Subject: (urth) DOORS: what city, please?

From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 01:16:46 +0000

Hey Roy! (And everybody else.)

What you think -- is the city of TAD the same city as the one in FLF?

The city in TAD is:

-- On the eastern seaboard.

-- Far enough north that there is ice in the harbor (at least in
Otherworld, iirc).

-- Is the nation's capital in Otherworld but not in Visitor's World.

 . . . all pretty trace.

But when Doctor Nilson of Visitor's World says "Last winter there was a
blackout," it reminded me of the winter blackout in FLF (which was pivotal
to that story).

On a similar tangent, North seems to have been in Otherworld for 10 to 16
years of Visitor's World time: that is, he seems to have gone there circa
1972, and it is 1982-88 (break-up of Ma Bell and year of publication.  So
how many O-days is that?  We are told that 4 O-days = 33 days (hc p. 171),
hmmm, so each O-day is 8.25 days long.  Ten years would be 443 O-days; 16
years would be 708 O-days.

=mantis=

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 01:31:47 +0000

> it is 1982-88 (break-up of Ma Bell and year of publication.

Just a data point: I was working for TPC at the time -- the
official break-up was 1/1/84. If that helps.

(There was a mini-break-up on 1/1/83, when certain parts of
the national company became the "Fully Separated Subsidiary,"
but by "break-up" most people would refer to when the local
companies were spun off as separate entities.)

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 04:44:09 +0000

>-- Far enough north that there is ice in the harbor (at least in

OTOH, in Green's world, "The city was far enough south that really severe
winter weather was exceptional." (214) Yet the two worlds _have_ to share
the same geography. The bad winter in the Otherworld must have been a fluke.

>years would be 708 O-days.

The numbers are inconsistent. When Green came back to our world it was April
15, 1989. (Based on the date 6/6/88 in the file on North that Green found,
p-128. It was January in the Otherworld when Green left. After Yule.) April
16, he was put in the booby hatch. He got out during his second summer there
(207-08). Then three Christmases went by after he went back to work. (210)
The next February he was transferred to the uptown store. Sometime after
Daylight Savings Time stopped, but before Christmas of that year (November,
1993?), he rediscovered Tina and went through a "door" in the arcade and was
collared by the woman from the haberdashery. She had been holding the pants
for "four months". (236) That would make it still May, 1989 in the
Otherworld. Four months passed in the Otherworld, about 55 months in our
world for Green.

-Roy

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