{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1965",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1965,
    "subject": "Random Thoughts as We Slouch Towards Bethlehem",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-11-19T11:03:23+00:00",
    "last": "1999-11-19T11:03:23+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0478@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dave Lebling",
        "address": "dlebling at shore.net"
      },
      "date": "1999-11-19T11:03:23+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Random Thoughts as We Slouch Towards Bethlehem",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "1) What is the Christian take on the fact that in tBotNS, it's apparently\nhundreds of thousands, if not millions of years in the future, and the\nSecond Coming hasn't happened yet?  Somehow this just popped into my head as\nI was the reading the posts on whether or not Sev's apocalypse is the true\nSecond Coming.  It reminds me of _The Restaurant at the End of the\nUniverse_, where Zarquon still hasn't appeared at the last moments of the\nBig Crunch.\n\n2) Sev's ice-bound future may have occurred in the past, several times!\nAccording to a recent publication in _The New Scientist_ (I think) the\nentire Earth may have been covered by ice several times in the distant past.\nIt happens when most of the continents have drifted to near the equator.  We\ngot out of it due to carbon dioxide released by vulcanism.  Of course, Wolfe\npoints out that the core is cold in Sev's time, so they would have no way\nout.\n\n3) I read Paul J. McAuley's _Child of the River_ recently, and wanted to add\nmy recommendation (I know that one of the sages here previously mentioned\nit, but now it's out in paperback).  A very Wolfean feel, almost, one\nthinks, an _hommage_.  It's the first volume of a (mumble)ology, and so far\nthere aren't quite as many mysteries and wheels-within-wheels, but there is\nmuch more to come, so who can say for certain?  To summarize very briefly, a\nchild, Yama, of mysterious origins, lives in a civilization that clings to\nthe banks of a world-river on an extra-galactic Big Dumb Object in the far,\nfar future.  Most \"people\" appear to be genetically engineered\nanimals-made-human, but Yama appears to be a true human.  He grows to\nmanhood in a decaying city near a huge necropolis near a larger\neven-more-decaying city.  A Destiny Awaits Him, and he begins a journey of\napprenticeship in this volume.\n\n The second volume, _Ancients of Days_, is out in hardcover.\n\n4) I too am unsure why this list is booming and the Whorl list is quiet.\nPerhaps we are all waiting for the next installment.  I know I've read the\nthing (that is, _On Blue's Waters_) three times already, and am increasingly\nawestruck each time.  The degree of control Wolfe exhibits is astonishing.\nIf he continues at this level for the remaining two volumes, _Short Sun_\ncould be his masterpiece. Consider this a push for those of you who haven't\nyet taken the plunge to do so immediately.  You'll be glad you did.  (And\nthen you'll be impatient for the rest to come out).\n\n    Dave Lebling\n    (aka vizcacha)"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}