(urth) The Two Katharines
Jeff Wilson
jwilson at io.com
Mon Aug 16 10:26:05 PDT 2010
On 8/16/2010 8:41 AM, Lee Berman wrote:
>
>
> I think what Severian was supposed to do is not quite confirmed as happening during
> his ascension ceremony. Everything is a bit wobbly and thus suspicious. It may well be
> that Wolfe is only hoping to show that Severian is as apprehensive in becoming a torturer
> as Jeff was to becoming married. (I will not pursue that line of thought any further ;- ).
> But perhaps there is more to it. I find it possible.
Heh. It wasn't that I was apprehensive, I wanted very badly to be
married. But I was extremely anxious about getting through the day and
earnestly praying, "Please don't let me screw up the ceremony."
> Would it have been different if I had been a character in a Wolfe book? When faced with the choice of
> a hot air balloon tent or magical flying cathedral in science fiction, is it the same as the real world?
> Must we always think the prosaic answer is more likely? If one purpose of SF is to stun and amaze us I
> think the opposite is true.
Well, "science fiction" in particular is supposed to appeal to the
authority of science to suspend disbelief. In this way, unscientific
things are less believable than in the real world, because fiction is
supposed to make sense.
--
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
< http://ieeetamut.org >
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