Subject: (whorl) What was _Thrust_?

From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2001 14:57:26 +0000

Jerry Friedman wrote:

>This stuff is all very interesting!
>
>I suppose I'm unlikely to look up the references, but what's _Thrust_ and
>who made the remark?

_Thrust_ was a fanzine, which then was renamed _Quantum_, and then ceased
publication.  The remark in question was made by Gene Wolfe himself, as
reported in the interview published in _Thrust_.

>As for the century earlier, I don't follow that.  Typhon had two heads
>when the _Whorl_ was launched, and he still did when he "retired to his
>blameless couch".  Could he have been in that unpleasant state for a
>century?  Or are you suggesting that Typhon has performed the same
>maneuver more than once?

Talarican is saying, I believe, that the Whorl was launched sometime after
Typhon got the two heads, but before Typhon actually died (naturally!); and
since Ymar (first autarch) died "a chiliad ago," and Ymar was a boy when
Severian met him in URTH, in the same era when Typhon had two heads and
control of Urth (although the rebellion is going on at that point, isn't
it?) . . . so it seems like the Whorl could not have been launched 1000
years ago (when Ymar the Almost Just died), nor even in the decades before
then (since it was Ymar's reign), but in the decades before Ymar's reign.
Say 100 years, or 50 years if you like.  How long did Ymar's reign last,
how old was he when he somehow managed to attain the newly minted
throne--who knows?

Because the rebellion is going on when the Conciliator appears, this
strongly suggests that the Whorl was launched at some point prior to the
arrival of the Conciliator, that is, prior to events in that section of
URTH (since the rebellion in Mainframe is the same as what happened on the
ground, or so it has always seemed).

=mantis=

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