(urth) Lupiverse(s)

[Andrew Mason]

Gerry Quinn wrote:
> The most interesting thing about Isid is that he persishes ?in smoke and blue fire?.  The god, one of a dwindling number, is clearly a machine set to watch over the development of planet-bound humanoids.  This resembles BotNS somewhat, and also fits the introductory sentence you mention.
> Anyone ever figure out a meaning for ?Isid Iooo IoooE??

It seems to me the closest connection is with _Short Sun_  - Isid, a
computerised god floating above a planet, is a bit like Pas: the hero
visits three peoples; and Maser is clearly like the azoth (which I
always felt had rather been squeezed into _Long Sun/Short Sun_, where
it doesn't very naturally belong).

But the more I think of it, the more I feel that 'The God and his Man'
may be the clue to understanding the dating of Urth. We have a story,
apparently set in a past cycle, which features a planet called 'Urth'
- which on the one hand recalls 'Earth', but on the other also means
'past'.  Then Wolfe goes on to write a whole series set on Urth, and
now he has a problem - the Urthlings themselves clearly don't think
that they live in the past, so why is it called that? So he invents
the 'planet of the future' story to give an in-story explanation if it
- which, however, does not rule out its also having an out-of-story
explanation.