# Island/Dr./Death + Detective + other topics *The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 01 Mar 1998* > 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. --- ### MBS *01 Mar 1998, 20:13* Hello all, a very infrequent poster here. I had a few things I wanted to mention... Oh, and if ppl are interested, there may be *Spoilers* below... though I assume there are those in almost every post to this list 1) I have truly enjoyed all I have read of Gene Wolfe's writings. In fact, I wrote him a short 'fan-note' back in time and he was kind enough to send me back a personal note. (The man has a beautiful signature!) Nonetheless, often after finishing a story or novel of his creation, though I am satisfied/pleased with it, another part of me feels "huh?", like I have missed something, or some 'mystery' left to solve by the reader was Not solved by me... This general puzzlement makes me appreciate this list all the more, but perhaps I need to work on my own reader-skills as well as assume when beginning a Wolfe-work that I will need to read it more than once, if not more than twice! Not really looking for comments or replies here (though advice/pointers are welcome! ) just wanted to share it with the list.. maybe see if others agree. 2) In a similar vein, I just finished reading "Detective of Dreams" and was wondering if I "got" this one... Something about a church and Jesus... right? though again, I am not sure I 'get' the dreams the characters have ... maybe I should read the New Testament first! 3) I just got The Island of Dr. Death &OS&OS out of the library to read for the first time. I was wondering if others on the list are interested in forming an (off-list or on-list) reading group for this collection. And if not, perhaps I will just post all my queries and hope for guidance! The most difficult thing about this situation is that if someone just tells me, Oh X is Severian father and Y is his mother, well, discovering the same is a much different experience. well that is more than long enough... hope comprehensible enough Enjoy the day Matthew ---