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Most attempts to account for the unchanged appearance of the maid who played the role of Holy Katharine for as long as Severian could remember do so by supposing the use of time tr…
25 Oct 2006, 20:02
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Severian seems to have been the product of natural childbirth. He said that women "big with child" were cut open and the babies removed. There was apparently some sort of prohibiti…
18 Oct 2006, 19:40
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One of Severian's first actions upon returning to the Citadel as autarch was to kidnap Ouen. Even if I concede that Severian knew or had reason to suspect at the time that Ouen was…
14 Oct 2006, 00:59
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I had not read Wolfe's essay "Books in _The Book of the New Sun_" before a few weeks ago, when I obtained a copy of PLAN[E]T ENGINEERING. Wolfe said something else in the essay abo…
04 Oct 2006, 06:56
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Talos's play bears only a superficial resemblance to the actual events related in URTH concerning the end of Urth. Logically, there is no way that Talos could have known about her…
30 Sep 2006, 06:16
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Last year there was some debate about whether or not the mausoleum where Cilinia was buried was the same mausoleum where Severian played as a boy. They are *not* the same, and I ca…
03 Jul 2006, 23:51
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I've waited nearly five years for this subject to come up on its own. Now that it has, I want to get something off my chest. My florigraphy post was well received; I don't recall …
27 May 2006, 01:23
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This is one of those areas where Wolfe strains my credulity a tad thin. I mean, Abaia & co. are reputed to be literally as big as mountains. Even Jonas affirmed that improbable siz…
19 May 2006, 06:43
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Before dissolving into nothingness, the aquastor Malrubius in CITADEL said he and Triskele were "beings created and sustained by the power of the imagination and the concentration …
02 May 2006, 08:38
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Pursuant to what I posted earlier this month: In the last paragraph of chapter 30 of CITADEL, the aquastor Malrubius said, ""No, we do not take you to the paramours of Abaia, those…
28 Apr 2006, 06:21
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Not to be pedantic but, several times recently "Hieros" has been used here where the term was clearly not intended. It's an easy mistake to make; I did it at least once myself, yea…
27 Apr 2006, 05:07
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The meeting in the throne room with Juturna was the third for Sev. The second meeting was at the Cephissus river, when she tried to seduce him. At that time she mentioned having pr…
07 Apr 2006, 18:35
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I took the apparent changes in the inhuma's story to be the product of Silkhorn's seeming ability, while awake, to influence her storytelling, not that he was actually able to chan…
06 Apr 2006, 19:18
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I think what Andrew is getting at is the rather glaring lack of apparent recognition between Merryn and Severian at the end of CLAW. From Sev's personal perspective, the meeting in…
05 Apr 2006, 20:54
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I have just learned that Robert Borski has a new book out. The title is _The LONG and the SHORT of IT_, subtitled "More Essays On The Fiction Of Gene Wolfe". It is published by iUn…
02 Mar 2006, 23:08
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Last spring I argued, largely with Adam Stephanides, in large part about the role of the Hierogrammates in the Increate's designs for humanity. Simply put, I contended that the Hie…
28 Jan 2006, 07:38
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Last Feb. 25, I made a speculative post about Mag, and Art's mysterious connections to her. Here is a tidbit I overlooked, but which only serves to muddy the waters further. It com…
21 Dec 2005, 06:22
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There are several things about the last few pages of TWK that puzzle me, things that may or may not be related, but which are too convoluted to tackle at one time, so I'll stick wi…
19 Dec 2005, 07:37
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In my previous post I forgot to mention that the "servants" of God in Kleos had his ear, but those who went down to Skai to kill Ymir no longer had it. This forced the latter to pe…
10 Dec 2005, 09:57
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Last month I wrote: [snip] That can't be right. There's no place up for him to go but Kleos. Able's association with Michael is not enough to get him to Kleos. Able wrote from Ael…
07 Dec 2005, 05:09
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won't [snip] [snip] Again, I overlooked the obvious. Able said, when he was speaking to Leort about Disiri and indirectly about his time in Skai, "it's where she can never go."…
05 Dec 2005, 07:59
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Very thoughtful, James. I quite agree. [snip] I wonder how well TWK actually sold, and if there was a significant drop in sales of the second book relative to the first. If I we…
01 Dec 2005, 02:30
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When Art made his vow to defend that pass, he was an overgrown kid. What complicates matters is the fact that when he actually undertook the defenses he was twenty years older, had…
27 Nov 2005, 08:24
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When Old One Eye appeared to Idnn, he promised her a place at his table in Skai in exchange for her service to him. (W, 235) I should probably leave aside the fact that she had don…
11 Nov 2005, 06:37
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-----Original Message-----…
21 Oct 2005, 16:46
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Jahlee came to Blue at least twice. The fact that she fed on infant Sinew and was mother to Krait is sufficient proof of that. She had to return to Green to spawn, then came back t…
10 Aug 2005, 14:23
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Iirc, Chenille was drunk only once in the seven volumes. That was when she and Silk went to Lake Limna. They had separated, with Silk going out to the shrine. It was Auk who later …
06 Aug 2005, 23:58
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The four people Silk saw in his vision during his brief 'death' in the tunnel collapse were, first, his mother, the woman who carried his embryo to term and raised him, the woman h…
27 Jul 2005, 21:02
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Crush wrote (of me): Do you also stand by this (to Chris)? [snip] I ask, because you put that phrase in quotes, and went on to add: Neither Chris nor anyone else wrote it, at l…
28 Jun 2005, 01:33
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I made a mistake in that quotation. This line should read: "The Hierodules they have found too, . . ." not Sorry. -Roy…
06 Apr 2005, 21:26
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We three seem to be in agreement that mankind was being punished. The difference is in the interpretation of the punishment. You see the punishment as being the wounding of the sun…
02 Apr 2005, 01:00
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----------------------------------------------- "'Oh, son . . .' "It was a peasant woman. I had seen many fairer, though she was fair. "'You are my son.' "I knew tha…
25 Feb 2005, 00:29
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Well, Kieran wanted to discuss TWK, so here goes. Andrew Bollen, back on Jan. 7&9, wrote about Mag and her sons; those interested might want to look back at those posts. I agree w…
23 Feb 2005, 00:25
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Sidestepping the dubious notion that chems were "implanted" with the brain scans of particular human beings, let us look at another example of machine-based autonomous entities in …
04 Dec 2004, 01:01
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In the early hours of Severian's autarchy he was told by the aquastor Malrubius that his immediate predecessor, the Old Autarch Appian, had been the only ruler since the first aut…
03 Oct 2004, 23:39
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Pursuant to Jeffrey Lefstin's "Valeria = Urth" post of 9/4/04, a few related thoughts. I, for one, have long wondered about the identity of the "assassin" whose body Severian stum…
21 Sep 2004, 21:34
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Last month mantis suggested that the reason Typhon built the _Whorl_ was as a hedge against the possible failure of his plans for a new empire. Maybe so. Over the years there have …
08 Sep 2003, 05:48
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Recent discussion has asserted that Horn or Silk--or Silkhorn--had a perfect memory, like Severian's. No such claim is made in either the LS or SS books. BTW, on my first reading …
10 Jul 2003, 06:38
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What follows is a post I originally tried to send in late September 2000, but it was the night Moonmilk turned to cheese, so it never arrived. When the list was back up and running…
10 Jul 2003, 04:32
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Unless you are willing to posit the Hierogrammates their own third-party agenda, were they not angelic agents of the Increate? As for your "thematic argument" for the "redemption"…
15 Mar 2003, 08:32
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It has been accepted by most here for a long time that the temptation of Severian by Typhon on the mountain mimics that of Jesus by Satan. Although Wolfe has maintained that Sev is…
12 Mar 2003, 20:35
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Then here is a somewhat more scientific objection. When Silk briefly "died" in that tunnel collapse, he was granted a 'vision' by the Outsider (and it _was_ the Outsider; Pas can't…
08 Mar 2003, 18:27
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Apropos of nothing going on at the moment, I just wanted to shoot another hole in the bullet-riddled notion that Silkhorn's spirit travel was temporal, rather than spatial. In cha…
20 Feb 2003, 07:28
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F&W must have been using Frazer for their authority; the quoted section is almost the same as in chapter XXXIV of THE GOLDEN BOUGH. I couldn't do anything with the March dates. It…
11 Feb 2003, 06:31
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You would think so, but if you look back at the total of Otherworld individuals noted by Green you'll find that the majority are males. (Red-faced man on street, clerk in doll hosp…
31 Jan 2003, 08:31
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Fanny's account of Lara being Klamm's "stepdaughter" wasn't true; that was just a popular cover story put out to satisfy public curiosity about why such a desirable young woman sho…
27 Jan 2003, 06:12
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Speaking of Aeneas . . . The name of the hospital where Klamm took Green to get patched up was "St. Anchises's". (303) Aphrodite's mortal lover was struck down (lamed or blinded) …
23 Jan 2003, 07:46
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I had the impression that dolls such as Tina were given primarily, if not exclusively, to boys. It also seemed to me that boys lost interest in them, or were made to give them up a…
20 Jan 2003, 07:50
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All, I received an e-mail this afternoon at 3:03 central time, subject line "Happy Christmas" from list-member Stone Ox. It crashed Outlook Express when I highlighted it (fortunat…
24 Dec 2002, 03:08
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I cannot agree. Authorial intent is not to be dismissed so casually. Propagandists of one stripe or another have historically cited respected, even revered, sources in support of t…
23 Dec 2002, 08:27
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