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Apocryphal
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Comments
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Yes, nobody seemed to object to the choice. I see the author is being compared to Chine Mieville.
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The set-up of the family and the characters like the Schoolmaster are things I could use for NPCs in a post apocalyptic game. I'd probably try to be less bleak, but maybe not. I do think that the headmaster alone would make for an interesting encoun…
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The prose was the thing I liked the most. Not so much the long rambly quality of the paragraphs, but the actual way the words were strung together I found quite beautiful. I found that when I started reading, the pages would fairly fly by. But then …
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That didn't occur to me, either, but I do think it's an interesting idea. Can we match the children to the likes of Cain and Abel? Who would the headmaster be in this comparison?
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Yes, I felt the same as you. I suppose a better executed example of something like this might be the Punch and Judy show in Riddley Walker that kept intruding into the main story, but in this case I also had a hard time distinguishing the Aquinas bi…
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Dolores as the main character reminded me very much of Sarah Canary as the main character of her novel - in so many ways. I thought Sarah Canary was the much better novel by a longshot, and much less bleak. But in both cases, the main character is m…
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I think it was saying that political power is conferred, and once the people stop conferring that power, it evaporates. It's also about generational change. It seemed obvious to me how the matriarch came to power - she gave birth to it and held it b…
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I wasn't aware of the book. I did like the prose quite a bit, so that propelled me along. I would consider reading more by the author - I like to think future books would build on her strengths while leaving behind the things that didn't work so wel…
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Googling 'Nada The Lily From An African Perspective' I don't see many hits from Africans critiquing the novel, so I'm working on the assumption that it didn't offend people, at least.
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I might use the plot set-up or the setting, but if I used the latter I'd do some independent research. I already discovered that there are no wolves in South Africa, so the wolves in question are actually Jackals (which in places can be called 'wolv…
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I'm not wise enough in the ways of African society to know if there's latent or inherent racism here (stereotypes etc.), but the people of the story certainly don't come of any worse than the Boers do - if anything, they come across as better/more i…
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I will definitely read more Haggard - I've collected a bunch of his books, some of which sound very intriguing, and I like Victorian fiction in general. Eric Brighteyes is supposed to be very good. The People of the Mist and Morning Star both intrig…
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I felt there was a certain distance between the author and the audience, here, and this is in part because of the narrator and his framing device which added even another layer. The Orenda, which is a good comparison novel I think, felt much more im…
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It made me uncomfortable in the sense that the author and probably his white audience considered it normal. I'm really unsure as to whether a native South African would consider it normal. The main critique of the Orenda (from the wider world) was t…
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The main characters all resonated with me (except the name Umblopogaas itself, which doesn't sound authentic, and a little too much like Snuffleupagus.) but I don't think there were especially deep. The women didn't have a lot of character at all, I…
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I didn't really care for this. I'm not against frame stories in general, but this seemed like an unnessesary complication, that resulted in clumsy sentences where he seemed to be calling other people his father. To paraphrase as example, he might sa…
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I'll need another week, but don't let me hold things up.
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Sounds ok to me.
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@RichardAbbott said: >I have no objection at all to people using online media to create content - Wattpad has done this for some time, for example - and again it democratises the process of sharing creative content from author(s) to readers, m…
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Anyone else have thoughts on this pick?
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I think TINAML is more than just junk food. At least, I think the project in its original conception is more than that. The actual print book can probably be classified as a ‘collectible’ - more valued as an object than for its contents. But I d…
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Games can be both. Roleplaying games ARE tools. They can also be literature, and they can be collectibles, purely consumed and never read or played. For my part, I’ve largely avoided avoided collecting games or game product. I do have some that I…
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This book definitely did feel like a ‘book’ that was made to cash in on the popularity of something. Here we take something was was freely available on the internet, mash up a portion of that into a format different from the original, slap a cheap p…
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I would say that most RPG play is modelled on storytelling, which means variations on the Rising Tension, Climax, and Release format. This is very similar to what you posted, but more universal. The GM provides challenges or obstacles to the PCs (of…
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I haven’t read it. I rarely have. Small concern over its length (~430pp), but we’ve read longer. If it’s a concern for others, please say so. As always, I’ve got tons of books I can choose from. But this one sounded really intriguing.
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Quick response for now: 1. Yes one can roleplaying memory loss. One of my players did an amazing job of this when his character was possessed by a forgetfulness spirit and lost short term memory. While I can show you the result (the session was doc…
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There is a cadre - quite a large one - of RPG fandom that never explored or evolved past D&D, so they speak nostalgically about things like 3.5, OSR (revisionist history of D&D) and Appendix N (a way of retro-legitimizing Gygax as some kind …
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My initial reaction is that I really liked the ‘impressionist’ nature of this book. It seemed to double back on itself a few times in terms of world building. But on the other hand, what seemed to start as solid world-building (mostly in the nomencl…
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Thinking of *The Works of Vermin* by Hiron Ennis for my next pick. Comment if you dare.
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5% in! And feel free to frame the discussion any way you like, as far as I’m concerned.