Geography of The Flat Earth
In the Flat Earth series, the world is a flat square, with area approximating that of the Earth. The Flat Earth floats amid formless chaos; the sun and moon rise out of the chaos in the east, travel across the upper ethers of the world, and then descend back into chaos in the west. What happens to the sun and moon while in chaos is not clear.
The cosmology of the books is composed of three "layers": the Underearth, which is the realm of demons; the Flat Earth itself; and the Upperearth, which is the realm of the gods. There is also an Innerearth, the realm of the dead.
The Underearth is a place of fantastic, awful, sorcerous beauty and wonder. It is most often reached through the shaft of a gigantic extinct volcano; this shaft is guarded by three gates: the first is made of agate, the second is made of blue steel, and the third gate is made of black fire. There is only one city in the Underearth – Druhim Vanashta, the city of demons. It is made of precious minerals, gems, and metals and is beautiful, though its inhabitants are cruel and wicked.
The Flat Earth appears to include temperate, sub-tropical, and tropical zones, including many deserts. Since "polar" regions would be impossible on a flat world, they are not mentioned in the series. There are many seas, but bodies of water large enough to be called "oceans" do not appear to be present.
The Upperearth is an ethereal realm not visited by humans, and infrequently visited by demons. It is a blue, cloudy realm, with hazy mountains ever at the horizon but impossible to reach. One feature is a glass well that contains the water of immortality; it is guarded by two "angelic" beings. The Upperearth is inhabited by "gods" – extremely powerful, ethereal beings that are invisible, formless, genderless, and absorbed in their own magnificent thoughts. They are utterly unconcerned with the affairs of humanity, except for one or two occasions when they meted out a terrible, world-altering punishment.
Read more about this topic: Tales From The Flat Earth
Famous quotes containing the words flat earth, geography of, geography, flat and/or earth:
“For the Eye altering alters all;
The Senses roll themselves in fear
And the flat Earth becomes a Ball.”
—William Blake (1757–1827)
“The California fever is not likely to take us off.... There is neither romance nor glory in digging for gold after the manner of the pictures in the geography of diamond washing in Brazil.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“The California fever is not likely to take us off.... There is neither romance nor glory in digging for gold after the manner of the pictures in the geography of diamond washing in Brazil.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“You don’t want a general houseworker, do you? Or a traveling companion, quiet, refined, speaks fluent French entirely in the present tense? Or an assistant billiard-maker? Or a private librarian? Or a lady car-washer? Because if you do, I should appreciate your giving me a trial at the job. Any minute now, I am going to become one of the Great Unemployed. I am about to leave literature flat on its face. I don’t want to review books any more. It cuts in too much on my reading.”
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)
“For Man is God
and man is eating the earth up
like a candy bar
and not one of them can be left alone with the ocean
for it is known he will gulp it all down.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)