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There are two basic types of sacrifice -- those made voluntarily and those in which the subject of the sacrifice is a reluctant participant. The overwhelming majority of sacrifices…
05 Jun 2008, 20:59
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For purposes of this discussion, it doesn't matter which document Wolfe translated. The text we have is all there is. The conceit is that, thanks to Severian's vaunted memory, the …
03 Jun 2008, 05:34
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By "reconstructing", I can only conclude you are referring to the copy Severian made from memory shortly after boarding the Ship. [snip] Again, what do you mean by "rewrite" and …
01 Jun 2008, 06:45
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He That's possible, but there is a problem with the timeline. When the King said that things would be as they were before Lissy was taken, he didn't specify exactly how long befor…
29 May 2008, 07:23
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I should probably just leave this alone, but there is one nagging detail that I can't explain or ignore. It's that damn "already damp and a trifle sandy" towel Tim used after he sh…
28 May 2008, 18:14
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No. She had never met Tim's father; she had seen him only in pictures. In the pictures, he was very gaunt. Though the fairy King had promised things would be just as they were for …
28 May 2008, 08:09
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Dave, If, as you contend, the last three pages of the notebook were forged, and if, as you also contend, they were forged by an automated writing machine, then the climax of the s…
15 May 2008, 05:40
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As the first two sentences of the story make absolutely clear, the private investigator hired by Nadan's family had already unearthed sufficient evidence to lead him to believe tha…
11 May 2008, 06:43
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Welcome, Oliver! I believe that you are referring to how your post appears online; that the text shows up as one continuous line, requiring the reader to scroll way off the page t…
11 May 2008, 06:40
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And in a subsequent post: If the F.E.D., for reasons unexplained, wanted Nadan dead, and in fact killed him, they would have to have gone to extraordinary lengths in forging an ac…
09 May 2008, 16:44
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I believe Scrudder is a typo. In the 1985 Chatto (British) hb edition the pagination is different but the name is Scudder in both places you cite in the Berkley pb. -Roy…
27 Apr 2008, 21:37
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Quite right: During Vi's story she interjected: "Shut up, Jimmy. Just because it's your birthday you don't have the right to interrupt." (p. 111) -Roy…
26 Apr 2008, 20:24
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[snip] Uh, I hate to play Dickens with this theory, but . . . The party took place shortly after the July picnic. The occasion was Macafee's 41st birthday on August 3 (p. 75) and…
25 Apr 2008, 19:55
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Wolfe was in his early forties when he wrote that, so he wasn't speaking from personal experience. My experience is just the opposite. Older people tend to be less constrained by s…
23 Apr 2008, 18:24
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John, I can't answer many of your questions, but I dislike seeing honest, thoughtful queries such as yours about two stories that have not been discussed here before be ignored. T…
10 Feb 2008, 06:25
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I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading TWG -- I've read it several times myself, decades ago. It has a certain appeal, even fascination, for young males of a certain poetic bent…
19 Jan 2008, 06:12
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Well, Marc didn't answer, but I'm not the only one to remember that post. Thanks to Tony Ellis, I am able to append it here. The post is, indeed, in the lost year of archives. I kn…
18 Jan 2008, 05:22
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I vowed at the time Marc Aramini posted what Wolfe really had to say about _The White Goddess_ that I was going to post a link to that post every time someone raised the specter of…
17 Jan 2008, 05:45
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It's been debated more than once, largely by Adam Stephanides and myself, so it's not neatly packaged in one place. The last round was in March of '05, in the "Increate on trial" t…
08 Jan 2008, 20:30
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As you are doubtless aware, I have argued the opposite view before, so I won't bother to repeat it all. I can't, of course, prove the Increate's involvement because the Increate ne…
08 Jan 2008, 06:37
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Andrew wrote: [snip] And in a follow-up: [snip] I'm confused. In your theory did Sev1 bring a New Sun or not? If the answer is no, and if Sev2's timeline went poof with Silkhorn'…
24 Dec 2007, 06:48
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There is still a paradox there, no matter whose white fountain it is. It had to be 90% of the way home by Typhon's era, before there was even a need for it! But that's an old argum…
23 Dec 2007, 05:05
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Dan wrote: [snip] I believe you meant Hierogrammates, not Hieros. The Hieros were the humans who cruelly fashioned the Hierogrammates in another universe that collapsed. The Hiero…
21 Dec 2007, 08:15
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You've said as much in the past. I agreed with you then and I agree with you still, fwiw. [snip] Exactly right. [snip] I don't know if Wolfe really thought SS would be "lame" w…
21 Dec 2007, 07:57
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Tony is right about Sev1 walking in time, if that's what you're asking (CITADEL, last chapter). But it still seems almost axiomatic to me that Sev1 did not do whatever was necessar…
21 Dec 2007, 05:16
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But neither version of Severian drowned in either historical timeline. At the time Juturna promised to save Sev2 in his past, Nessus had been underwater for two days and the House …
20 Dec 2007, 09:02
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I don't think that the Green Man was involved in the Antechamber episode, but in any event it is far from certain that Sev1 ever even met the Green Man. Though the general outline …
20 Dec 2007, 06:00
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I don't care about the mausoleum stuff, but the Juturna part intrigues me. The problem with the above is that it was Sev2 (our narrator Severian) who spoke with Juturna in the thro…
19 Dec 2007, 04:57
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If the inhumi had to depend on spacecraft to travel between Blue and Green, there would be no need to wait for conjunction. Sure, as a matter of physics it's b.s., but so is astral…
15 Dec 2007, 20:55
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Here's what Wolfe said.…
15 Dec 2007, 05:10
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No, we don't. No. The Cumaean is a Hierodule, a holy slave. Hierodules need not be of any particular species. Barbatus and Famulimus were also Hierodules but not, I think, of the …
14 Dec 2007, 19:32
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CITADEL, chapter XXXIII, second page. Severian, speaking of the _Samru_, "The ship's only real armament, a swivel gun . . ." The appendix also mentions "Severian's failure to dist…
30 Nov 2007, 05:52
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Rudesind isn't confused. He is trying to steer Sev to the meeting with the autarch, just as he had steered Sev to Ultan earlier. Rudesind is Inire's man, and Inire is pulling strin…
27 Nov 2007, 06:30
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Welcome, Eric! Search the archives for "Piteous Gate" for past discussions of the incident. As several others have said, the fiery apparition witnessed by Severian and Dorcas in …
15 Nov 2007, 06:14
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I know that. That's why (partly) the RC Church declared it was heresy. The other part was that the Pelagians denied the idea of Original Sin. I'll state the basic idea of the heres…
04 Oct 2007, 05:46
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My whole sentence was: "If Yes, if he [Setr] had a human soul, what reasonable hope had he for salvation, apart from divine grace, a concept I see no provision for in Wolfe's Seven…
03 Oct 2007, 05:22
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It was Able who delivered the info (WIZARD, p-46), but it seems to be common knowledge. Its validity is apparently corroborated by Able's view of Disiri while wearing the magic hel…
28 Sep 2007, 22:15
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That might, in theory (Neo-Platonic or other system), be valid for humans -- I won't debate it because it is not germane to my argument. I argued that it was not true for the Aelf …
27 Sep 2007, 19:47
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Those that are lower, are lower because they are worse; the higher are nearer to the One or to his earthly image, the Emperor, and therefore are better. You can rise, best of all b…
25 Sep 2007, 07:51
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First of all -- congratulations, Stephen! Such efforts are few and far between and too often get too little recognition. I liked the first three-fourths or so of your essay. The la…
19 Sep 2007, 04:03
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Andrew quoted: and wrote: [snip] There was no reason for him to lie about it, and I don't think he did. The tower was built by the Aelf and had its roots in Aelfrice. The apparen…
14 Sep 2007, 20:07
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I don't think so. I believe Joe is a man, which is why he looked to Gene for confirmation that they would both eventually die. Joe came "out of the ground" only in the sense that A…
13 Sep 2007, 23:45
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Do you have the citation for that figure? -Roy…
13 Sep 2007, 23:42
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Just a note to set the facts straight. -Roy ---------------------------------------------------------- mantis went on to add:…
28 Aug 2007, 21:20
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Yes, they are. The other one is _Where Have You Been, Sandaliotis?_ _The Annals of Klepsis_ and _The Reefs of Earth_ are also funny. -Roy…
22 Jul 2007, 04:03
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Echoing what others have said: Lafferty is probably most consistently at his best in short stories, but it was _The Devil is Dead_ that first hooked me. That's a fine book, as is i…
22 Jul 2007, 00:20
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I don't see that the old boatman knows anything at all about what Severian saw. He just wanted to know if the dead person Severian saw was a woman. As for his identity; one theory…
19 Jul 2007, 18:05
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URTH, chapter LI, second page. But it doesn't quite say he was a slave then. -Roy…
19 Jul 2007, 05:13
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A number of people have commented on the apparent age discrepancy. The text gives no objective reason to account for the discrepancy, if Merryn is in fact supposed to be Severian's…
06 Jul 2007, 06:46
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Just to follow up: Mantis wrote to Wolfe about the movie, but all Gene said was "he has no idea what's going on with the movie." Fwiw. -Roy…
06 Jul 2007, 03:59
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