(urth) traveling north

[David Stockhoff]

The Ottomans laid siege to Vienna three times over centuries, each time failing to capture the city. They did however take Constantinople and never gave it up. Note that Nessus is based on Byzantium, so the enemy would have to be Turks anyway.

But additionally Turks therefore are the Saracens of the Renaissance and represent the eternal Orientalist European "Invader from the East," but with an implacable and bureaucratic flavor rather than a wild, animal-like flavor (like the Mongols on their ponies). Take that to the nth degree and you might get something like the Ascians.

Nessus and the Commonwealth have a very obvious Middle-earth-like mentality regarding the geography of Urth. (See the classic New Yorker cover about the view of the world from Manhattan for a modern version.)

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Message: 2
Date: Sun, 06 Jun 2010 01:57:23 +0100
From: Jane Delawney <jane_delawney at sky.com>
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) traveling north
Message-ID: <4C0AF273.7070303 at sky.com>
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First of all many many apologies if I have started a hare and then not 
been around to follow it up. it is a classic troll tactic and I am not a 
troll (although stating you are not is also a classic tactic of course, 
right now I know I can't win). Instead color me guilty of not thinking 
(ie. that I was on 3 12 hour shifts immediately following my last post) 
before posting. Will try very hard not to do this again.

Second: many many thanks to all those who have responded. I see that my 
15 years out of the fandom have resulted in some serious lacunae in my 
knowledge; I had not previously been aware of Gene Wolfe's statements on 
the issue of north/south on Urth and also of the identity of the Ascians.

[As an aside though - I wonder very much now why Wolfe initially 
identifies the Ascians as his 'equivalent of the Turks'. Turks of what 
era? I'm guessing ancient, warlike, sweeping across the plains Turks, 
not the inhabitants of the modern land of Turkey who are not well known 
for Ascian-like behavior.

The real  puzzle for me in this identification however is their evident 
totalitarian mentality, how this relates to the Turks of any era I am 
not sure.]