A Myst-ish picture

[diafero]

I must have missed that city's name, unfortunately. And, of course, camels, totally forgot about them.. quite rare in New Mexico indeed

Other reasons for the Cleft in New Mexico are out there, but still have not been discovered, so I'll leave it at that.*

* No, I won't give any hints. The rock-cutter is patient. I waited seven years for the connection between the D'ni letters and numbers to be discovered by the fans. Other "seeds" have been planted that may never be discovered. I'm ok with that.

Now that sounds interesting...

[Wamduskasapa]

You are forgetting your history, fossil evidence indicates that the ancestors of modern camels evolved in North America during the Palaeogene period (Camelops), and later spread to most parts of Asia ~ and as recently as 2007 a Camelops fossil was found in Mesa, Arizona...

[ddb174]

In the books, the Cleft is located in either Arabia or Northern Africa

Where do the books make any reference to where the cleft is? I just remember "desert" and "volcano", which could be about everywhere...

There are camels, traders speaking Arabic, the city of Tadjinar, etc. It's pretty clear that the Cleft, in the books, was located somewhere in the old World (North Africa, Near and Middle Easts).

Rawa explains here http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=328378#328378 that this was the original intention, but in the process of having the books written, the generic desert setting that it was set in (intended in the long run to be New Mexico) was made more detailed by David Wingrove (to add flavor, and probably especially for the scenes with Anna going to the market). He chose to flavor it as Middle Eastern/North African in style, probably because that is an exotic and mysterious kind of setting, making for interesting reading.

Yes, rawa did indeed say that, and he's also said the same thing to me personally, but I don't quite believe it. I've known him to "stretch things" a little to make other things sound better, so I think this is just him intermingling reality with fiction again, as he is wont to do. Linking paintings, anyone? ;)

[Branan]

Yes, rawa did indeed say that, and he's also said the same thing to me personally, but I don't quite believe it. I've known him to "stretch things" a little to make other things sound better, so I think this is just him intermingling reality with fiction again, as he is wont to do. Linking paintings, anyone?

Let's not forget trap books