Do the Hierogrammates care about the Megatherians?

James Wynn · 19 May 2011, 22:50 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Thu, 19 May 2011 17:50:13 -0500
Subject: (urth) Do the Hierogrammates *care* about the Megatherians?
In-Reply-To: <BANLkTinqrr1DEOe4GT9X0=2M9+hAwpPF1Q at mail.gmail.com>
References: <BANLkTinqrr1DEOe4GT9X0=2M9+hAwpPF1Q at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4DD59EA5.5000003 at gmail.com>

>> First, I don't think the 'seventeen megatherians' were anything to do with
>> Erebus, Abaia etc.  The number doesn't particularly match, but more
>> important than that, we have a book called "The Lives of the Seventeen
>> Megatherians" which has a somewhat historical feel to it, as if the story of
>> the megatherians (whoever they were) is long over, which is not the case of
>> the powers currently in the sea.
> I think alternatively it might be a work of biology dealing with the
> lives of great beasts - the smilodon, the mammoth and so on. I agree
> that the megatherians are unlikely to be the sea-monsters, of whom I
> think we never hear of more than four.

Somehow I think an Ascian book is more likely to be a book of political 
history. Even if there are only four at Severian's Time (which is not 
required although I like it for reasons of theme)  does not mean they 
are the only four to ever exist. There was only one Emperor in Rome at 
the time of Suetonius, but that didn't stop him from writing a book 
entitled "The Twelve Caesars".

J

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