{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3228", "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": 3228, "subject": "5HC: woodhenge without abos", "messages": 3, "voices": 2, "first": "2002-05-07T16:05:09+00:00", "last": "2002-05-20T15:52:50+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-05-07T16:05:09+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 5HC: woodhenge without abos", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If there are no abos, really, and never were, then how to explain the\nastronomical observatory--the trees predate the French colonists by around\n120 years.\n\nMaybe they grew that way naturally: link to Le Guin's novel EYE OF THE\nHERON, which has a botanical detail about alien trees that detonate to\nspread their seeds, iirc . . . in any event, they naturally form circles of\ntrees, or woodhenges, which makes the forest look rather like chainmail\nfrom above. (This had no bearing on EYE OF THE HERON that I could see at\nthe time, but it could very well be a cryptic ref to 5HC, just as Le Guin's\n\"Nine Lives\" has the open ref to Zelazny's DREAM MASTER, and Wilhelm's\nWHERE LATE THE SWEET BIRDS SANG has the veiled ref to 5HC . . . )\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2002-05-20T01:14:47+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) 5HC: woodhenge without abos", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "on 5/7/02 11:05 AM, Michael Andre-Driussi at mantis at siriusfiction.com wrote:\nIf there are no abos, really, and never were, then how to explain the\nastronomical observatory--the trees predate the French colonists by around\n120 years." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "To pick a nit, 127 (Annese) years is the age of the trees when they were cut\ndown, not when the French first arrived.\n\nWhen I first read your post, I assumed that the observatory was proof\npositive that the Annese existed. But upon rereading the passage in 5HC,\nthe \"observatory\" became frustratingly indefinite, like all the other traces\nof the Annese. Did Marsch actually see 402 stumps, evenly spaced in a\ncircle? If so, that would be proof that the Annese existed. Mantis's\nsuggestion of trees \"exploding\" their seeds might account for trees growing\nnaturally in a circle, but not for their being evenly spaced, or for their\nnumber equalling the number of days in a year; and there should also be\nother \"tree circles,\" but we don't here of any. (But if things are so\nclearcut, it's hard to see how anyone could maintain that the \"observatory\"\nis \"possibly of natural growth\" (208, Ace pb).) But an equally plausible\nreading is that Marsch only saw, say, a dozen stumps and rotten trees, and\nfrom this extrapolated a ring of 402, prompted by Victor's father's lore.\nIn that case what Marsch sees could have come about naturally, Marsch's\nbeliefs notwithstanding (I don't think Marsch is a fool, but he is\npredisposed to believe in the existence of the Annese).\n\nI'm becoming more and more convinced that the existence of the Annese is\nunknowable, and was meant to be unknowable.\n\n--Adam " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-05-20T15:52:50+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) 5HC: woodhenge without abos", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Adam Stephanides quoted and wrote:\nIf there are no abos, really, and never were, then how to explain the\nastronomical observatory--the trees predate the French colonists by around\n120 years." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "To pick a nit, 127 (Annese) years is the age of the trees when they were cut\ndown, not when the French first arrived." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You are right! And the trees were not likely cut down by the first\nstarship crew. It was done by the settlers (aka colonists), and the first\nwave of settlers could not have come any sooner than 42 years (radio time\nplus NAFAL transit time) after French discovery.\n\n42-127 = -85, or 85 years before French discovery. Rather than circa 120\nFrench discovery.\n\nWould the colonists cut down all the trees in their first year on the\nground, or, like the stripping of the outer shells of the pyramids to build\nCairo (historical echo), would it happen much later?\n\nMarsch is reporting in year 180: it is technically possible that the\nobservatory was planted by the first starship crew in the year 0, and then\nwas not harvested as lumber until the colony grew large enough to have such\ndemand, around year 127. Then the stumps would have 53 years to rot and\ndecay before Marsch sees them.\n\nIIRC year 127 would be close to the year that Number Four was born (FL\n135). But still after the War (FL 100).\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSirius Fiction\nbooklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley\n31 copies of \"Snake's-hands\" until OP!\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/" } ] } ] }