What is _Urth of the New Sun_ about?

Ron Henry · 06 Jan 2004, 16:35 · from rec.arts.sf.written.2004.mbox

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From: "Ron Henry" <ronhenry at blahblahblah.clarityconnectcom>
Subject: Re: What is _Urth of the New Sun_ about?
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 11:35:24 -0500
Message-ID: <bteo4e$30n$1 at news01.cit.cornell.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.

No, really, It's pretty clear from references in both the New Sun and
Long Sun series that Severian and the people of the Whorl who come from
the same Commonwealth as Severian, were South Americans. (One off the
cuff reference I can think of is that they drink mat�.)

As far as the time-scale of the sun "dying", theories of solar evolution
(I know I'm gesturing at another part of this thread, sorry) are
irrelevent, as it's implied in several places that the sun was
deliberately damaged or poisoned at some point. Best estimates I've seen
put the action tens of thousands of years in the future, not millions or
billions.

There's a huge amount discussion of all this in the archives of the Urth
mailing list, which you should be able to Google without much trouble if
you feel motivated to spend a month or two reading them (they go back
many years).

Ron Henry

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