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No, it rests on the assumption that the slug's never, ever seen again -- not once -- the same as the salamander. Ergo, the most reasonable assumption is that it's dead, killed in…
28 May 2006, 21:25
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Except that the slug almost certainly perishes in the burning hut of the village of the sorcerors during the duel of magic, whereas Hethor is still alive when reencountered in _C…
28 May 2006, 17:05
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So, too, I believe, could his son, Venant -- unless you're going to argue he naturally looks like the very human, if false, Epitome of Urth. mg…
27 May 2006, 01:24
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Ah, yes. I stand corrected. Only human citizens of the Commonwealth are named after saints. My own small correction here: the hypernaut sleepers still retain their saintly names…
26 May 2006, 18:20
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Patera Pike's ghost? m…
26 May 2006, 18:17
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The Y chromosome seems especially dominant here and I cannot remember the last time that someone clearly identified as XX ventured to enter the domain. Unfortunately, the Gender…
26 May 2006, 02:55
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Except that there's no reason for Inire to disguise himself as a would-be painter. It serves neither function nor purpose. So why do it, and to what end? Rudesind is not like jun…
25 May 2006, 23:18
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Plunking on the honkytonk of his brain, bsharp improvises the following cadenza about the pansimianess of Father Inire: <The most telling clue is when Rudesind first comes down f…
25 May 2006, 19:16
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Mr. Ellis' counterfactual to the Hethorgate Theory is excellent and I hope that he will consent to its points being incorporated into the Piteous Gate summation should the wiki e…
24 May 2006, 00:30
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Couple points you missed, however: Gene Wolfe has both a father and a son named Roy, and hails originally from Tejas, as does, I believe, Mr. Lackey (who himself, so ignominiousl…
22 May 2006, 14:55
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*Ahem.* Pardon the familiarity, Roy, but I believe this is addressed to you. emmmmm…
21 May 2006, 00:19
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Could the giant baby found in Baldander's castle be the infant Abaia? As Severian tells us, "I left this boy where I had found him, and to this day I have no notion of what may h…
19 May 2006, 15:43
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Survive, yes; thrive, no. "Their power surpasses understanding, and I know now that they could crush us in a day if it were not that they count only enslavement, and not annihila…
19 May 2006, 02:26
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I'm not sure the monster convention means those so named are aliens so much as non-human; at least that's the theory I favor. Absolutely Uroboros: "I've heard that in the hot for…
18 May 2006, 19:53
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Nicely put, and as I've speculated recently (http://listserver.dreamhost.com/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2006-April/001892.html), I believe a case can be made that the undines are ac…
18 May 2006, 19:39
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Even though I'm Jewish, I mean no disrespect here -- it's just that sometimes when supernatural entities bump uglies with us mortals, the results do not always conform to known g…
17 May 2006, 22:34
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What color eyes and hair did the father of Jesus of Nazareth have? em…
17 May 2006, 22:20
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The theory, as I understand it, posits Juturna as mother. As an undine she has mastery over time, so neither the baby's age nor size needs to be accounted for. In regards to the …
17 May 2006, 16:10
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For the longest time I was an advocate of the Morwenna-as-Severa theory and have posted so before, but on my last read through I concluded she was more likely related to Manahen …
15 May 2006, 20:47
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Agreed, and perhaps exactly what is meant when Severian writes about "certain dramatic pauses which shall signal to you that something of import is about to occur." I believe Mr…
15 May 2006, 05:15
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Man bytes Wolfe? emily…
14 May 2006, 20:34
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Totally unsure if this is relevant or not, but at the end of _Shadow_, as Sev and his friends approach the Nessus Wall, we are told "It is of black metal, like the walls of the C…
06 May 2006, 16:37
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But you will allow that forebearance can also mean pertaining to one's forebears, right? And while you may be correct about the usage of forebearance for forbearance in the perso…
06 May 2006, 03:39
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I came across what is either an interesting clue in this regard, a typo, or sloppy copy-editing, depending on your druthers. In Chapter VI of _Shadow_ Severian is reading a note …
06 May 2006, 01:17
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URTH, Chapter XIII, "The Battles," paragraph 3: "Again my semblance stepped forward. Having relieved myself of something of the contempt I felt for him, I was able to note his dr…
05 May 2006, 17:37
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Pterodon does yield the letters to form the homologous snippet, p-e-r-n. But perhaps even more interesting the word "purn" itself means "bone, skull" in proto-Dravidian. I'd been…
05 May 2006, 15:35
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I believe it was Mr. Andre-Driussi who argued earlier that Hethor and Purn might be younger and older versions of the same individual. (I've given up ever trying to find anything…
03 May 2006, 03:34
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...and Persian cats, plus Samoyed and Siberian Husky dogs, blue-eyed lemurs, blue-eyed shags (an antarctic bird), and Siegfried and Roy's famous white tigers, one of whom, Mantic…
02 May 2006, 20:33
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Mr. Doggett: Either you're misremembering, have a variant text, or I'm looking in all the wrong places. Noctua is "luminous of eye" "and the light that is in them is not of Urth…
02 May 2006, 17:52
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From: "b sharp" Much of the early violet imagery in Shadow is associated with flowers in the necropolis. I.e., "The necropolis has never seemed a city of death to me; I know its…
02 May 2006, 02:56
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From: b# I've another theory yet -- could the undines be the equivalent of alien Mata Haris and therefore be agents of the Hierodules? 1) Their names (Juturna, Idas) seem closer…
28 Apr 2006, 18:24
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Mssrs. Lackey and Danehy-Oakes writing respectively: This seems to belie Sev's response to the villager in _Urth_ who, in referencing early snowfalls two years in a row, proclaim…
26 Apr 2006, 21:12
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thalassocrat first: I'm not sure that the first half of this is altogether true, since Sev clearly does remember meeting Merryn when he was much younger and details the reminisc…
05 Apr 2006, 17:15
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Welcome aboard, Anjruu. Feel free to post away, but please be aware that many of your questions about New/Long Sun may have already been addressed, so if you can, kindly check t…
04 Apr 2006, 03:29
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Marc: Well, for starters, Latro never comes right out and tells us his name is "Lucius." Rather, at the end of Arete, he chronicles being hailed as "Lewqys" by the Phoenician bo…
01 Apr 2006, 05:45
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A true son of Rome (but not of Greece) Marcus Aramini writes: I've yet to receive my order of Long & Short & Everything In Between, but one of my students handed in a midterm on …
31 Mar 2006, 07:31
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This seems somewhat contradicted by what Severian is told by Master Palaemon in Chapter 13 of -Shadow_ (part of which has already been quoted). ****************** "You know of t…
22 Feb 2006, 02:08
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Mr. Ellis writes: Here's something I don't understand, however. If it's illegal to travel via the roads, how exactly are all these people planning to get to where they're going?…
21 Feb 2006, 19:51
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"Insofar as I was trying to create any parallels with an actual historical period here on Earth--and obviously I wasn't aiming at developing an exact analogy--I was thinking of B…
31 Jan 2006, 01:09
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Maru writes: It's the "book about the assassination of Trotsky" that Number Five finds next to Virginia Woolf's _Monday or Tuesday_ and was written by Bernard Wolfe, who, beside…
26 Aug 2005, 15:32
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Maru D. writes: Almost certainly any books written by Maitre would be in the non-fiction sections of the stacks--something the very young Number Five may not yet have conceptual…
26 Aug 2005, 09:52
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"But the boy only laughed at her and pelted her with the shining stones of Atlantis, with agates and alexandrites, moonstones and onyxes, rubies, sardonyxes, and sapphires..." I…
24 Aug 2005, 22:43
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Crush writes: I don't agree with your parenthesis above. Or maybe I should say I understand why you believe it to be so. But there's also at least one other valid interpretation…
03 Aug 2005, 18:57
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Master-of-the-sea writes: But not only is there a ship on the door, there's a rose and a fountain--and if ever two symbols clashed with what we know of Ymar, it's these. Remember…
31 Jul 2005, 19:44
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Adding yet another paragraph to the following sequence: I'm assuming one of the publishing arms of John Gregory Betancourt's Cosmos Books will be doing the POD of _Lexicon Urthus…
22 Jul 2005, 10:26
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http://lists.urth.net/htdig.cgi/urth-urth.net/2004-December/000159.html: "Michael Andre-Driussi confirms LEXICON URTHUS will probably appear as a Print On Demand title in the nex…
21 Jul 2005, 22:27
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There's also this fascinating description by Mr Wolfe himself from THRUST 19: Thrust: If Severian were standing in front of us, describe him externally and internally. Wolfe: Y…
18 Jun 2005, 12:13
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Iorwerth-the-ursiphile writing: Do alzabos count? Mr. Andre-Driussi argues in his _Lexicon_ and elsewhere* that the alzabo may be the "ghoul-bear" of Saint Anne, and young Sever…
06 Apr 2005, 11:08
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There is actually a fourth: Arioch (IV, chap 1). And Blaithmaic's book in the library of the Citadel, _Lives of the Seventeen Megatherians_, suggests there may be as many as 13 m…
14 Mar 2005, 16:35
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Not sure I agree. Most cultures that process their own meat (as opposed to shopping at a supermarket) consider horns, hooves, hides (skin) and sinews (tendons) to be inedible; al…
21 Feb 2005, 18:09
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