From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis@siriusfiction.com>
Subject: Re: (whorl) Soul swapping and time bending thesis
Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2002 11:56:38 -0800

There is talk about time travel in the Short Sun series.

Marc Aramini wrote:
>I am
>saying that the trip to the past is important because it allows Scylla
>(Cillinia) to communicate with Greater Scylla and gives Silk a chance to
>learn
>how to get Seawrack from the future Greater Scylla (or her sister, or
>whatever).  He does a favor for them both by returning Cillinia to her
>resting
>place, which would have been destroyed in the flood, so this is the last time
>(or an approximation of that time) at which Silk can arrive and perform this
>service for Scylla.

But this isn't time travel: it is instantaneous travel across hundreds of
light years of space.  It is "real time" on Urth, just as it is on Blue.

The Claw bends time in THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN, and Severian travels
through time in URTH OF THE NEW SUN, yes.  But Silkhorn's trip to Urth is
not a form of time travel (except in the completely different sense that
time has been negated from the time/space matrix, and the party astrally
crosses vast space in zero time).

>Yes, I would say that the whorl has been gone for a very long time.

In THE BOOK OF THE LONG SUN the whorl has been gone for about 1000 years
Urth time, about 335 years ship-time: the time compression ratio is
consistant with that of a ship which has been traveling at nearly the speed
of light.

These facts do not demolish your emerging theory, but incorporating them
will help sharpen things a great deal.

=mantis=