{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/143",
    "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": "whorl",
  "thread": {
    "id": 143,
    "subject": "Nightside; story vs mystery",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-02-28T19:09:42+00:00",
    "last": "1997-02-28T19:09:42+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0003-0201@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Ranjit Bhatnagar",
        "address": "ranjit at gradient.cis.upenn.edu"
      },
      "date": "1997-02-28T19:09:42+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Nightside; story vs mystery",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Let me ask another question (and this one is prompted by laziness, I\nfear -- I haven't searched for quotes).  What is the shade and how does\nit work?  Is the night sky of Viron dark but lit with the lights of the\ncities on the other side of the whorl, or is it bright with the sunlight\nshining on those cities?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "The shade seems to be a strip which covers about half the\nsun, and rotates around the sun so that it's day on one side\nof the whorl and night on the other.  The glare of the sun\nblocks the view of the other side -- the Skylands -- until\nshadeup (or shadedown -- now I can't remember which is\nwhich).  After Silk is knocked out cold by the white-headed\nbird, he wakes up with the skylands swimming before his eyes\n(i.e. he's flat on his back).  It must be pretty darn bright\neven at night, but on the other hand it's nearly pitch dark\nin Mucor's room at night even though she has a window.\n\nIn Exodus, the travelers to Mainframe see the thing which\nmakes the shade -- it appears to be blowing opaque smoke or\nmist out along the axis of the whorl.  Presumably, as the\nwhorl rotates around the sun, the shade forms a gentle\nspiral around it; perhaps the spiral effect is too slight to\nnotice.\n\nMaybe Mainframe distinguishes summer from winter by varying the\nwidth of the shade, to emulate the shorter days/longer\nnights of winter on a planet.\n\nI was wondering today -- is the Whorl long like a cucumber,\nor fat like a potato?  It's gotta be big, with hundreds of\ncities (Sand or Hammerstone in the tunnels).  Silk sees\n\"countless\" cities in the skylands, yet only a few are close\nenough for travel and trade.  On the other hand, it's only a\nfew days or weeks by airship to Mainframe.  If nearly all\nthe Whorl is visible in the sky but the east pole (or was it\nwest?) is close, that argues for a potato shape.\n\nWhy did Wolfe choose to put East/West along the axis,\ninstead of North/South?  Just out of perversity, I suppose.\nThe sun rises (shade lowers) in the south (north?), and\nthere's a west pole.  If the shade is spiral-shaped, then\nthe sun could rise in the southeast, but nobody ever\nmentioned a spiral."
        },
        {
          "kind": "sig",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I'm a lazy reader; I like an entertaining story without too\nmuch work.  But I'm also a curious reader; if the puzzles\nand mysteries are intriguing enough, I'll enjoy puzzling\nthem over.  The New Sun and Long Sun books are to me a good\nbalance of story and mystery, though Exodus gets just a bit\ntoo mysterious for my tastes.  Even if I didn't appreciate\nany of the symbolism and hidden connections in the Book of\nthe New Sun, I could still enjoy Severian's adventures.\nExodus, on the other hand, leaves the reader going \"Huh?\"\nThe surface story doesn't quite work for me, the Lazy\nReader, so the mystery becomes more vital.\n\n - raton\n\n\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}