(urth) Ansible Interview

[Matthew Groves]

On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 7:32 PM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:
> I didin't receive anything posted on the list since noon until just now. I
> sent Jordan some pictures that are apparently in line with the Whorl as
> Matthew envisioned it. But now I see that (I think) he has at last conceded
> that shaded areas are possible in the Whorl and that they are widely
> viewable.

Yes, under the circumstances I laid out.  The trouble is, a bowl isn't
really the same thing as a valley.  It's more like a crater.  Wolfe
says in the interview, "Where is the difficulty, unless all the
valleys run parallel to the Long Sun?"  He doesn't seem to be thinking
about bowls or craters, much less craters in a plane at an extravagant
angle to spin gravity.  In Wolfe's vision, it seems to be the case
that valleys running at an angle to the long sun can somehow, at least
sometimes, be filled with "vast black shadows" during the day.  That
is, if the long dimension of the valley, where the river would be,
runs north-south, then it can be dark in the valley.  I have to admit
I'm still having trouble seeing how that is possible.