Wall of Nessus

Roy C. Lackey · 14 Jun 2010, 17:41 · from 2010-June.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:41:07 -0500
Subject: (urth) Wall of Nessus
References: <000901cb080c$a24bd6a0$3dd14a0c@rclackey><AANLkTimNF_7phiZuvwCMYZObOBCVpmbPVbROd7kc1Hq4 at mail.gmail.com><006601cb0879$4ddd39c0$59cc4a0c@rclackey><AANLkTilLT4407kUNfZU4wY0V73RjJAk-UllkDYkyuiHT at mail.gmail.com><00b101cb0b91$16331100$bacf4a0c@rclackey>
	<C04E9C844995425CA3A67B647E6007B8@jill>
Message-ID: <00bb01cb0be8$c9fcd7a0$92ce4a0c@rclackey>

Gerry Quinn quoted and wrote:
> > At one point in URTH Sev, going on about the size of the mirrored sails
on
> > The Ship, said that the Wall was "a few leagues in height and a few
> > thousand
> > long" (p-103). Bah! That's a Big Dumb Object.
>
> Too big.  I prefer to maintain my original assumption that the Wall is of
> ordinary height and Severian made a typo.

It's not a typo. Sev also went on about the Wall's improbable height
(clouds; the few birds that could fly over it) just as the theater troupe
got to the gate. The gate itself is like a huge cave in it.

James Wynn wrote:
> What would the radius of the city need to be for a wall of that height
> to disappear beyond the horizon at ground level?

Mantis made some calculations along these lines, based on scattered comments
in the books about the Wall's height, in the Wall entry in LU2.

And later:
> I presumed that Wolfe would use the "Roman" league which is 2.22 km or
> 1.4 miles. It's still to tall for "several leagues".

FWIW, in an appendix to CLAW, Wolfe said that his use of league means a
distance of "about three miles".

-Roy

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