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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=marcaramini@yahoo.com
href="mailto:marcaramini@yahoo.com">Marc Aramini</A> </DIV></DIV></DIV>
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<DIV><BR>> There are comments like the few extant builings surviving so many
centuries </DIV>
<DIV>> of futurity in the afterwords that at least indicate the fictional GW
did not know</DIV>
<DIV>> if was from the past, if indeed the manuscript WAS supposed to
be from the past, </DIV>
<DIV>> and let us know the frame translator thinks he is dealing with
something from the</DIV>
<DIV>> future. I always felt that previous iteration was
something of a retcon due to </DIV>
<DIV>> the nature of the deluge in light of the Covenant, but I am not above
saying that</DIV>
<DIV>> maybe Gene planned it as a possible previous iteration all
along.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>We shouldn’t mix up the different meanings of “past” and “future”. We
know from “The Key to the Universe” that every iteration is fairly similar to
the next, and we may assume that they contain buildings that are similar.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>When Wolfe speaks of a building that has “survived so many centuries of
futurity” he is speaking ironically of a building that has lasted from now until
this iteration’s equivalent of Severian’s time. (Perhaps the Witches Tower
is one such – if I recall correctly it is steel-framed, a technique that is
obsolete in Severian’s time. No matter – he may not have had any
particular building in mind.) </DIV>
<DIV><BR>He’s not saying anything about iterations in this passage, just
indicating that Severian’s time is very far in the future in terms of calendar
time. The picture in the library may be of an Apollo astronaut, or it may
be from the equivalent of the Apollo program carried out by the dawn men of
Severian’s iteration.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>No building in the ordinary sense could survive through the end of one
iteration and into the next. Earth and all its iterations will each be
destroyed in the cosmic implosion at the end of their iteration.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>- Gerry Quinn</DIV>
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