What is _Urth of the New Sun_ about?

Jim Cambias · 31 Dec 2003, 20:38 · from rec.arts.sf.written.2003.mbox

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From: cambias at SPAHMTRAP.heliograph.com (Jim Cambias)
Subject: Re: What is _Urth of the New Sun_ about?
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 15:38:28 -0500
Message-ID: <cambias-3112031538290001 at diakelly.ppp.mtholyoke.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
References: <bss663$593$1 at panix1.panix.com> <20031230142326.07934.00001902 at mb-m16.aol.com> <Xns946188F9C4513mss2mediaonenet at 130.133.1.4> <qemIb.1404$Is5.488 at bignews4.bellsouth.net>

> > > 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?
> >
> > Severian lived in the Southern Hemisphere.  (South America,
> > specifically, from clues in the text that I don't currently
> > remember.)
> >
> 
> I remember one passage talked about the southern lands being made up of
> individual islands while the north is one large continent. I guess I always
> took it to be the eastern hemisphere. The southern lands being Indonesia,
> Philippines, New Zealand and Australia* and the north being Asia (wasn't the
> enemy called ascians? Their system of government was kind of a take off on
> communism). I don't know enough geology to know if the above mentioned land
> massed are drifting north or south so I don't know what the globe will look
> like thousands of years from now.
> 
Book of the New Sun takes place in a somewhat altered South America.  The
enemy come from what we would call Central America, as their name Ascians
means "no shadow" people -- i.e. the sun shines straight down where they
live.  

Cambias

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