From: Michael Straight <straight@email.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: (whorl) Name of the _Whorl_
Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 09:56:56 



On Thu, 14 May 1998, Peter Westlake wrote:

> Is there any special reason for the _Whorl_'s name?
> It doesn't seem like an obvious choice for a hollowed-out
> asteroid.

For the travelers, Starcrosser is their whole World, but since it spins,
they call it the Whorl.
 
There are lots of passages where people use the same syntax as if they
were going to say "world" but say "whorl" instead.  Stuff like, "She's the
most beautiful woman in the whole Whorl!" or "Unlike Pas and Scylla and
the other gods, the Outsider exists outside the Whorl."
 
> The only idea I have about this is so infinitely improbable
> that I really hope someone will tell me it can't be true ...
> it's a starship run by computers, so I wonder if it's related
> to the ship's computer with the very similar name in a series
> almost, but not quite, entirely unlike Wolfe? On a ship owned
> by the two-headed **pho*?

Oh my.  "Two-headed **pho*"!  I love it!  Someone really needs to confront
Wolfe with that one.

-Rostrum


*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.moonmilk.com/whorl/