Digest whorl.v010.n033

David Langford · 14 Oct 1999, 09:11 · from whorl-v0010.mbox · original

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From: ansible at cix.compulink.co.uk (David Langford)
Subject: (whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v010.n033
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 10:11 +0100 (BST)
Message-ID: <whorl-v0010-0111 at digest.urth.net>
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Alastair Reynolds wrote, of Wolfe:

> And I believe in one of
> q&a sessions I have read, either on this list or on the web somewhere,
> he said he envisaged Severian's time as being about a 1000 years from
> now (which always struck me as too short a span of time, but never
> mind).

This has come up before. An on-line chat session included the following:

Q: About how far, really, is the New Sun series set in our future (or the=20
future of the previous universe)? How much time elapses between Typhon=20
and Severian?

Wolfe: That is never specified in the books. My offhand guess is between=20
1000 and 2000 years. I would have to reread the books with care to=20
perhaps trim the estimate up a little bit.

Wolfe is surely answering the second question rather than the first,=20
since passages in BotNS suggest a serious geological timespan between our=20
age and Severian's (e.g. the fault-cliff in =3DSword=3D which exposes three=20
miles of vertically stacked human relics).

Dave

David Langford
ansible at cix.co.uk | http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/

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