House Absolute

Tim Walters · 02 Dec 2008, 23:45 · from 2008-December.txt.gz

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From: walters at doubtfulpalace.com (Tim Walters)
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 15:45:18 -0800 (PST)
Subject: (urth) House Absolute
In-Reply-To: <4935C471.9050409 at io.com>
References: <63FB9AC7E0AEC7459DBCC99DC44247CA01F6AFF4 at BOSIDEXDB.Bankofscotland.ie>
	<4935C471.9050409 at io.com>
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> It's also debatable that Urt's core really is cooling. The learned Ultan
> and Palaemon seem to get most of their education from the piles of books
> in the Library, and may have no way to know which books have outdated
> theories; they may have enjoyed Bellamy's _Looking Backward_and gotten
> the notion that the refrigeration of the earth is a foregone conclusion
>   in the wisdom of the ancients.

What's the artistic point of the cliff scene, world-famous for its
evocation of deep time, if not to show that a gazillion years have passed?

What's the artistic point of mentioning the cooling of Urth's core, if not
to show that a gazillion years have passed?

The deep-futurity theory only requires one to accept a couple of
improbable survivals--the dual meaning of "present", the astronaut
painting--from our period, in a book filled with improbabilities, and in
line with SF tradition, in which future societies tend to be rather more
interested in our era than is strictly plausible. The "score of chiliads"
theory requires believing that all the evocations of Dying Earth
tropes--so critical to the effect of the book--are coincidental or
deceptive, with only rather strenuous rationalizations for evidence.

The one thing that gives me pause is the black hole at the Sun's core,
which could be a signal that the Dying Earth tropes are going to be
rationalized, in the manner of the Matachin Tower and "destriers". But if
that's the case there should be solid textual evidence that, e.g., the
cliff is artificial.

-- 
Tim Walters | http://doubtfulpalace.com

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