# ...sigh... *The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 28 Jun 2001* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### Dan'l Danehy-Oakes *28 Jun 2001, 09:58* >>> Maybe this is why some hard SF people can't stand Wolfe. >> That, and the fact that his stories aren't generally about >> problems to be solved by technological means. > Except maybe "Alien Stones." Do we have to argue about _everything_ around here? (Stumbles backward at the deafening massed roar of YEEESSSS!) Oh. Okay. Well, then, in that case, may I point out the word "generally" in my previous post... Blatt, blatt, --- ### Michael Straight *28 Jun 2001, 14:16 · follows Dan'l Danehy-Oakes* >>>> On Thu, 28 Jun 2001, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote: >>>> Maybe this is why some hard SF people can't stand Wolfe. >>> That, and the fact that his stories aren't generally about >>> problems to be solved by technological means. >> Except maybe "Alien Stones." > Do we have to argue about _everything_ around here? Sorry I wasn't clear. I mentioned that more as the exception that proves your rule. It's a nifty engineer's spin on "solved by technological means" that I wouldn't have thought to describe that way if you hadn't used that phrase. And, of course, the story's about more than a problem to be solved by technological means. I didn't get the ending (particularly the bit about one's marital status in the resurrection) until I reread it after the whole Clinton/Lewinsky affair, which made me laugh when the aliens said "It depends on how you define 'is'" -- which made me pay more attention to the comment and realize what they were talking about. -Rostrum ---