(urth) lupine crisis of faith

[Jeff Wilson]

On 12/29/2010 1:10 PM, Lee Berman wrote:
>
>
> I think I'm currently having a disturbing crisis of faith and I think Marc Aramini
> is mostly to blame (heh). I am not much of a fan of horror stories. I can take a short
> story or a movie because there is a short recovery time but horror novels which end badly are
> a bit disturbing. I like being happy and optimistic! Long ago I was both awestruck and disturbed
> after reading the novel 5HoC but I gave Gene Wolfe another chance due to his genius but
> also hoping he might get a bit more positive. I thought BotNS and Short Sun ended on sort of
> a positive note. Now I'm not so sure.
>
> I'd recently noticed that the end of UotNS, while sunny, is pretty gnostic in its world-
> view with four paired opposites for gods and a demon in the ocean. Now I have Marc suggesting
> that Urth/Ushas has a connection (urban or planetary) to that hellish horror called Green.
>
> Also someone's recent haunting question: "Who says the Megatherians were killed on Ushas?".
>
> Who indeed. Just a little common sense should tell me that earth-bound, immortal Megatherians
> would welcome Ushas and be mortally fearful of the future of ice, the one thing that could
> trap them for eternity.

Not even. Erebus and his periscii already operate just fine in the 
frozen south. They contribute to the cooling of the earth by 
appropriating the geothermal energy of Urth, and Abaia's outfit might 
well also, being ideally suited to exploit the majority of the volcanic 
vents under the sea. They would seem to have been doing so for some 
time, leading to Malrubius' mis-teaching that the internal fires of Urth 
had died down as well as the similar error of Typhon's scientists that 
the decline of the solar input would be inconsequential.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >