Subject: (whorl) what's up with hy? ... plus building fusion reactors

From: Greg Neyman <greg.neyman at gte.net>
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 20:45:48 +0000

Thanks everyone for answering my questions ... sorry mantis ... haven't read
Urth yet, but I'm gonna start on Shadow tomorrow ...

any ideas on where the whorl gets its power (see last post)?

Anyhoop, I've always wondered about Hy ... I mean, Silk is a sophisticated,
mild-mannered clergyman, and Hy, is basically still a fourteen years old
girl, and not a well educated one at that ... every time  the two
interacted, starting with the "wee flea" letter, I got this sensation in the
pit of my stomach, reminiscent of the one I get when people scratch their
fingernails across a chalk board ... basically, I could never shake the idea
that the two were ALL wrong for each other ...

Any ideas on this?  Is it trying to show that love comes in all shapes and
sizes, and there is no accounting for it?  That Silk, with all his
strengths, is still a fool for love?  That even if there are better women
available, men still gravitate to the hot bods?  All of the above? None of
the above?

Matthew, you bring an interesting point, about the fact that chems should be
able to build their children, ergo there should be fusion reactor parts
available, especially considering that chems multiplied a lot less than Pas
expected (according to Hammerstone) ... so why was it that people couldn't
build these reactors ... maybe they didn't know how, but they could ask
chems ... they have the plans hardwired in them ...

Finally, a mil plus years after all of us are dust ... why are people STILL
speaking English?  (or is it explained in Urth, in which case, don't ruin it
for me ... )

that's all for now ...

    /\/\     Greg Neyman               Greg.Neyman at gte.net
___/____\___ http://www.trailerpark.com/siesta/thehat/
  |HE  HA|

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 09:18:09 +0000

> speaking English?  (or is it explained in Urth, in which case, don't ruin it

I assume that, just as Wolfe explained that /terminus est/ is not really
Latin but a language as archaic to speakers of Severian's language as
Latin is to English, just so the languages in Long Sun are not really
English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, etc. but languages that have an
analogous relationship to each other.

-Rostrum