Mystery of Ascia

Adam Thornton · 21 Jan 2011, 13:05 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: adam at io.com (Adam Thornton)
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2011 07:05:14 -0600
Subject: (urth) Mystery of Ascia
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W37CE0EF6969EE60B4F4F83CFF80 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W37CE0EF6969EE60B4F4F83CFF80 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <73921191-632D-4219-80DC-AB313A422862 at io.com>

On Jan 21, 2011, at 7:01 AM, Lee Berman wrote:
> 
> It wasn't in the interview, but since reading that, I have guessed that
> Wolfe chose the name "Ascian" because it is an amalgam of "American" and
> "Asian" adding the mistake about the equator/no shadow origin later to 
> justify that name.

I disbelieve.

One of the things I remember figuring out on a very early reading of the books (although I don't think I read _Shadow_ until _Sword_ had already been published, and then I read them all at once), was putting together the clues of "Ascian", who lived in the remote north, to deduce that the action must be south of the Equator, and then that made it very easy to take Ultan's library and assert that Nessus was on the site of Buenos Aires, making Ultan's library Borges's.  But then I was also wallowing in Borges at the time.

Adam
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