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Apocryphal
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Comments
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I think it holds up as a novel, though I didn’t enjoy it anywhere near as much as I did Mockingbird (another SF novel by Tevis) nor as much as Stranger in a Strange Land (a novel by Heinlein that is thematically similar). I think it was nice to see …
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👍
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We’ll, I was in the bookstore and bought Babel, whatever else happens. The number of footnotes was exaggerated, but it’s definitely a meaty book.
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I’d would likely enjoy it. But many of the reviews read like academic essays, and some of them say that the author writes like an academic, and it’s 30-50% about etymology, and heavily footnoted. It’s seems to be over 600 pages. But they also say it…
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Heard of it but not seen it. Which platform is it on?
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We’ll, nobody’s so far said they couldn’t get Berserker, so I guess it’s good to go. It should be easy on kindle, at any rate. Harder for the print crowd (which might be a crowd of one, admittedly). A note of caution about Babel, it really seems …
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For October, I'm thinking of offering Berserker, by Fred Saberhagen. This became a series with titles like Berserker Man and Berserker Planet, but starting it all off was a fix-up novel in 1967 just called Berserker. It's composed of the first 11 s…
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Given I’m October, I shall have to go with something in the weird/spooky family. Let me have a think… 🤔
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Sounds like someone is a Quatermass fan LOL!
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Hmm, clever.
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For a time I wondered if the whole story was a fable about Alzheimer’s. I think it’s reasonable to add ‘Forgetting due to infirmity’, where there is no purpose to the forgetting; it just come unbidden.
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> @NeilNjae said: > (Quote) > Beatrice dies of cancer; Axl continues to live. But their love is sufficiently strong that they will remember each other in the afterlife, when Axl eventually dies. They'll remember their love, even if they d…
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I rather enjoyed it. I liked it more in the beginning, and thought it was very well drawn as we entered the Saxon village and met Wistan and the boy. The whole story of Wistan rescuing the boy from the troll (or was it ogre?) was quite good. I was r…
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The specific locational elements were vague, but that didn't bother me. I assumed we were moving somewhat vaguely from east to west, perhaps in southern Yorkshire or thereabouts. Some of the specifics didn't ring true to me, like the monastery and i…
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I thought LeGuin's comment was a bit harsh, though I also though KI's rebuttal not quite convincing. In any case, I didn't think this was a fantasy novel, as least not in the genre sense. I thought it was a mythological novel. Sure, modern fantasy i…
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Yes, I think the characters were mostly vehicles. At various times in the reading, I wondered if the whole adventure was a fantasy or hallucination of Axl's or Beatrice's. Did one of these characters represent their missing son, I sometimes wondered…
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Having read the Wikipedia article about the book, I think Neil is right to conclude that theme came first in this book, and everything else second. So yes, the theme comes across strongly, and I think it's an interesting one, about memory, and how i…
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I’m finished as well.
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Kind of like Pro Wrestling or Figure Skating, for that matter.
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Really enjoying this so far…
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Yes, but not an uncommon one. Politicians keep trying to tell my wife and I that we aren’t a family because we don’t have kids, for example. From my perspective I belong to 3 family units, only one of which has children (and they aren’t mine).
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So far so good. Stability is good, and it’s easy to refresh your connection with a button (unlike Play Role, where you had to disconnect, reconnect, and set up your camera and mic again). Role20 has a bunch of integrated games, so we have our charac…
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Interesting choice! I loved his SF novel Mockingbird.
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I agree with Neil - plenty to work with here. I quite liked the tech aspects of the setting, and being able to switch off aspects of one's personality (or have others switch them off in spite of your wishes) could make for some interesting character…
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There wasn't a question about theme, but the title was Ancestral Night, there was much talk of atavism, and Haimey's clade was central to the plot. Was there anything else? Did people feel the theme was developed enough?
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Doesn't Haimey have her emotions turned off until Farweather breaks her fox? I thought there were only two of them in the ship - the third being the non-physical servant type ship mind. Was I mistaken? Anyway, I honestly didn't remark on any of the …
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This is not something I'm usually bothered by. In fact, sometimes I wish authors would leave some things unexplained, especially when the explanations are not that convincing. But here I had no issues.
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I'll put this one in the 'didn't notice' category. Really, this was a complaint? I feel like a quarter of all novels are first person - you'd think readers might have adapted by now!
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While I generally don't mind - actually quite like - when an SF book discusses socio-political ideas, I do understand where this comment is coming from and somewhat agree with it. It's not so much that Bear floats these ideas, as it is that the forw…
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I overall liked Ancestral Night, and though I wasn't 'wowed' by it, there were times I thought it was quite good. The last comment above that Neil made resonates with me, as I kept thinking through the reading that it really seemed to capture the ze…