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<g> but... ...you're assuming Tackman has no life outside the story on the page. I'm not sure that GW does. As I've said, this is a story about stories: Wolfe's written a few of th…
20 Apr 2000, 15:13
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Do I win a prize for being Last Person To Read Strange Travelers? My copy arrived 2 days ago. Apologies for discussing stuff everyone else got bored of months ago. I've got as far…
07 Apr 2000, 15:31
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But there is. We've been down this road before. Right at the very end of The Shadow of the Torturer, Jonas tells the story of the woman who comes back with space with a handful of …
01 Dec 1999, 09:58
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"The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the…
19 Nov 1999, 13:26
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A boast can still be a fact. If Prince Naseem boasts about his perfect record as a professional boxer he's not lying. I suspect that the instances of forgetting Severian is alludi…
17 Nov 1999, 15:04
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I suspect that there are as many explanations of postmodermism as there are postmodernists, but my own pet in-one-sentence definition is to say that postmodern art is self-aware ar…
28 Oct 1999, 10:27
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Cheer up, Nutria! I gave Fifth Head to my Dad, who's read plenty of SF but only of the Asimov\Clarke\Heinlein variety, and he was wowed. I gave TBOTNS to my better half, Emma, who…
27 Oct 1999, 09:56
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Right culture, wrong tradition. The ancient Greek slingers scratched "strike" on their lead shot in the hope that it would do just that. I may be wrong, but I think there's also a …
29 Sep 1999, 09:45
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The issue of morality runs so deep in Watchmen that I'm reluctant to label anyone as "evil". I certainly wouldn't call Voidt evil in the sense that Hitler was. Hitler was motivated…
16 Sep 1999, 16:50
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And mantis: I like both these ideas, but the trouble is Father Inire says in his letter that Agia remains a plausible commander "as long as the mirrors of the caller Hethor remain…
06 Jul 1999, 08:01
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Robert Borski wrote (of Jonas): No arguments this time :-), just a gloss. I think when Jonas says his father was a craftsman what he really means is that the man who built him was…
28 May 1999, 10:02
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David Lebling joked: Actually, there may be a germ of truth to this. Not about the multiple drafts, obviously, but the "racing through" bit. I can still remember a long ago Gene W…
11 May 1999, 09:39
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So Sidero has a trim waistline for a suit of animated armour; I'm pleased for him. He also has knees and ankles big enough to thrust a booted foot through, and a chest cavity big e…
05 May 1999, 09:42
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Actually, I've never said anything either way about (A). Jonas may be hollow, he may not be. I don't see enough evidence on either side for a constructive debate. But the argument …
29 Apr 1999, 15:49
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I'm tempted to respond "but you -still- can't have it both ways" <g>. Say for the sake of argument the second quote did only mean "Jonas was an android too". We're still left with …
28 Apr 1999, 11:36
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But we already have a much simpler explanation of what caused the blackout. Barbatus says "'you took power from the ship when you tried to raise your steward.'" Chapter L. No need …
27 Apr 1999, 12:55
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Yes. Sidero is a completely different kind of android to Jonas. The mere fact that Severian can climb inside him tells us that he is far more bulky than a human being. There is als…
26 Apr 1999, 15:04
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Oooooooh, you cheeky thing, you. Now when did I -ever- say "If it's not on the web, it can't be true"? I merely cited supporting evidence. I'm inclined to respond that the tactic …
16 Apr 1999, 09:44
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Or you could always look for them in archive vol. 12, where they can actually be found <g>. Sorry.…
12 Apr 1999, 17:03
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At the risk of annoying two people at the same time with my obtuseness, Robert Borski has -not- made a solid case that Roy Trenchard is also an abo! There are a dozen different fin…
12 Apr 1999, 12:52
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Yup, we're getting beyond textual analysis and into personal interpretation now, alas. But see my final point in this post, which I really should have remembered earlier. Likewise…
10 Apr 1999, 13:52
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My primary objection to this is artistic. If the Shadow Children really are the descendants of space-travelling humans, why is that fantastic truth handed to us on a plate right fr…
07 Apr 1999, 14:11
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Lots of interesting posts while I was away from my pc for Easter. A few thoughts: Allan Lloyd wrote (of Kevin Malone) Welcome, Allan. I suppose it's too much to hope that your e-…
06 Apr 1999, 12:22
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Actually I'm still wrong, as Mark Millman politely pointed out to me in a private e-mail. The character I was thinking of is actually capital eth. It looks like Ð, if you have the …
31 Mar 1999, 08:51
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I was thinking of lowercase thorn, silly me. Uppercase thorn is indeed a "d" with a line through it - but a capital "D". So I was sort of right. A bit. No wonder I only got C's in…
30 Mar 1999, 12:46
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-That's- thorn, yes. But I wouldn't describe it as a crossed "d", more an angular "P". Me too. But then the prefix "ur" is used to mean earliest, or most primitive, so technically…
30 Mar 1999, 10:36
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(Just to pedantically set the record straight, Moses is only referred to as he\him. The title you're remembering, "the Compassionating", referred to God.) I used to think that the…
18 Mar 1999, 14:50
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The latter, I suspect. But, don't forget that there are actually two explanations for what the couple are doing in the Jungle Garden in the first place: Explanation One, that the t…
17 Mar 1999, 13:33
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If my personal reluctance to spell out the ending of a good story is making other people reluctant to post, or just plain annoyed, it's obviously time for me to stop standing on my…
03 Mar 1999, 10:56
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Great idea, but... the couple see a plane (or what they interpret as a plane, it could be a flyer) passing over head. RLS died in 1894, long before the days of powered flight. But…
02 Mar 1999, 10:52
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I can just about see why you might want to say that Prufrock the character was an "embittered and horny old man", but Prufrock the poem is something much bigger, and I really think…
01 Mar 1999, 14:53
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Certainly, but in this case I prefer to exercise my right not to spoil a fine story. One private e-mail on its way!…
26 Feb 1999, 11:06
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A gem of a story, which I've often re-read purely for the pleasure of doing so. And I have no intention of spoiling it for you or for anyone else, but here are a couple of hints: …
25 Feb 1999, 10:18
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A (slightly belated) Happy New Year to everyone on the list. Since things are a little quiet right now, and since we sometimes recommend non-Wolfe books likely to be of interest, c…
05 Jan 1999, 13:08
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Severian omits a number of important details from his narrative, but I can't believe he could stumble across a dead soldier who looked like Jolenta's twin brother and not mention t…
29 Oct 1998, 13:47
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Now that -is- interesting. I was actually thinking of Aickman when I wrote that! He's one of my favorites too. But for me he's very much a writer of supernatural horror, rather tha…
20 Oct 1998, 09:38
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For starters, can we throw this curious suggestion that the naked couple are the descendants of the sailors right out of the ring, please? If the sailors had -won- the battle with …
05 Sep 1998, 16:22
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They are Severian's children. Sev makes this quite clear (or about as clear as he makes anything <g>) at the end of Urth.…
03 Sep 1998, 13:15
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That "plumbing" accounts for some pretty major differences, actually. It has been proved that men and women's brains work very differently, often using completely different parts t…
01 Jul 1998, 17:46
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Sgt. Rock quoted: It's just a little verse that the interrogator recites to show how clever he is. I suppose it _may_ be a quote from somewhere, or a parody of a quote from somewh…
23 Jun 1998, 09:34
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<snip> What can "Marsch" possibly gain by pretending to belong to a native race everyone thinks died out a century ago? In our terms, it would be like O J Simpson trying to fool t…
23 Jun 1998, 08:26
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Hmmmm.... depends how you define "PC", I suppose. If, like me, you regard it as deplorable right-wing Newspeak, you're very happy to think of Wolfe as anti-PC. <g> The Old Wise On…
18 Jun 1998, 09:03
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Nor me. It's funny how any evidence for shape-shifting sort of melts away when you look at it closely, isn't it? (The one exception being the Old Wise One's mention of this ability…
16 Jun 1998, 10:21
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I say you're closest with theory 2. The Annese _are_ the descendants of an earlier wave of human colonization, but the Shadow Children are not. (Although they may yet be of human s…
02 Jun 1998, 10:15
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The letter from the authorities at Port-Mimizon states that the prisoner is "an illiterate woman who is a habitual petty thief". This is on the penultimate page of the novel. Why t…
29 May 1998, 11:57
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An intriguing idea. My biggest problem with it is that surely Mlle Etienne is too young to be David's mother. Marsch judges her to be 27 or 28; Gene he judged to be 18, and David i…
27 May 1998, 13:50
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As we all know, whenever anyone asks Gene Wolfe what films he's seen recently, the answer is invariably the Cohen brothers' "Fargo". I've now discovered compelling evidence to sugg…
22 May 1998, 16:18
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13/05/98 14:15 Casting Couch Ok, here's my (slightly Eurocentric) two pen'th: Severian : Jeremy Irons (tall…
13 May 1998, 14:58
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12/05/98 11:07 Meanwhile, back at the gate Wrong. This _is_ standard operating procedure, as Gene Wolfe is c…
12 May 1998, 14:09
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07/05/98 17:27 RE>Pennington covers I wish. Sadly by the time Urth came out here it was with a non- Penningt…
07 May 1998, 17:08
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