(urth) This week in Google Alerts

[Gerry Quinn]

From: David Stockhoff 

> I believe the 20,000-year figure is from Wolfe. Since no major changes 
> could have occurred from "now" to Severian's time anyway, the 
> significant changes are cultural, not geographic. Yet European languages 
> are still spoken on the Whorl; even if they had to be revived for 
> Typhon's purposes, they still survived that long.

Even in Severian’s time scholars retain some understanding of English, as we know from Thea’s disquisition about the renaming of Verthandi and Skuld.

The atmosphere of BotNS has always reminded me of Robert Silverberg’s Nightwings, which is, if I recall correctly, set around the year 30000.  Here the names of certain cities (Rome and Jorslem) survive.  Just as in BotNS, the world is pseudo-feudal with high-tech elements.  Earth is the clapped-out remnant of a hubristic interstellar empire and is now under the ownership of aliens.

As far as I know Wolfe has never acknowledged any literary debt to Nightwings, although it was published around 1970.  Of course it may well be that he never read it and his and Silverberg’s visions evolved independently, albeit obviously from similar roots in Vance and elsewhere.

- Gerry Quinn
 
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