<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br><div><div>On Dec 16, 2007, at 9:50 PM, Michael Dale wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div class="hmmessage" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma; "><blockquote><br>Who is the Undine that exist on Blue? It is not Scylla if she is also on Urth I think. (so long that SilkHorn cannot time travel)<br> <br>I heard someone say that the undines put a blackhole in the sun. I don't think so since they want to survive on the Urth also.<br></blockquote></div></span></blockquote><br></div><div>I don't know that I like this idea, but it's a new one to me:</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>What if the Whorl never actually GOES anywhere?</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>I've wondered before what the acceleration means in terms of whether its bodies of water stay put, and whether that gives a maximum and minimum time for its trip.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>But what happens if the Whorl just kinda wanders around the Solar System for a few centuries, or millennia, or aeons, and Silk's trip to meet Severian is "mere" time travel, not spatial travel? What if Blue and Green *are* Earth and Venus in the future after the arrival of the New Sun?</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>I now need to think and read and see whether that's at all internally consistent.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>Another sort-of-snarky point: what if TBot*S isn't _meant_ to be hard SF? Maybe we're just supposed to read it as _The Dying Earth_ written by someone who can really, really write (look, I like Jack Vance too, but he's no Gene Wolfe), and who has read his Borges.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>Adam</div></body></html>