Well thank god we don't have to meet on the sanguinary field Roy!!
And apologies for taking Robert B's name in 'vein' - I am not
Quetzal. That should be 'vane'.....
Just a quick note before the long weekend here in the UK.
I appreciate your description of the 'tapestry' of Urth, but I'd still argue that some details are more pertinent than others - the angel references, for example, are much more important than android classification. It may well be that Wolfe only had one kind of android in mind while writing BotNS and thought of another when writing 'Urth'. We'll never know. But surely it is far more important that Jonas' is an android who became human, than that he is an android/former spacesuit?
And all the things you mention are of great importance ('Boatman I & II, angels, Holy Katharine, the mandragora, cabalism, floriography') but they all contribute towards a greater narrative purpose. And its this level I like to work at when I'm reading - to follow your metaphor: I want to see how the individual parts of the tapestry tell the story.
Jonathan
Visit Ultan's Library - A Gene Wolfe web resource
http://members.tripod.co.uk/laidlow/index.htm
Jonathan Laidlow
University of Birmingham, UK