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It's a monogrammed handkerchief. She mentions (in the next paragraph but one) that she was sure Ted was crying. That's why it was wet.…
27 Mar 2010, 00:59
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Dsiri and Lara are both goddesses from another dimension, and fall in love with someone of a higher category. Their boyfriends are facing their love the wrong way - they should be…
04 Apr 2009, 00:04
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The cop works for/with the BATF, Wolfe hates the BATF, so he writes the cop as a complete bastard? Tom…
27 Mar 2009, 18:08
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His attitude toward sex changes as his character changes. Why he changes (and if that change is growth) is a matter for interpretation, and would need an entire thread to itself. …
27 Mar 2009, 18:05
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I'm not sure what you mean by "ordinary motivations". Both universes around the usual needs: eat, sleep, and not get killed by space robots. I excluded the short stories because …
25 Mar 2009, 22:22
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I must admit I felt that way through large chunks of Long/Short Sun. Silk/Hyacinth is Hosea/Gomer retold. I think the desire to retell this story outweighed any consideration of …
25 Mar 2009, 16:51
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BSG is hardly naturalistic. Sci-fi (even the pulp sci-fi Wolfe uses for his own ends) is still about people, what happens to them, and how they deal with it. Short stories should…
24 Mar 2009, 20:51
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Miraculous events happen in both BSG and UotNS. In neither case is an explanation given. "It's the power of the New Sun" is not much of an explanation - sometimes things work, an…
23 Mar 2009, 22:40
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They have been clear (in specials, interviews, etc.) that they made up a lot of things as they went along. Whether that is a plus or minus is a matter of taste. I think they deci…
23 Mar 2009, 18:53
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Perhaps it looks like the ship here: http://www.baen.com/ or: http://www.tor.com/. There is a famous sci-fi publisher icon that looks like a zooming rocket (but the icon has chang…
18 Feb 2009, 14:45
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Enamel…
16 Jan 2009, 03:54
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Maybe Cassie is actually every female character in the book. If we just looked hard enough we could find evidence. Maybe she's actually every character in the book, including the…
16 Jan 2009, 03:41
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http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026875.600-burrowing-black-holes-devoured-first-stars-from-within.html Note the time scale - somewhat less than a million years for the exa…
22 Dec 2008, 17:54
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The big difference may be in who holds the power. In Evangelion, people do. In UotNS, the Hieros do. The supernatural looks different from the outside. Enamel…
15 Dec 2008, 16:57
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Aren't they a band? Enamel…
08 Dec 2008, 22:11
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It's true! And Princess Leia is your sister! Enamel…
24 Nov 2008, 17:47
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Wolfe has been clear in the past that government by one's betters is the best form. See his comments on how Tolkien's elves are ruled. Enamel…
06 Nov 2008, 19:48
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First, the question. In the final conversation, between Cassie and Klauser (which really needs extended explanation), Cassie asks Klauser what to take on the trip to Woldercan. H…
13 Oct 2008, 02:37
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I think we have some language problems. Here is the way I see things: war = unjust war + spoils = unjust (conquest) war + survival = just (self-defense) war + spoils + survival =…
21 Jul 2008, 14:23
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I never said that self-defense was unjust (or just), simply that your maxim implies that self-defense is unjust. The analogy I was after was this: - country A conquers country B -…
18 Jul 2008, 19:16
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This puts self-defense in a difficult position. Yes. In short, see World War 2. In a little more depth, the Crusades were just another in a long line of wars between countries. …
18 Jul 2008, 17:52
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Who didn't it seem just to? The Muslims, whom had slightly earlier conquered the place during the Fatah? Enamel…
17 Jul 2008, 16:49
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If we cannot judge somebody's actions, what basis do we have for saying the actions (or the person) are good? Enamel…
14 Jul 2008, 17:20
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gigantic underwater women == sea cows. Father Inire has a droll sense of humor. enamel…
24 May 2006, 01:37
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Lectern of the Anagnosts? enamel…
14 May 2006, 20:15
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If they don't, how will Sev write the book that Wolfe found and we read? Many people were able to continue being bad after meeting SilkHorn. I'd like to think that Severian foun…
17 Apr 2006, 01:52
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Quoting Stanislaus <sbocian at poczta.fm>: a) Details. Cites. b) This is God we're talking about here. You know - omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, creation-ex-nihilo, rising…
07 Apr 2006, 17:49
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Quoting Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>: oh! oh! can we use the brank? enamel…
04 Apr 2006, 19:08
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An HTML attachment was scrubbed...…
21 Mar 2005, 19:37
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Because we've all heard the story before. All 3 major Western religions are built on events in which either God Himself, or members of the religion with God's approval and help,…
21 Mar 2005, 18:58
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I took this as a joke. "Everyone else" thinks it's one book for literary reasons. He thinks it's two books because, well, physically there are two books. Enamel…
13 Jan 2005, 06:37
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I have a dim recollection that Tolkien mentioned (in a letter to a potential publisher) that the Easterlings were meant to resemble Eastern Europeans. Enamel…
30 Nov 2004, 10:23
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Mine keeps my other knick-knacks in line. But, the question everybody wants to know the answer to is: is Abaia Cthulhu? Tom…
20 Aug 2003, 02:13
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Crush responds: They might also be errors in interpretation. Perhaps Drotte and Roche both said it, but at one point it was more significant that one said it, and at another tim…
14 Jul 2003, 23:43
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I've always seen Wolfe's work as an impassioned fight against this line of thought. Wolfe likes puzzles, and tosses them all over. The problem with theories that "the reader brin…
26 Apr 2003, 01:08
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An interesting comparison could be made between Severian and Zakalwe. They're both men who've done terrible things in their past and are journeying toward some form of redemption.…
25 Apr 2003, 23:25
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Could it be a dual to the Library? Another place where people go and some never come back. Both places have hazy boundaries. Both places have old men who look for things. Sever…
17 Apr 2003, 23:06
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[...] He's not just stylistically unlike Wolfe, their worldviews are diametrically opposed. Banks and Wolfe probably shouldn't shake hands, lest some sort of literary explosion t…
03 Mar 2003, 14:57
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darn. - tom __________________________________________________________________ The NEW Netscape 7.0 browser is now available. Upgrade now! http://channels.netscape.com/ns/bro…
24 Jan 2003, 16:50
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I've read (very little) Tom Wolfe: _The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test_, _Bonfire of the Vanities_, _From Bauhuas to Our House_, and _The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby…
24 Jan 2003, 16:22
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maa32 writes: Maybe I'm just stating the obvious here, but the "doubled" people seem right out of Aristophanes speech in the _Symposium_. See: http://ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext9…
27 Dec 2002, 20:10
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The Green Man as pagan god. The bit about Pope Julius II is interesting: http://www.thisishull.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeIda026&command=displayContent&sourceNodea025&contentPK0154…
13 Nov 2002, 16:28
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Dan'l Danehy-Oakes writes: It _is_ straying a bit. On the other hand, this brings up the question: given multiple Severians, what happened to the "failed" ones after they died? …
29 Oct 2002, 15:58
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James Wynn writes: My pleasure. I've certainly got a lot more out of this list than I've contributed. I think I've got it right. By predestination I mean the family that includ…
28 Oct 2002, 21:06
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James Wynn writes: The article does a decent job of noting sources and summarizing the positions of various scholars. It fails, however, to provide an objective view of Gnostic d…
28 Oct 2002, 16:17
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Silk holds the "primary" Gnostic belief - that the god(s) of this world/Whorl are false, and that the true God exists outside in some sense. Zeus, in the standard Greek model, was…
25 Oct 2002, 17:40
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Michael Straight writes: Actually, the whole thing plays out as an almost perfect parallel to some Gnostic cosmologies: Whorl = Garden Pas+family = Aeons Outsider = true God inhu…
10 Oct 2002, 17:22
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James Jordan writes: Silk:Jesus::Hyacinth::Mary Magdelene? I realize this is a bit obvious. Still, it could fit into an overall pattern where Wolfe sends Christ-types on "altern…
09 Sep 2002, 19:02
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Andy Robertson writes: Maybe Silk killed her in a fight? It would explain the broken furniture, and the cuts on his arms could be scratches. I think if we understood what Wolfe …
12 Jul 2002, 20:06
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Dan'l Danehy-Oakes writes: Wolfe alludes to this favorably (in Plan[e]t Engineering, I think) where he mentions that we tend to think of politics and economics as separate things …
13 Jun 2002, 13:24
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