From: Joel Priddy <jpriddy@saturn.vcu.edu>
Subject: (urth) Apu's eclipse
Date: Tue, 20 May 97 10:36:44 EDT


[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

Okay, consensus seems to be... Tzadkeil as eclipse-maker.
 Makes plenty sense to me, and I appreciate the more astronomy-savvy
amongst us filling me in on the whole
you-can-see-stars-you-wouldn't-normally-see-during-an-eclipse
thing.
So, just to plumb the depths of my ingnorance a little further...
Why is Tzadkiel's ship causing eclipses? We know that it doesn't
usually come any further in-system than the ring of Dis. Is it to make
a dramatic statement of the fact that Severian is still under
Tzadkiel's protective wing (so to speak)? To illustrate the fact that
it, and all it's theological implications, is still a presence in
this far-remote past? Or does it refer to some specific or
implied plot point I'm missing out on?

-cephalothorax-