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http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/creator.html - point 295.…
10 Oct 2014, 20:25
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I am unsure what my car can do. Perhaps it is a Transformer. But at least the argument about cars appears to have some basis in how cars are actually constituted currently, not w…
10 Oct 2014, 20:18
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No, but claiming that a brain cannot work purely in the realm of symbolic logic and reason because it is the product of millions of years of evolution on Earth is.…
09 Oct 2014, 18:30
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Is there an argument against the universality of mathematics that isn't just the Genetic Fallacy?…
08 Oct 2014, 13:35
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Gen 9:11 in the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition has: "I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never ag…
11 Sep 2014, 00:08
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Wolfe (and Star Trek) hits it on the head - how does one learn such a language? Like grue-bleen it sounds good until one inquires how somebody, who did not already know what was g…
21 Jun 2014, 14:18
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Perhaps he got tired of reviewers asking why his characters never just used their cell phones, so he made a point of mentioning it.…
22 Oct 2013, 16:51
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I had always considered this to be a pretty straightforward shot at Aristophanes's/Plato's myth about the origins of sexual orientation.…
07 Oct 2013, 14:00
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The new Autarch is a (semi-)clone of the old one, hence closely related to the servants. and it would make the Torturers, Witches, Librarians, and With the exception of Severian,…
22 Apr 2013, 13:33
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As another bonus, the Autarch is the "self-ruled", or, more colloquially, "the boss of himself". Who actually does what the Autarch tells them? The servants of the House Absolute…
18 Apr 2013, 16:43
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Maybe all the servants in the House (save Inire) are related to the Autarch and each other through some sort of semi-cloning technology. Bonus points: the entire autarchial line i…
12 Apr 2013, 20:50
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It's not just a reference to the Crown of Thorns?…
02 Nov 2012, 00:27
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? A quick "Search Inside" (thank you, Amazon) uncovers one use of the word sharia. In the context it is noted that the driver lost both hands for stealing and that sharia is no l…
11 Apr 2012, 18:47
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Because Wolfe keeps sneaking politics into his works. What effect did the existence of sharia law in Europe really have in the story? It was just another thing for the narrator/a…
10 Apr 2012, 20:02
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I had never heard that idea before. I don't agree, but I see your point. The Catholic Encyclopedia (I included the URL) actual condemns the Roman practice, while detailing the "s…
21 Mar 2012, 20:16
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You typed "Christianity" when you probably meant "the Enlightenment". Catholicism is not anti-slavery, and in some cases can be safely said to be pro-slavery. See, for example, Th…
21 Mar 2012, 16:55
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2012/1/10 Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com> Not to put too fine a point on it, but these are all fictional characters. If Wolfe wanted them to speak differently, they w…
11 Jan 2012, 02:46
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His name is Charlton Heston. The "ship that gets lost in time and returns to Earth in the future" is a _Planet of the Apes_ allusion. Charlton is an old name that hardly anyone h…
25 Oct 2011, 15:37
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A couple of flaws stand out from the others. First, the author of the essay writes: "Wolfe generally avoids using his protagonists or narrators to proclaim his own beliefs". If t…
09 Mar 2011, 02:57
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If capitulation was certain after the first bomb, the second bomb becomes morally problematic. In any case, given the continued reluctance to surrender even after the second bomb …
20 Jan 2011, 15:26
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Japan was not connected to a much larger country that was actively supporting it. Also, we have not continued bombing North Korea in the manner we would have continued bombing Jap…
19 Jan 2011, 21:44
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2011/1/19 Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com> It is entirely possible that the atomic bombs were not the cause of Japanese surrender. Some Japanese principals have denie…
19 Jan 2011, 20:11
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Let me amplify and see if that makes things clearer. The original problem I was looking at had to do with what the rules of astral travel were. In particular, the primary rule se…
29 Dec 2010, 02:08
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En garde! - If, at one point, a character can write himself into a story, why can't it happen again? How far did Krait have to travel to do that? - Wolfe has already used the sort…
28 Dec 2010, 05:44
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Two theories on why they ended up on Urth during astral/dream travel: - Urth and Green are thematically similar. The characters are in a dreamlike state so distance is cognitive d…
28 Dec 2010, 03:06
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At least if we cannot decide on where meaning lies, we can discern where it doesn't. To the extent that those books advance claims about reality the motivations of the authors are…
02 Dec 2010, 01:06
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2010/12/1 Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com> I agree, and will be brief. And I say it doesn't. That is almost exactly the difference. The statement "Wright's methodol…
01 Dec 2010, 21:20
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2010/11/30 Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com> Wright's thesis stands or falls on its internal logic and ability to shed light on the material. It is not dependent on wh…
01 Dec 2010, 02:30
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2010/11/30 Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com> That is a false dichotomy. There are other ways to answer which do not involve speculation on Wright's personal properties…
30 Nov 2010, 18:55
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2010/11/29 Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com> My apologies if I have imputed uncharitable motives where none existed. Allow me to explain my reasoning. On the non-ficti…
30 Nov 2010, 02:22
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Perhaps the uncomfortable part is the ad hominem nature of this argument.…
29 Nov 2010, 20:50
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I always felt bad for his boots at this point. They've been good boots and didn't deserve such treatment. Heck, they're relics. It seems like one could walk on holy ground with …
30 Sep 2010, 16:37
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I previously posted a description of how some blocks could be used as a checksum for others: http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2010-July/016516.html.…
16 Aug 2010, 13:46
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Fenrir as father of "Wolfe"s is good enough for me.…
13 Jul 2010, 14:12
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Some facts: They are not SSCC-18 barcodes - the check digit is incorrect. They are not credit card numbers - they fail the Luhn test. The sum of the digits of all the 4 digit numbe…
10 Jul 2010, 12:52
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I thought Trystero was real, too. It's not even clear what it could mean for a fictional entity to be thinking about something that wasn't real. But this is starting to get real …
19 Apr 2010, 19:57
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I mentioned some of these before, but to recap. The postscript would be the easiest part of the latter to forge. The rest of the letter does not mention Faerie. Doris is not ter…
19 Apr 2010, 14:24
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I don't know that anyone believes that everything Severian says is truthful, yet the New Sun series is not adjudged "lame". The inconsistencies are the clues that Bax is making it…
18 Apr 2010, 22:05
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Mr. Brewer is better at explaining than I am, certainly. Severian tortures, Latro forgets. Why wouldn't a liar lie?…
18 Apr 2010, 21:41
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These seem reasonable, and Bax says they happened (although he gets the house before he squats long). 3. He thoroughly searches the house, and discovers the eccentric Exactly wha…
31 Mar 2010, 03:21
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As mentioned in another post, the circumstances of George's note and its contents make forgery probable, IMHO. Madame Orizia is an accomplice (and somewhat out of the loop - how c…
31 Mar 2010, 02:36
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Exactly. The only exceptions being: - the Hound stories, which Bax picked up from local legends - Doris seeing Ted, when she was not terribly emotionally stable This theory is si…
31 Mar 2010, 01:55
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This just begs the question. The only record we have of them seeing any of this is from the letters that Bax has. These are the very letters that are being called into doubt, at …
30 Mar 2010, 22:44
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potaytoe, potahto. If George can lave a piece of paper somewhere Bax can find it, he could just leave himself there. Either Nicholas is helping George (as seems likely) and could…
30 Mar 2010, 22:36
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Given the universe of the New Sun the framestory is not the most far-fetched thing that happened. Explanations should fit within the universe of the work, or at least within the s…
30 Mar 2010, 00:12
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Then it should not be pushed too far. It is a strange letter. At the time it was written (which is a bit hazy), George is apparently lost in the house. Why would he write a lett…
29 Mar 2010, 23:08
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Maybe not that agreed-upon :-) I don't see why this is the case. I do not see why such an assumption must be made. It is easy to imagine an epistolary novel containing an append…
29 Mar 2010, 21:01
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The psychic is a confederate. She is paid for her help in getting Millie to buy in to the whole Faerie thing. Having a psychic as a fraud would fit Wolfe. A little terminology b…
27 Mar 2010, 14:51
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And it's the only thing the Compiler sources. All small towns have ghost stories. Bax wove this one into his story. It's always handy to have a few true things in even the biggest…
27 Mar 2010, 14:34
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Nothing in the letters actually happened. Bax knew Millie had a thing for him before he went to prison. So did George - it accounts for his anger toward Bax, his meanness to Mill…
27 Mar 2010, 01:25
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