Forgot to mention Dan'l, I was completely hundred percent thinking of Starship Troopers when you said military science fiction.  How many times have we seen space marines since Heinlein?  The film could have been a harsher juvenelian satire of Nazi germany than what it was, but it did an okay job I guess.  Verhoeven drops the ball on it I think.  

I don't think Hyperion is as complex as Briah, but I really liked Hyperion, the other books get steadily worse, but The Canterbury Tales plus neuromancer, the terminator, star wars with any other bits of scientistically cool and grotesque things we expect from a space opera future. I would say it's the best space opera novel, but I haven't read any, and I dont know if any of you consider Wolfe to be space opera. I really like the way the Shrike pins everyone to his tree and jacks them into the matrix, William Gibson's term actually.  Is that the first time people were forcibly inserted into the internet by machines?


Also I liked what Eric said about the Agon.  That was a good metaphor, and not trying to reconstruct anyone's biography.  The author and the person behind the author are different entities.  Shakespeare's work says everything about Shakespeare the author and nothing about Shakespeare as a person.  That is difficult distinction to make though, I've been talking about Tolkien's biography ad nauseam, but mostly about his letters. It is not that I think biography is irrelevant like Heidegger said when he said all he need to know about Aristotle is that he loved, wrote, and died, I see his point, but Derrida interprets Heidgeer in this way. He says rigorous interpretation of a philosopher's work is the truest biography over someone who knows the whole story. In other word's the best way to know a writer is to read his work, not that what we are doing isn't valuable, but it's secondary to reading.

And finally, I think everyone only has one story and they keep telling it over and over again.  Tolkien's story seems to be about the destruction of great civilizations.  Yes I did use entropy, but when he talks about a fallen world, he is obsessed with the passage of time, and that reads arrow of time, heat death.  For instance, in the future, elves will not have the energy to stay embodied in middle-earth and will be "houseless spirits".  The rings slow time, less time passes in Lorien than in the rest of Middle-earth.  It's like Rip Van Winkle, the world of faerie is about relativistic effects on time, usually time is fast here and slow there but not always.  Wolfe employs this convention in The Wizard Knight, and Vallee talks about it as well in Passport to Magonia and ideas of "missing time". Galadriel call's history, a "long defeat".  Or as Stephen Dedalus says in Ulysses, "History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake"

Wolfe's story is about finding God.  He was angry when people though Severian was Christ, I know I did, and he said in an interview with a Protestant Christian book publisher or something like that, that Severian was a bad person trying to become a Christian.  I thought it was kind of cool that Severian was Christ and Legion.  T torturer metaphor made me think back to The Last Temptation and the Catholic occupation with suffering.  Well, Mr. Wolfe, you could have fooled me.  This is why I like letters but often distrust them.  It seems that The Book of the Long Sun was a rewrite of the Book of the New Sun in which Silk was Severian only very moral and a priest rather than a savior or saint and is more overtly Catholic and Christian.  Did Silk try to kill himself when Hyacinth died, is that why we has the knife and is covered with blood?  I guess so, but this seems out of character for him in the Book of the Long Sun, except when he is about to jump off the airship.  Severian also contemplates suicide a few times.  Dan'l, it's true that Wolfe won't narrate the things the narrator does not want to witness. It can be a tease, sometimes it is pleasurable and sometimes annoying, but usually I like it. 

I don't see how Wolfe could top TBOTNS.  I see how he has improved things and even developed a clearer writing style, but why would he want to top his own achievements in the same way?  And I don't think his later books are pale images of his earlier work, like maybe the Stephen King ater the golden age in the late 70s and early 80s, but maybe some people feel that way about Wolfe too.  I like the Wizard Knight, it's fun, and the man is 70s years old.  It's a little late for a comeback, not that I think he needs to.  He also writes about more likable characters.  Most everyone in TBOTNS is a terrible person, Severian is only really less terrible. It's not like you could invite him to your house for coffee and cake.  I wish I had a dog as good as Gylf.  

Not only do I think an author gets one true story, they only get one great book if any and one influential book but they don't have to be the same one.  These are just some of my ideas about people we've talked about.  Ulysses (at least in English, Finnegan's Wake is not in English), Lord of the Rings, The Book of the New Sun, Childhood's End ( for me but that's debatable I think), Hyperion.  I can't decide with Gibson or Stephenson.  Till We have Faces is Lewis's.  I don't know for Chesterton or the rest of the Victorian fantascists. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep for Dick.  My favorite Stephen King is Wizard and Glass, but I think the best book is The Shining, and the scariest Pet Semetary.  I read a lot of Stephen King in high school. I haven't read the Lathe of Heaven. My favorite of Neil Gaiman's comics, which are very good, despite what I've said of him, is The Kindly Ones, Sandman 9, I also think it's his best work.  Lord of Light for Zelazny. We can fight about all of these Is that better than the Left Hand of Darkness?  What other authors do you guys talk about on this list besides Wolfe or have I been killing the mood with non Wolfe related material.