From: Michael Straight <straight@email.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: (urth) a dog's life for the stars
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 09:31:32 


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


On Thu, 26 Mar 1998, Damien Broderick wrote:

> It seems to me obvious that the locale is a minor moon or asteroid which
> can be circumnavigated by a wind-speed device in 19 or 20 days, with or
> without stopping.  (Diameter 200 - 1000 km?  But on such a world, a `day'
> might have any length.)  Of course, the sledge we see at the close might
> not be the same one; perhaps it is in pursuit of the one from which our
> hero has been ejected or escaped?

The idea that the sledge at the end is the same one Cutthroat has been
chasing seems pretty popular, and I agree it has a certain closure to it,
but I can't picture it.  

Even if the planet is small enough, or they are close enough to the poles,
that you can circumnavigate in a few days, you still have to explain the
burst of speed that takes the sled from only a day or two ahead of
Cutthroat to 14-20 days ahead.  (Perhaps the warmer weather allowed them
to use technology that wouldn't work in the cold?)

And if you're assuming such a great increase in speed is possible, why
limit it?  Perhaps the planet is big enough to take 6 months to wind-ski
around, but the sledge just put on a huge burst of speed and circled it.

I don't know, somehow the "burst of speed" thing just doesn't sit right.
I think it's a different sledge at the end (or even a different kind of
vehicle altogether).

-Rostrum


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