4 quoted lines
From: "Jeremy W. Crampton" <jcrampto at gmu.edu>
How about the Soldier series?
Personally they're the most impressive to me (boring personal opinion but there ya go). After Vol I of New Sun, natch.
I like them too. But I like novels set in the classical period (Renault, Graves, Mitchison, even that trashy but fun detective series set in ancient Rome).
3 quoted lines
Okay I'll give one reason: Wolfe shows the social construction of belief (in the fine tradition of most skiffy, eg PKD, Ballard, Priest etc. The latter's The Affirmation is a classic example). Particularly religious belief of course. One of the central scenes in the Soldier books is the human sacrifice one, where Mother Ge talks about how for other people she is yet young, and that how when we stop believing in them the gods disappear, ie they are human-dependent.** There's also all GW's talk of how he is showing society as the Greeks really saw it, ie meeting gods on the way back from Marathon (Fennel Fields). Where are these gods now? Long time passing...
**didn't Terry Pratchett also do this? What was it; Small Gods?
I think he's done it quite a bit. Death is always showing up. Pratchett's a clever lad. I haven't read much of him, but he's more than OK.
3 quoted lines
From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan at gnt.net>
The traffic jam society is
clearly symbolic of the "world," especially the world of today (in Christian terms, of course: the three enemies being the world, the flesh, and the devil
Oy.
1 quoted line
A thought: The traffic jam is purgatory. This would link with Peace, where the character is also in purgatory. Remember that in RC thinking, purgatory is just the anteroom to heaven, and is not like hell at all. Purgatory is the place where a heavenbound person makes peace with his past and his sins. Just a thought....
Gevalt.
-alga