Planaria

Dan Parmenter · 26 Jun 2001, 11:49 · from urth-v0030.mbox · original

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From: Dan Parmenter <dan at lec.com>
Subject: (urth) Planaria
Date: 26 Jun 2001 11:49:35
Message-ID: <urth-v0030-0509 at digest.urth.net>
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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at home.com>

Re: the unreproducible Planaraian worm experiment:

>          Wolfe may have had these experiments a bit in mind, but he's=20
> mainly dealing with the Christian sacrament of Holy Communion, which link=
s=20
> believers with Christ and through Him with the whole body of saints, dead=20
> and alive, as believers in a mystery eat the flesh and drink the blood of=20
> their Savior. There are also a whole slew of baptisms in the New Sun book=
s,=20
> beginning with young Severian's first death and resurrection. So actually=
,=20
> in context of the book, these are the main miracles.

I think it's both, and I think that the fact that it's both is pure
Wolfe.  I was similarly shot down by Dan'l when I offered a
physicalist/AI treatment of the abosrption of Maytera Rose into
Maytera Marble, Dan'l preferring a straightforward "soul residing in
inanimate objects" reading.  Feh.  Wolfe's not just a Catholic, but
he's also an engineer/tech writer at heart, never forget it.  This is
the guy who wrote a story ("Westwind") about people talking to God on
walkie-talkies for goodness sake!  Maybe this is why some hard SF
people can't stand Wolfe.

D

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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