S&S vs. SF in BotNS

Gerry Quinn · 21 Dec 2011, 20:43 · from 2011-December.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2011 20:43:15 -0000
Subject: (urth) S&S vs. SF in BotNS
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From: Jerry Friedman 


> But then why do we have to imagine it, and why the red herring of
>  Severian's and Ultan's interchange about the corpse's hands, as 
> Jeff mentioned above?  If Wolfe had wanted us to think of this as 
> science fiction, he could easily have restricted the whole thing to 
> brains, which would indeed have been licensed by the RNA and 
> planaria beliefs of the time and by the reference to holography, 
> another sf cliche back then (though not tremendously compatible 
> with the RNA theory).  He seems to undercut this deliberately by 
> implying that the memory is in the whole body, when we know 
> perfectly well that injuries that don't interfere with brain function
>  don't affect the memory.
They wouldn?t if they are an epiphenomenon of a holographic memory.
- Gerry Quinn

 
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