What is _Urth of the New Sun_ about?

AnomJ7t7 · 30 Dec 2003, 19:23 · from rec.arts.sf.written.2003.mbox

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From: anomj7t7 at aol.com (AnomJ7t7)
Subject: Re: What is _Urth of the New Sun_ about?
Date: 30 Dec 2003 19:23:26 GMT
Message-ID: <20031230142326.07934.00001902 at mb-m16.aol.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
References: <bss663$593$1 at panix1.panix.com>

>	Dying sun scenarios have the problem that while it was a reasonable
>scenario when Wells was writing [and Verne would toss in cooling of the
>Earth's interior, which he felt was going to be Very Bad Indeed for us]

Yes,if I'm not mistaken,Wells and Hodgson were working from Lord Kelvin's
theories on the sun's age.

>the current model suggests that the sun will continue to get brighter 
>until it cooks Earth and only much later end up as a cooling white dwarf.

Thank you for mentioning this,because it reminds me of a book which I had on my
'To Read' pile quite a few years ago that I ended up forgetting about and
losing in the shuffle,and that's Brian Aldiss's 'Long afternoon of
earth'.Although I never read it it seems to me that it was about a future
period (not sure exactly how many years) where the sun is expanding and the
tropical greenhouse like environment as well as the strangely evolved life
forms it creates.I'll have to look for this book again.

Back to the original subject....That in turn reminds me how that in 'The book
of the new sun' Severian would always refer to the "Great jungles of the north"
or something similiar....did Wolfe ever give a scientific explanation for this
reversal of the Urth's environmental make-up or was it something I missed?

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