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Apocryphal
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I felt that Severin did a pretty good job of revealing Jason's voyage through his account of his own voyage. At least, when I read the account of Jason's voyage at the end, I don't think there were any surprises - that Severin had covered it all, an…
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The Ulysses Voyage was the one I read, and although I liked The Jason Voyage, I preferred The Ulysses Voyage. Because it used the same boat, it was a lot less about how the boat was constructed and less about what it was like to sail her. Instead, w…
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(Quote) Yes, mine too - not only was the return journey covered, but the various improbable routes up the Danube or around the world ocean were mentioned. Did the kindle edition omit this part of the text, I wonder?
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(Quote) I generally agree that the best use of journeys is not as 'obstacles'. It's to some reason why I never really cared for the journey mechanic in The One Ring - it just devolved a journey down to a series of rolls, which is a bit boring (thoug…
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Is there any substance to the Brendan story, apart from ‘rumour has it a bunch of monks did this’? With Jason, we have actual specific stops and events that occurred at those stops, because we have a written story. But did Brendan ever leave an itin…
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I don’t remember his own theory on this - I thought he just gave other peoples theories. He often seems to see ‘certainty’ based on flimsy evidence (like taking the bull and snakey line motif as evidence of a real Jason voyage), but then I think he’…
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Ha, yes, good observation.
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I compared this Annotated version to the 2 other versions I have, just to see the differences (and because I was curious if the Hunchback was in them): The Husein Haddawy version, which is the result of research to establish to the earliest stories…
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Yes, sure. It’s a good story. Burton’s prose really is purple, and I guess that’s a method of exoticising and/or antiquating the setting. I prefer Seale’s prose, but I do like Burton’s footnotes on the Arabic. I did have to look up Gobbo, though, w…
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Probably doesn't warrant it's own thread, but I read the remaining Diyab Notes stories and my reaction is much the same - too cursory to really enjoy (especially the last), but they have the bones of otherwise good adventurous stories, I think. Now…
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My proposal is The Jason Voyage by Tim Severin, which is a travelogue that records his attempt to follow in the path of Greek hero Jason in a reproduction of fhe Argo.
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Today I saw a ‘finger boarding’ display on our Main Street, featuring a product made by a German company and repped by a guy from Chicago for 2-week promo here in Toronto.
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It didn’t bother me. It reminded me of Genly Ai’s journey across the ice.
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It doesn’t excite me as a game theme, let’s put it that way. Players likely would behave the same way and see this as a cue to broker peace. And player efforts should meet with success (after a little resistance). This could drive them to the core t…
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I see the next book, Wizard, has a good star lower rating on GR. Still, worth a try, I think.
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But is it asexual? Is there a fertilization?
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Very much so. I don't think I'd nick-and-file though - space centaurs and avians aren't that interesting, but I did like the space whale-sharks whose mouth you ride in). But once concept I've been noodling about for years (and was explored in Hull Z…
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I don't think it range any less true than the rest of it. Yes, it seems obvious this was meant to set up the next novel. I think that's OK. But I also think it worked to satisfactorily close this novel, so I didn't feel cheated at the end, like I mi…
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I'm with Neil in that I think it might have been interesting to have Jones changed more, mentally, after re-birth. Maybe Varley thought about it and decided that was a bridge to far for the reader. though. Hard to say - it's easier to second guess t…
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It didn't annoy me - I think he's a very serviceable and engaging writer. But neither did I ever find a passage so nice I was moved to jot it down - which I did with the other books by Boorman and Cooper that I read this month. The writing here was …
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Though I'd agree this is a Big Dumb Object book, the twist here is that the BDO isn't dumb (it speaks) and isn't an object, but an organism. So this is really more like a Big Vocal Organism book except we don't find that out until the end.I'm n…
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As I mentioned in my march book roundup at The Agora, one thing I really appreciate about Varley is that he's the only male author I'm aware of that will put so much effort into understanding women and portraying women's issues. He's also been very …
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X-eteras, I guess. 😁 And I thought the same thing re: The Godfather.
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Properly fleshed out, I think I would have liked The Sultan of Samarkand quite a lot, as there are many twists and turns and some proper wonders. But as it is I find these note form versions hard to follow. Reflecting on the extensive use of ‘etc…
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In campaign game play, these changes can happen quite organically as the circumstances around the character change. This is especially common in horror games, where a character is exposed to increasingly surreal or unsettling events. At a very basic…
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In the first section, too, there was the word ‘equipage’ translated as ‘saddlebags’ rather than ‘equipment’, which calls attention to the root of the word (referring to equus, equestrianism, etc) which feels somewhat lost in English word ‘equipment’.
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I suspect what we see here is the method a master storyteller uses to learn a tale from another master. These notes are pretty spartan, and full of ‘etc.’s which I’m sure Galland used as short hand to say ‘flesh out as needed’. I definitely prefer t…
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This is a problem with other ‘Arabian Nights’ themed games I’ve read - they only give you a cursory and vague Arabian masque without capturing the essence of the Nights. I’d think you want to have a fairly strong nod to the frame story, which mea…
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Yes, good point and thanks very much for taking the time to prepare all those summaries.
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Native Americans had lots of talking animals, so I suspect it’s a global way of helping creatures to express the personalities we perceive within them.