Subject: (urth) Islands in Commonwealth; other Cerberus book

From: adam louis stephanides <astephan at students.uiuc.edu>
Date: Sun, 05 Jul 1998 13:57:04 +0000

prion wrote:

> A previous letter to the list (I'm sorry but I don't remember when)
> asked how the Commonwealth could be in a South America geographically
> similar to the current continent when the Commonwealth is described as
> consisting of an archipelago of islands to the south.  The answer is
> that SA does have a long chain of many islands in the south, but it
> closely follows the close, so the questioner probably wouldn't
> remember them or have noticed them just by casually looking in the
> first place.

I was the original questioner, and I was aware of the islands in the
south of SA.  My question was based on my belief that Severian was
asserting that the Commonwealth consisted entirely of islands.  But
reexamining the quote, it now seems clear to me that the relevant
phrase--"a chain of islands like our south"--refers to the southern-
most portion of the Commonwealth, and not to the Commonwealth as a
whole, as I had originally thought.  So there's no problem there.

Robert Borski (incidentally, do you prefer to be addressed like this or as
"scolex"?) wrote:
 
> Somebody recently mentioned another Cerberus book, but I can't find it in
> the archives. (Seems to me it was French and pulpy???)

That was me too; it's in the archives for June 1, 1998, under the heading
"The Heads of Cerberus," which is also the title of the book.  French no,
pulpy yes.

--Adam

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