alleged intent to interpret a novel can be interesting, but I prefer interpretations that stand on their own support from the text. You may end …
26 Apr 1999, 10:09
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We recently had a discussion that touched on this topic. Some people argue that the distinction between "materialistic" and "supernaturalistic" is a modern one, and that it's we w…
23 Apr 1999, 16:26
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I've suspected in other contexts that one way Christian authors avoid getting pegged as "Christian Authors" is to write alot about sex. I wonder if Wolfe might have a little of th…
13 Apr 1999, 08:41
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Speaking of ambiguity, we might remember that the Long Sun books were written by a colonist (Horn) who may not have been entirely impartial in his portrayal of Quetzal and the inhu…
10 Apr 1999, 16:27
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Predestination? It sounds to me more like a promise. The Outsider doesn't say, "I've seen the future and I know you're not going to do anything bad enough to make me stop loving …
06 Apr 1999, 11:13
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You make a good case for why Wolfe would write about someone like Severian, but I'm not sure it answers the question of why the Hierodules would choose Severian as a savior. Are…
05 Apr 1999, 16:59
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If the comics are written by Wolfe, it seems that it would be extremely interesting to find out what he considered "the essentials to the story." I'd love to see someone who has t…
01 Apr 1999, 11:55
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I imagine it means that Violet and other girls from Orchid's brothel regularly entertain people at Blood's mansion. Blood owns the brothel. -Rostrum *This is WHORL, for discus…
31 Mar 1999, 09:38
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Am I right in understanding you to mean that you feel you leaped to that conclusion too soon, rather than that you disagree that Pas=Typhon? -Rostrum…
31 Mar 1999, 09:35
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Presumably some Autarchs would have been easier to optimize than others. Maybe Sev1 only just barely failed. -Rostrum…
17 Feb 1999, 13:11
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Now that you mention it, this scene did remind me when I read it of Moby Dick, at least as far as sharing a bed with a weirdo, but I'd forgotten about it. I didn't notice all the …
05 Feb 1999, 08:53
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Still, I think it would be a big improvement if either: 1. Someone with programing knowledge would help attach a search engine to the archives (I have no idea how big a job that …
28 Jan 1999, 11:33
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I've got another idea that might be less work and more useful. How about someone volunteer to help Ranjit convert the Urth/Whorl archives into an easily searchable format? Do mo…
25 Jan 1999, 16:31
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Yes, very good. How about "Detective of Dreams" for Epiphany and "Westwind" for Whitsunday? I can't quite bring myself to suggest "All the Hues of Hell" for the Feast of the Annu…
12 Jan 1999, 12:38
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I think someone mentioned this a while back, but the other parallel between Silk and St. Francis is that St. Francis had a vision from God which he initially interpreted literally …
11 Jan 1999, 14:53
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This sounds like it was inspired by a novel from the mid 1800's by Wilkie Collins called _The Moonstone_, which T.S. Eliot called "the first and greatest of English detective novel…
05 Jan 1999, 09:21
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That's the thing. If he didn't go on about his perfect memory so much, we might cut him some slack. But as it is, if Severian is so perfect, what alternative do we have but to ca…
17 Dec 1998, 17:11
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Forgive me if I'm misremembering and the "Tower of Torment" refers specifically to the execution wing of the torturer's building, but aren't there a lot of "clients" whose sentence…
17 Dec 1998, 15:07
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