From: Dan Parmenter <dan@lec.com>
Subject: (urth) Planaria
Date: 26 Jun 2001 11:49:35 

From: James Jordan <jbjordan4@home.com>

Re: the unreproducible Planaraian worm experiment:

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


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