-
That's always seemed obvious to me, at least after I realised the place was a spaceport which took a decade or so, because... ...that's surely because the `towers' have flown in a…
10 Jul 1998, 09:10
-
By the way, this just got posted on the C.J. Cherryh mailing list, and I happened to notice another of my favourite authors listed in the convention schedule. ;Date: Thu, 2 Jul 19…
03 Jul 1998, 11:37
-
I suspect prion's right about what a real black hole would do to the sun. I don't necessarily think that matters to Wolfe. (He doesn't necessarily believe in wooden spaceships wi…
03 Jul 1998, 10:28
-
Just to start off away from the main topic: if Thecla, Dorcas and Agia are some combination of substitute wife, mother, sister, then presumably little Severian is a substitute son…
29 Jun 1998, 08:42
-
This is certainly a fascinating question. I would hazard that in the cases of Dorcas and Thecla it shows Severian has a mental quirk of pigeonholing people, and particularly women…
17 Jun 1998, 12:47
-
Peter Westlake wrote: (pedantically, GW wrote and PW typed in and added quotes) Just wanted to agree (belatedly --- fast list!) with the Lovecraft overtones. (The Baba Yaga joke …
16 Jun 1998, 09:28
-
Oh, goody, can I have a go? Last time I took a trip, I'd better say, To this great depth to fry my bacon, The stone had not yet come away. But just before (if I'm not much mistake…
15 Jun 1998, 09:15
-
I would say this is a very Wolfean theme altogether, or to put it another way, torturers have shadows too. (Readers of this list may still dimly remember Wolfe wrote another serie…
09 Jun 1998, 07:53
-
The Shadow here is VRT's (or the Shadow Child[ren] if you prefer): I like `Roy' for the middle name for the Celtic clues. However, given the Proust links it would have been nice i…
21 May 1998, 07:46
-
Alas not, so he'd better be Malrubius :-) That reminds me, I missed out two from my anti-list Malrubius: Leslie Nielsen Triskele: ALF Well, more sort of `knightly' rather tha…
14 May 1998, 12:10
-
I had some nightmares of my own last night: Sev: Travolta (not that I've got anything against him, it's just that he has `late twentieth century' written all over his face; I …
14 May 1998, 08:25
-
I can imagine Miranda Richardson (`Dance with a Stranger', `That Film about the First Mrs Eliot' (not the real title), Queen Elizabeth in `Blackadder II') getting the pent up evil …
13 May 1998, 08:45
-
You're right that this is a key moment, and seems to be asking for a psychological rather than a fantasy explanation. Actually, it recalls another part of Proust, towards the end,…
11 May 1998, 08:02
-
I absolutely agree that `unable to be photographed' is a chilling phrase, coming from Wolfe. I don't necessarily think that means there is any `obvious' supernatural explanation. …
09 May 1998, 10:27
-
I have to agree with this. The cover for Shadow, showing a mysterious figure (Severian) below a cluttered hill, has haunted me ever since I first bought it. There's a sense of ag…
06 May 1998, 09:58
-
Ever on the look out for tenuous links: there's a late nineteenth century humorous poem by W.S. Gilbert, about an old sailor the narrator met, wandering around the coast. It turn…
06 May 1998, 08:52
-
Whew, I've never seen so many messages... it doesn't seem worth staying silent at the moment, so... 1) Antechamber: it just occurred to me this has more specific Kafkaesque overt…
04 May 1998, 08:40
-
I always assumed the latter were referred to simply as `Member of the Group of Seventeen', or something such? It doesn't seem likely they go in for shining dinner party repartee (…
27 Mar 1998, 08:55
-
There are certainly no major thematic links, I didn't want to imply a deep relationship. Certainly there are differences of this kind. I would say, though, that when looking for …
13 Mar 1998, 09:37
-
The latter. I was a bit glib, so I've looked it up, in chapter XXVIII of Claw, `The Odalisque of Abaia'. The undine tempts Severian to join her under the water for largely unname…
13 Mar 1998, 09:14
-
As a fan of both Wolfe and W.B. Yeats, I've been struck by some parallels. I could easily be convinced that they are simply parallels, and not direct influences, but they seem to …
12 Mar 1998, 10:21
-
Even if this isn't what happens in this particular episode, it's certainly striking how quickly Severian `falls off' in any episode where he is somehow fleetingly put up against Ch…
12 Mar 1998, 09:08
-
There are some apparent references to Severian as Christ, which should probably be seen in the context of references to Severian as lots of other (in the broadest sense of the word…
09 Mar 1998, 09:13
-
About Dan Parmenter's comment on Master Ash (and without looking back at the archives to see if this has come up, I'm new here too): The second time I read the Book, I remember hav…
04 Mar 1998, 09:45
Urth Net