(urth) This week in Google Alerts

[Gerry Quinn]

From: David Stockhoff 
> > On 11/1/2011 8:14 AM, Lee Berman wrote:
> >> Matt Keeley: The happy reviewer of Shadow states that Urth is "clearly" part of Earth's
> >> future. When was this list last so sure of anything about a Wolfe book?
>
> > Hm..I haven't seen anyone debate that the story is set in S. America for a while. That
> > had been an early debate here.
>
> > But, didn't we all think Urth was the future of Earth at one time? I think it would be
> > difficult to consider that Urth is a parallel and future version of Earth without
> > exposure to the debates here and the Wolfe interview quotes.
Wolfe’s quotes are certainly a major element, but the cyclic universe is described in a chapter of Citadel called ‘The Key to the Universe’.  That Urth is the far future of an Earth rather similar to ours is obvious.  My opinion is that we are not intended to know whether it exists in a past cycle, a future cycle, or in our own (in which case Urth is a future Earth).   

> > (FWIW, I think the S. America conclusion supports the parallel Urth idea. It isn't easy to
> > consider a geologic upheaval that could move the Andes from the west side to the east side
> > of the continent while leaving Lake Titicaca and its floating islands intact.)    

> Definitely. It's easier to imagine Earth split like an orange and peeled 
> back over either pole so that the continents and their movements are all 
> reversed from the beginning, than to imagine them actually reversing 
> direction in 20,000 years. If this is actually what Wolfe was thinking, 

I find it hard to believe that Severian’s descriptions of geography are detailed enough to be identifiable with confidence as a particular distorted version of Earth’s geography.

As for the time, we don’t know it, though 20000 years seems a bit short to me, not so much in terms of theoretical history, but in terms of literary style.  Of course such information as we get about the age of Urth is filled with contradictions anyway.

- Gerry Quinn

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