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Apocryphal
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Comments
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I liked this, and it gave Binti an unusual character and unusual perspective on the world. In this context, she really is a harmonizer, only a biological one rather than a communicative one. Mary Sue? I didn’t think so - though I agree with Richard …
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PART II - LA RUE DES BETES Might as well continue on in the same thread as we head into Part II. As I mentioned above, I really liked that this had a different writing style. There was a naivete to it, which served to capture the period, I felt. S…
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That was another element of the book I found hard to wrap my head around. It seemed like an astrolabe (which wasn't an astrolabe at all, but a smart phone) but better. There were so many setting-specific terms in this book I started to loose track, …
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It's not a world I would try to emulate in a game. There wasn't really a lot of world to interact with outside of Binti's homeland. But I did appreciate how Okorafor managed to bring the 'African-ness right to the front and make it once alien (to us…
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Yes and no. They certainly didn't all get the same development. The Bear is hardly developed at all. New Fish is a little more, but only really in the end of the last story did (she?) start to get interesting. Okwu is a tricky one - Okwu is with us …
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I certainly didn't feel shock. Nor did I feel relived that she survived (I kind of assumed shoe would, given all the stories are named after her). It was too early in the book for me to feel much connection to her, so I suppose the only thing I felt…
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Not really. It's a bit too Star-Trekie for me. At least the aliens WERE pretty alien, and not just humans with knobs on their heads. Intellectually, though, they kind of were mostly humans with knobs on their heads.
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It totally seemed YA to me, and consequently I found it a bit simplistic in terms of the dialogue and the way people spoke and reacted to one another. This was an aspect of the book I didn't enjoy. I liked the treeing, though, and my first thought …
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Handwavey, for sure. How is that different from Clarkian Magic-Science? Anyway, I don't mind. There was a collection of cool ideas in here, though some (like living ships) I've encountered before. It didn't really hang together enough for me to get …
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I did wonder why there were no other cultures seemingly on earth. She never spoke of an apocalypse. She did speak of the Himba being from Namibia at the beginning - at the end, I thought I must have misread that and that these people are from a plan…
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Sounds interesting. Can we just check it’s available formats? Newly released books are often limited in this way.
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I’m enjoying it a lot, so far, and more than The Gradual. This book so far doesn’t stretch disbelief quite so far. I like that the second part has a completely different writing style from the first. In the first section, he uses that clinical, mat…
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Same with me.
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You mean The Adjacent? Sure
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I’m easy wrt The Orenda. I can meet either Dec or January. If we don’t do The Orenda in December, would you like to do The Adjacent with me?
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I don’t think we currently have anything scheduled for January, so we could spill over if desired.
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BTW There’s a ‘companion volume’ to Strangers in Olondria’ called ‘The Winged Histories’. I don’t think it’s a sequel, but rather tells a different story in the same setting. There’s some small reference to the first book, but it stands quite alo…
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Jacq’s cat = Schrödinger’s cat! It’s fate will be determined when Jacj comes home and opens the door.
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@BarnerCobblewood Oh, that’s easy - you give your stave to an adept, along with 50 simoleons, and then walk backwards up a hill, drive forward down the hill, and row your luggage twice around the harbour… (a reference to The Gradual).
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We need to have the early part to introduce Jevick and his relationship to his father. And to his mentor, Lunre, who comes back at then end (ghostlike) as a more pivotal character than we initially thought. The story structure is something like:…
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If I was to pick the books again, based on reader reactions, I’d pick The Affirmation for the novel (much tighter around the idea and a more satisfying story), the The Dream Archipelago, and lastly The Islanders. I enjoyed the read - for me a 3.5…
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Interesting catch re: Dante. Although I agree it's a love story in a sense, though it never feels like a romantic love story so much as a story of love that evolves through shared experience. It's a love story, but not a romance, if that makes sense.
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@BarnerCobblewood What's "our present situation"? I agree with the mythic arc. Elsewhere, @RichardAbbott asked if it bothered us the Jevick shed his spice trader identity so soon. I would argue that was never his identity - is was rather …
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You might think that maps and games go together, given how often gamers ogle and make a fuss about them. But I think it's that gamers just love evocative imaginary maps, rather than that 'they go' with games. Some games are hard to imagine without m…
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My first impressions were rather of renaissance Italy and Constantinople. The novel definitely has a sense of place, and there's a lot of wonderful creative elements in the world building that I really enjoyed. What particularly caught my eye were a…
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There are a lot of rich characters - some of the richest aren't even named, like the old woman who lies in the rug but seems to communicate some much with her eye. Here's another example: (Quote) Those are the ones I especially loved, but all the m…
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I have a love-hate relationship with this book. I love the writing, and at almost any point you can find a wonderful turn of phrase. The prose is almost poetic (and oddly, the poetry is prosaic). I picked up several quotable passages on this read th…
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I think it's mainly about how our memories, past experiences, and the people who raise us can shape us. It's also a love story, but here love in the greater sense, rather than personal love. Jevick goes from fearing his ghost to loving it over the c…
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Yes
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And unsurprisingly, that’s what most reviews seem to say LOL.