{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/347", "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": 347, "subject": "Of lost books and millenia", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1998-02-04T09:58:36+00:00", "last": "1998-02-06T16:39:10+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tellis at futurenet.co.uk" }, "date": "1998-02-04T09:58:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Of lost books and millenia", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " 03/02/98\n 09:36\n Of lost books and millenia" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Alga wrote:\nteliss, I love your locution, but Ultan's mythic Alexandrian Library is\nhardly Thecla's \"local library!\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\nThe point I was really trying to make is that you don't ask for\na \"lost\" book from any kind of library. If Ultan's library really does\nextend to other times and places, well and good, but if even \nsomeone as un-academically minded as Thecla knows that\nyou can find TBOTNS there, TBOTNS is surely not lost.\n\nI suppose one answer might be that Thecla never asked for\nTBOTNS by name, but for some differently-named book which\njust happened to be a BOTNS text, or perhaps simply for \n\"a book on the Conciliator\". " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Lebling wrote:\nOn geography, to CRCulver: The action of the tetralogy takes place in\nSouth America, and yet there is a great river that flows southwestward\nover a plain, and great mountains to the north and east of the plain.\nThis isn't _our_ South America. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I hate to use the \"C\" word, but is there any chance you could\nprovide citations for the mountains-to-the-east claim? Or at least\npoint me in the right direction? " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Deep Time: The hardest thing to believe about TBOTNS taking place 50\nmillion years in the future is that _so little_ has changed. People are\nstill people, exactly as they are now. The average species lasts on the\norder of three million years. Even with all sorts of advanced\ntechnology, would 50 million years have changed so little?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The average species hasn't discovered civilisation. Evolution \nrequires a nasty, cuthroat competitive environment, where the\nleast genetic advantage or disadvantage decides who survives and\nwho doesn't. Humanity more-or-less stopped evolving when it\nstarted caring for the sick and the weak.) Whoops, that sounds\na tad pro-Nazi, sorry...)\n\nHaving said that, I think you're right anyway that 50 million \nyears is just too damn far in future. My money is on any \nnumber between two to nine million." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Mantis wrote:\nRe: the polychrome sand, I know what you mean, but no, I don't know\nwhere it is at the moment." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "TCOTA, the chapter near the end where Severian is on the beach\nand re-discovers the Claw. I think.\n\n\n\n------------------------------\nDate: 02/02/98 22:23 \nTo: Tony Ellis\nFrom: urth at lists.best.com\n\n!!! Original message was too large.\n!!!\n!!! It is contained in the enclosure whose name\n!!! is the same as the subject of this message.\n!!!\n!!! A preview of the message follows:\n\n\n-------------- BEGIN urth.v006.n026 --------------\n\n 001 - m.driussi at genie.geis.com - (urth) Cumaean's Star\n 002 - raster at highfiber.com (Cha - Old now is Urth, and none may count her days\n 003 - David_Lebling at avid.com - Time\n 004 - m.driussi at genie.geis.com - (urth) Time & Map Tidbits\n 005 - Paul C Duggan \n\nWhat a great flurry of new activity! And some new blood as well. Yumbo!\n\nOn the illness of the sun: It is stated in several places that the sun\nis being devoured by a black hole. That much is impossible to argue\nwith. The debatable point is whether it's natural causes or murder. It\nseems pretty clear to me that it was done on purpose to weaken Typhon's\nempire. The coincidence is too unlikely otherwise. Who dunnit? The\nobvious SFnal idea is that it's \"the rebels,\" whomever they might be. \nThe unobvious idea is that it's Severian himself, or more generally the\nforces of good. It's pretty clear that the sort of empire Typhon was\nruling is one you don't want as a neighbor, so...\n\nOn the mountains: This may just be me reading things into the text that\naren't there (what! never!), but the mountains are clearly \"all\" carved\nin the shape of people. And it isn't just autarchs, either. You could\nlook it up.\n\nOn geography, to CRCulver: The action of the tetralogy takes place in\nSouth America, and yet there is a great rive" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jason Voegele", "address": "voegele.6 at osu.edu" }, "date": "1998-02-06T00:58:39+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Of lost books and millenia", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " David Lebling wrote:\nOn geography, to CRCulver: The action of the tetralogy takes place in\nSouth America, and yet there is a great river that flows southwestward\nover a plain, and great mountains to the north and east of the plain.\nThis isn't _our_ South America. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \n I hate to use the \"C\" word, but is there any chance you could\n provide citations for the mountains-to-the-east claim? Or at least\n point me in the right direction? \n \nI think this crops up when Severian comes to Typhon's little home in the mountains. I've heard two theories. One, Urth's magnetic poles have flip-flopped, thus North and South have taken on the opposite meaning that we are accustomed to. Two, Severian has some sort of depth-perception problem (sorry, can't recall the technical term) which causes him Somehow to confuse left/right/east/west etc.\n\nJason Voegele" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "CRCulver", "address": "crculver at aol.com" }, "date": "1998-02-06T16:39:10+00:00", "subject": "Re: Re: (urth) Of lost books and millenia", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Two, Severian has some sort of depth-perception problem (sorry, can't recall\nthe technical term) which causes him Somehow to confuse left/right/east/west\netc.<" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "THe idea that Severian is spatially dyslexic has arisen before. I believe the\nexample used then is how he got lost on the Ship even when he had the correct\ndirections and remembered them perfectly." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "One, Urth's magnetic poles have flip-flopped, thus North and South have\ntaken on the opposite meaning that we are accustomed to.<" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "According to estimates I have heard. This would take at least 100,000 years.\n\nChristopher R. Culver \nhttp://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html\n------------------------------------------------\n\"Ignorance, that light of fools steers a wayward path\"\n-Brendan Perry" } ] } ] }