The theory of rays is expounded. Bruno sees the king of France in a procession of penitents and thinks it is bad magic. He finds himself out of favor there and has to leave in a hurry ( Read more... )

Rosie remembers her childhood stay in the hospital. A grown-up Bobby Shaftoe is working there now, and talks to Sam and Rosie; Sam's seizures turn out to be idiopathic, requiring a further stay to observe ( Read more... )

There's some prologue here, and it somehow feels different or later than the rest, like maybe it was generated to fill in what the long gap in publishing dates left vague in our memories? Then in Uxor, we visit Butterman's. Sam remembers it as her "old house" (the way some children still retain memories of their past lives); it is a fairy tale ( Read more... )

Bruno meets the Queen (I love the elemental decoration of her clothing), imagines a memory contest against the Ramists, sets out for France and thence to the Emperor. A bit of Holy Roman Empire history at the beginning of the next chapter, and the origin of the dollar sign. Rudolf broods on the Stone, desiring a cure for his melancholy. He meets ( Read more... )

Rosie has a dream that shows her the link between oral sex and the infant need for succor. Boney shows her a passage in Kraft's autobio about the Stone, and tells her he wants Pierce to be given a Foundation grant to search for it. Spofford takes her to meet with his bodyworker Cliff, who turns out not to be home. He leads her through some of the ( Read more... )

At a picnic, Pierce and company discuss theodicy. Dozing on the picnic blanket he has an understanding of God the Daughter, the Heh final in YHVH (Amanda d'Haye, mother of Little Enosh, is Heh the Mother, as the sound of her name suggests.) He also realizes that the infinitely small and the infinitely large are identical, or might as well be ( Read more... )

Chapter six opens with Boney sorting through Kraft's letters, searching for evidence of the stone of the wise, wishing for immortality. On page 257, some hints about the chest which is presumably the one that ends up at the Infantine convent (Kraft trekking all over Europe for something which had survived the passage time, and all the while it was ( Read more... )

Bruno and Dicson make a trip to Mortlake, talking along the way. Dicson warns Bruno of the danger of using images in those Puritan times, and Bruno expresses his belief that the magic of the past is coming back. Dicson hopes the power of that magic will heal the split between Catholic and Protestant; but of course, the Science of our time (which ( Read more... )

I find Dee and Kelly's first encounter with Madimi charming. All the angels are fallen angels.

In chapter three, Dee and Bruno meet. It is historically possible that this could have happened, although there is no evidence that it did. (Sir Philip Sidney is there, too--I always think of that Monty Python bit when I see his name.)Dicson is as ( Read more... )

I read the pages from the last entry until the beginning of the Nati section, but I didn't really have anything to say about them. It's not you, it's me ( Read more... )