From: "Kevin J. Maroney" <kmaroney@crossover.com>
Subject: Re: (whorl) Blue's Races; etc.
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 13:36:59 

[I should have read the *entire* letter before responding. Oops.]

At 11:53 AM 10/12/99 -0700, Nutria wrote:
>	As for Blue's being Urth, this is way too early for that. Typhon 
>sent out this ship long before Severian brought the New Sun. During this
whole
>period, the moon was orbiting the earth, wasn't it? 

The theory is that perhaps Blue is Urth and Green is Lune knocked out of
its geocentric orbit by the coming of the New Sun. That actually makes some
sense to me; two planets in as close conjunction as are Blue and Green do
not, I think, make for a stable system. 

We don't know how long the _Whorl_ was in transit. I'm very bad at finding
textual references, but I have a distinct memory of Maytera Marble trying
to remember how long it had been since she saw the Short Sun Whorl [in
_Calde_], and there's a reference to her having misplaced a decimal. 

Even if only 300 subjective years passed on the _Whorl_, relativistic
distortions could mean that any arbitrary number of years have passed since
the _Whorl_ was launched. 

Note that I don't actually think that Blue *is* Urth, just that it could be. 

>	Quadrifons is a cherub. Biblical cherubs are sphinx-like and have four
>faces. Combine this with Greek sphinxes, and you have the guardian of
>crossroads. Just like your domestic cat, who positions himself/herself in
>your house where he/she can look down all the halls and see everything. 

Oh, cool. 

-- 
   Kevin Maroney | Crossover Technologies 
   kmaroney@crossover.com | (212) 777-1190


*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.
*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.moonmilk.com/whorl/
*To leave the list, send "unsubscribe" to whorl-request@lists.best.com
*If it's Wolfe but not Long Sun, please use the URTH list: urth@lists.best.com