there are spoilers here in case anyone hasn't read crystal city.. please don't read anymore.
now, if you are still with me, i've got a question about the crossing of lake pontchartrain (sp?):
Alvin tells Arthur Stuart that his attention needs to stay focused at the beginning of the bridge, and Arthur Stewart understands this because he sees that the bridge is growing outwards from Alvin and not out from its tip. If this is the case, Arthur Stuart and the first people across shouldn't have had to run all the way across the river.. and if they had tried, they would have run off the front of the bridge.. the bridge should have worked like an escalator or one of those moving walkways in large airports. If Arthur Stuart hopped on when the bridge was first begun, he should have been ferried clear across the lake.
Either I misunderstood OSC's description, or he made a slight error either in the description or the physics of the story.
[giving OSC the most benefit of the doubt I could possibly muster while still holding true to the description, the initial construction of the bridge must have been fast enough that the amount that was created before Arthur Stuart jumped on was long enough that the bridge was able to complete the journey across the lake before Arthur, even in the midst of the greensong, could reach the end of the initial part that Alvin had constructed. This creates all kinds of difficult problems, since Alvin traversed after the bridge was complete and limping without the greensong, it would have taken him a lot lot lot longer than it took Arthur and all the people who traversed before Alvin. (so much longer in fact as to make Arthur's journey relatively instantaneous by comparison)]
shrug, someone help !
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I'm not sure what you mean. I envisioned the bridge to be made of a substance like ice, except not freezing... like a crystal.
Posted by Sweet William (Member # 5212) on :
Whenever you notice something like that, a wizard did it. Posted by yitz (Member # 6533) on :
pooka, it's not about the bridge's substance, it's about the description of how it grows and how they traverse it ..
(fwiw: i imagined it as if one really couldn't tell the bridge apart from normal water, hence the 'walking on water' effect, it was just water that was solid to the touch (at least to me).)
william, i know i just took it for granted when i read it, but little incosistencies like that really bother me, since what i appreciate the most about scifi/fantasy is the creative new rules invented in the imaginary worlds of the author. when the author violates their own rules without an explanation it's really frustrating.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
What Alvin actually did was create Ice-9. There goes the world.
Posted by peter the bookie (Member # 3270) on :
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