(urth) Short Sun blog review

[Jack Smith]

" I think I've heard estimates the Whorl is at least 300 years
old. Typhon was presumably alive on its launching and is still alive when
Severian meets him
strapped to his couch. Quite a lifespan."

Isn't Typhon dead when found by Severian, who then resurrects him?   Typhon
seems to have dried out after lying on the cold, dry mountain for 1000 or
2000 years (in contrast to Dorcas, who is soggy).

Since the Whorl has traveled near the speed of light on its voyage, time has
slowed down.  So 1000 or 200 years can have passed on Urth, while only 300
years have gone by on the Whorl.



On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 12:27 PM, Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com>wrote:

>
> >The decision to have the Ark narrative be set in the same timespace as the
> earlier
> >"New Sun" stories, two multi-volume series back, seems like a nostalgic
> impulse Wolfe
> >shouldn't have succumbed to. Surely a culture that could producean Ark to
> travel between
> >star systems is an energetic young one, not the miserable Byzantine world
> of the "New Sun"
> >novels, set on an Earth so far in the future that the Sun has swollen to
> Red Giant
> >proportions.
>
> This is the section which bothered me the most. Seems to ignore the
> possibility that The
> Whorl was created and sent during the heyday of the First Empire and misses
> the rather
> explicitly explained idea that the sun was reduced in intensity rather
> rapidly, and likely
> on purpose, at the end of this Empire.
>
> Makes me wonder about something. I think I've heard estimates the Whorl is
> at least 300 years
> old. Typhon was presumably alive on its launching and is still alive when
> Severian meets him
> strapped to his couch. Quite a lifespan.
>
> I don't think Typhon is human so it isn't a problem for me but I wonder
> what others make of this.
> A body transplant every 20 years or so to maintain life and youth? Or some
> other explanation.
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-- 
Best wishes,
Jack
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