Subject: (whorl) why the problem with astral travel?

From: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 08:53:29 +0000

I really don't see why some are so distraught over Wolfe's use of a really big 
Godling or astral travel.  Severian's relationship with the new sun seems 
equally mysterious.  How can a man freely travel back and forth in time just 
because he has some affinity with a star?  without mechanical "SF" 
enhancement, how does Wolfe really explain Severian's connection?  How about 
silk's auto-resurrection at the end of Calde of the Long Sun?  I really don't 
think that access to the corridor of time is any different than travelling 
through space with a mental projection.  The sorceror in Sword of the Lictor 
is clearly a psionicist.  Is his mental fortitude any different than magic or 
astral projection?  Does a device or genetic alteration allow him to use his 
mental powers?  I don't think so.  According to A.D. + D., astral projection 
is a well established psionic ability, as is conjunction with another mind.  
The godlings might very well be mechanical.  who cares?

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From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 23:30:02 +0000

>The godlings might very well be mechanical.  who cares?

I am one of those who complained about the "impossible" size of the 
godlings as not being "science fictional." You know what? You are 
right. This was a silly objection on my part, considering all of the 
stuff I have swallowed without complaint in other so-called SF. (Time 
travel, FTL drives and "Psi powers" are just the beginning.)

This however doesn't mean that I don't still object to the godlings' 
size or the astral projection. Neither of these things added anything 
essential to the story as far as I was concerned and both created 
confusion and loose ends (the godlings a little and astral projection 
a lot).

Now, I can only assume that both of these parts of the story are 
essential, since Wolfe wrote it and he is very careful about such 
things, and I am just missing the point. But I am not at all sure I 
am willing to give this series  years as some have recommended. I 
wouldn't have given TBotNS or Peace years of rereading if there 
wasn't some aspect of these books I enjoyed from the start. I am hard 
pressed to find this aspect in TBotSS.

I am becoming convinced that my problem with TBotSS is that it is 
Wolfe's most explicitly religious (long) work and I am an areligious 
person. If this is so, I don't think I am ever going to care for it 
more than I do now.

William Ansley

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 08:53:57 +0000

> travel, FTL drives and "Psi powers" are just the beginning.)

I thought the main objection to the godlings is that in Act 1 (New Sun)
the author goes into detail about why anything that big would have to live
in the sea or collapse under its own weight and then in Act 3 he presents
us with such a creature without giving us any hint of how it is possible,
or even a sense that we're supposed to see this as a physics-defying
miracle (and Typhon/Mainframe's wonders seem to be otherwise
technological, unlike the "miraculous" wonders of Severian or Silkhorn's
astral travel).

(Maybe our hint is in Act 2 at the talus construction plant, but then what
do you do with the obvious hints that organic Pig (he eats, his eyes are
flesh) is a godling?)

-Rostrum