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Apocryphal
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I have finished it and have much to say but most of that is on the latter part of the book. My feelings for the first half are not far off Barner’s, though I think I enjoyed it more in the beginning. It is a bit preachy and gets more so, I’d say. It…
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I’ve never heard of them. In fact, you often mention SF authors I’ve never heard of, so perhaps they don’t all make it over the pond. Or maybe it’s just the shape of my circles.
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Doubtful it’s a coincidence. To the other question, Saberhagen has The Third Historian say in the intro (which might not have made it into the kindle, but see my pictures in the intro thread) that the only thing that saved everyone was the fact th…
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It’s a good question. I’d guess a combo of nuclear threat with the fear of machines/robotics taking over. The idea of putting the fate of humanity into something that could not conceive of God and therefore had no moral guidance. Maybe there’s a lat…
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It was a bit of of an odd thing, maybe something to make the Carmpans seem mysterious. I think the characters only speculated it was a prophecy, which probably means it was. Anyway, it’s probably safe to assume he’ll die eventually :-)
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I quite liked the writing overall, and I thought it was probably better in the later stories. And, I think, there was enough conceptual stuff going on, as a start. He only took up writing in 1960 at the age of 30, so these were generally pretty earl…
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Patron of the Arts and Mr Jester were the weak elements for me. I thought The Stone Place and that sequence through to The Face of the Deep were quite good. In some of the stories, I think Saberhagen made the punchline a little too plain. I don't th…
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I thought it held together fairly well. It did always feel like a collection of stories, but the 'binding' was reasonably effective, and the fact that some many of the later stories were built on earlier stories would have helped. Like all of you, I…
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I don't think Karlsen's faith is explicitly mentioned, but he does seem to express Christian values. In The Stone Place, he pacifies the rebels in the crew by turning the other cheek and forgiving, and this is brought up again elsewhere. Nogara was …
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The role of women (and large absence from the story, especially as people of consequence) was a really obvious one for me. Even Lucinda (not important enough for a last name) was often simply called 'the girl'. No way this would happen in a modern n…
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@RichardAbbott Wikipedia gives a bit more backstory, but not much. This perhaps evolves through future novels and stories. (Quote)
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That's an interesting point about 'purposeless killing machines', but consider: Sauron - basically a faceless, enemy, but he had a purpose toward domination rather than killing, and used people toward this purpose. Sauron's main face was the black …
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Questions are up, now.
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I was thinking to back end my reading in December, because that’s when I’ll have the most time, but if the rest of you chose a different approach I’ll follow along. I’m flexible.
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Ok, good. Then Al least I don’t have to share those as well.
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I haven’t checked to see if they all do, but Goodlife and the next story should each have one.
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Does the kindle version have the short introductions to each story?
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(And he games while he sleeps, too, his wife once told me)
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A hang-out space for like-minded people, where interests can be shared. There are already good communities for gaming, and this won’t compete with them. We have this forum for the book club. But this fills the gap on the things I miss about G+. …
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Couldn’t find the text to share, so… photographs.
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I'll have to see if I can find the full intro, then, and past it here. That's only the first part.
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My 1967 Ace Paperback version opens with page (i) as soon as you crack the cover, even before the publisher's page, with an introduction. (Quote) Strong intro, I feel - I'm hooked already. We've got alien races, space opera-like setting, machines w…
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Goodreads has an interview with the author about this book, if anyone is interested: https://www.goodreads.com/interviews/show/1570.R_F_Kuang?ref=author-show
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(Quote) I'm leaning a lot about our members this week, beyond what Wildcard tells us, Clash is a hopeless extrovert. Richard, seemingly not, and Barner has grandkids! More of less on a whim, I created a Discord chatroom a few weeks ago called The A…
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Very interesting discussion, and I would not have picked up on much of this were it not for you guys. Knowing, now, what the painting depicts, the themes become so much more intriguing. So, on it's surface, we have Newton, an alien who literally fe…
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Has Elon Musk ever revealed his x-rays?
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Yes, I think so. I see two ways to play this. One is to have the players be earthlings for whom a mysterious stranger arrives, and they develop reactions to this. You may recall a previous read, Sarah Canary, in which this was very much the theme. …
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I liked Betty Jo and would have liked to have seen more of her. I thought she mirrored Newton as a kind of misfit on earth, but I also think she’s an important stand in for humanity in the novel - flawed, generally likeable, and just getting by. Bry…
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I have never seen the film. Mockingbird was also an SF Masterworks novel, in the very first series I think. And it’s never been made into a film to my knowledge.
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I think broadly Newton was someone who reached for something too far and then crashed and burned. With the first mention of Icarus, I sensed this is where the novel would go. I’m not sure it matters too much if there’s a sun or not. Perhaps the sun …