This week in Google Alerts

Gerry Quinn · 02 Nov 2011, 16:21 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2011 16:21:43 -0000
Subject: (urth) This week in Google Alerts
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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes 
> Once again.
> 
 > TBotNS is far enough in the future that mountains containing the ruins
> of long-buried cities have risen. This is not on the order of 20 or 30
> thousand years; it is millions.
Indeed, I know about that and other matters.  I think Severian (or am I imagining it?) may even suggest somehere that Urth?s core has cooled and geological acivity has slowed or stopped.  At face value this suggests hundreds of millions of years.  One could always hypothesise that this is the result of a sometime ruinous reliance on geothermal technologies.  Then again, one could argue that Severian?s understanding of mining is scanty.  Or that some technological process has resulted in the generation of new mountains.
Human evolution seems consistent with anything up to a few million years.  And again, we can always postulate technological interventions, perhaps at many times. 
And yet, there is other evidence suggesting a much earlier timeframe.  Even the flimsy records from Urth?s past make it *feel* like only about 50000-100000 years at most.  That is why I say it is contradictory.  At least, so it seems to me; perhaps I am putting too much stress on these matters compared to the more concrete statements you mention.  One can apply similar objections to these things: records stored digitally need never fade, and the Hierodules have time travel anyway.
Vance?s Dying Earth is an influence, but the sun of Urth is not dying a natural death, so its condition tells us nothing.
Lune has come closer to Urth.  That?s wrong from a current perspective: the Moon should move further away as time goes on, stealing energy from the rotation of the Earth.  But then again, maybe the process of giving it an atmosphere has caused friction which current predictions do not allow for.
One thing is certain:  Wolfe has been purposely vague about the matter.  He even mentions the fact in an afterword.
- Gerry Quinn
 
 
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