(urth) Ansible Interview

[Jeff Wilson]

Matthew Groves wrote:
> I'm having trouble seeing how the excerpts quoted indicate that the
> shade is a spiral, and trouble envisioning how a spiral shade would
> ever provide night anywhere in the Whorl, since there would always be
> sunlight coming from the east or west.
> 
> The last excerpt, for example ("...the first thin thread of the long
> sun cutting the skylands in two") seems to me to indicate that the
> shade moves from north to south over the width of the long sun, not
> east to west along its length.  Same with "the sun has already begun
> to narrow."  And when Silk is looking at the skylands and seeing
> valleys, it's late at night, and they're "as clear and bright as
> Silk...had ever seen them."  So it's full light, i.e. noon, in the
> skylands.  The light is coming straight down on the skylands, not
> obliquely from the east or west.  Yet Silk sees valleys filled with
> shadow.

It's possible that the Silk is opposite from the middle of a long day 
section, so it is high noon as well as in the middle of the day 
overhead, but that the valleys are in the dawn or dusk far to the east 
or west, suggesting that the Whorl is several "days" long.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >