Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 09:47:53 -0700
From: Don Palumbo 
Subject: Re: (urth) Severian, memory, alzabo


Nutria,



Wolfe is an engaging and surprisingly modest guy.  I was once
talking with him after having read only The Shadow of the Torturer
(this must be at least 15 years ago), and I told him how much I liked it
and how I was looking forward to reading the rest of the BNS, and he was
quite eager to "save me the trouble" and wanted to tell me how
it all came out on the spot.  I insisted on not being told, but in
retrospect it would have been interesting to have heard his off-the-cuff
version.



--Don Palumbo



At 10:45 AM 7/9/03 -0500, James Jordan wrote:

At 12:05 PM 7/9/2003, you wrote:

As a few people have said this, it may be
worth pointing out that the Autarchs do not use the alzebo drug to pass
on their memories.  When the Autarch has Severian kill him and eat
his forebrain, he points out specifically that the drug in the vial
around his neck is not taken from the alzebo, but is a rarer, better, and
more powerful drug.



--Don Palumbo


And Sev does not just get their memories, any more than he just got
Thecla's. They come to life in him. This is part of how he passes the
trial.

        I originally thought this was
nod to Casher O'Neill in *On the Sand Planet* by C. Smith, who passes
trials with the same benefit as gained in *On the Wind Planet,* but Wolfe
told me Smith was not an influence on him.



Nutria





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