{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/764",
    "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": 764,
    "subject": "Meanwhile, back on Urth ....",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-06-12T01:10:20+00:00",
    "last": "1998-06-12T01:10:20+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0013-0024@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Peter Westlake",
        "address": "peter at harlequin.co.uk"
      },
      "date": "1998-06-12T01:10:20+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Meanwhile, back on Urth ....",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "... Spectacled Bear is still re-reading the Book of the New Sun,\nhaving been saving 5HC for a time when he's wide enough awake to\nstand some chance of following it. In the process I noticed some\ndetails that bear on questions asked here earlier, including the\none that so annoyed Alga: what were the footsteps in the cave of\nthe man-apes? The first step \"might have been the walking of a\ntower on the Final Day...\" (Claw, VI). And then two books later,\nlo and behold, \".. a machine that flashed fire, a machine that\nwas like a tower walking.\" (Citadel, XXII).  Then scarcely a page\nlater, Mamillian's footstep remind Severian of \"that I had once\nwaked in the mine of the man-apes.\" (Citadel, XXIII). It's like\na Martian war machine in the War of the Worlds!\n\nSomeone said that the sheath of Terminus Est changes from \"manskin\"\nto \"leather\", and was mystified. But manskin is a kind of leather,\nas evidenced by Claw, XXI, where Severian touches the Claw through\nits bag to resist Decuman's spell: the bag is referred to first as\n\"human skin\" then as \"leather\" in the same sentence. I think that\nthe sheath is described as leather because we've already had the\nshock of learning what it's really made of, and we don't need to\nbe distracted by it at places in the story where it doesn't matter,\nwhere the sheath is just where Severian keeps his sword.\n\nThere are still plenty of questions I still wonder about, but I'll\nwait till I get right to the end before asking them.\n\nPeter."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}