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Apocryphal
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The category for Mort discussions can now be found in the Monthly Book Selections section. Here's a link: https://www.ttrpbc.com/categories/97-%28february-2021%29-mort-by-terry-pratchett (note that you won't actually find anything at that link unti…
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THE GRADUAL This is the novel in our trio of books. The chapters are quite small, and each week will have us reading several of them. Week 30: Tuesday, August 24, 2021 Read: THE GRADUAL Chapters 1 to 6 30 pages Week 31: Tuesday, August 31, 2021 R…
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THE DREAM ARCHIPELAGO This is a book of short stories. The stories really vary in length, from under 10 pages up to about 70. This schedule is an attempt to break things up in manageable chunks. Unfortunately, the longer stories don't have numbere…
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Mort is my only exposure to Pratchett. I never really read it, but listened to someone reading it for hours on internet radio years ago, and I did think it was rather brilliant. I'm surprised to hear it's not one of his oft-quoted classics, though. …
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David Day’s book Tolkien’s Heroes covers the inspiration for various people and races. If I remember, the Rohirrim in particular are based on the Anglo saxons. But Arthur was a Briton, who fought saxons. Did Tolkien ever discuss celts vs saxons? So …
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Thanks @Michael_S_Miller . I'd love it for you to participate, but understand if you don't. I started a Google Calendar, but won't be able to finish it until I get some of the books - I haven't been able to locate a table of contents with page numb…
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ok, good.
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@clash_bowley Did you buy The Evidence or The Gradual?
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Very nice. I've always admired Tolkien's art.
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More than one episode of waffling on my part was solved by @clash_bowley decisively buying books!
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Personally, I’m happy with any choice. I didn’t cast a vote, and still don’t have a preference. I’m just trying to make it easier for everyone else to participate. I’m in no matter what happens. Dream Archipelago clearly got more votes, and nobody h…
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(Quote) OK, I think we should go with Dune and Dune Messiah, then. That way I don't have to guess what each person thinks is expensive or not, or hard to get or not. These books, at least, are readily available to all in the formats they prefer. I …
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> @WildCard said: > For my part, this isn’t a problem. I read from a variety of formats, digital and print. Thanks, good to know. @clash_bowley , @Ray_Otus , @Michael_S_Miller would the lack of kindle for one of the books put a crimp on…
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(Quote) We can do The Gradual instead, which would solve this issue: 3.99BP on Amazon.co.uk. The real question is whether the non-kindle availability of The Dream Archipelago in North America will keep anyone out?
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Here's what I've discovered, from Amazon, anyway. The Islanders is readily available. The Dream Archipelago is not available on kindle, except in UK. The two above are rather necessary to the concept, I think. To these we could add one novel, eithe…
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Hold up - I've just been checking on this and to my surprise The Dream Archipelago doesn't appear to be as available as I thought, so please don't go and order anything yet until I can confirm these books are available for all.
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Taking @BurnAfterRunning ’s ranks of 'well up for' to be 3pts, 'yes' to be 2 pts, and 'whatevs' to be 1 point, we end up with: The Islanders - 16 pts Dune - 10 pts Dangerous Visions - 10 pts. So, that seems like a win to me. Even two more vo…
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Searching elsewhere, here are some titles I turned up: The Waking God by Mike Shel (himself an rpg adventure writer, apparently) The Dungeoneers series by Jeffrey Russell Quag Keep, by Andre Norton (1978 - apparently the first D&D novel) Promis…
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Btw, the film was shot in Quebec. The house on the lake is located on the Lake of Two Mountains close to where I grew up. The university scenes at the beginning are at the Universite de Montreal. The gala scenes with the Chinese general are at the P…
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It’s my trademark’.
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I might be, depending on when. Also, @BarnerCobblewood is always looking for games without conflict.
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I think the question of limited options is a bit of a red herring in this context. There are many fine novels that have few characters and/or limited settings - especially a lot of horror and mystery fiction. Something like The Haunting of Hill Hous…
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Interesting! I flagged this edition to get for myself. I'll set some time aside to read your notes later this week!
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These things usually fly over my head, which is why I get so much out of reading these books with my (much more clever) friends!
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I wonder if the nearest equivalent is actually computer programming languages? These have no use as spoke languages (though, I suppose they could have if that's how we interfaced with computers - but we don't). You write Alexa skills. You don't writ…
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That's a challenging one, but I think you really could do something interesting with the idea of a character's perspective of the world changing the more they learn an alien language. In game terms, I suppose this might work something like the sanit…
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I think Story of Your Life could easily have been a novel, as there's a lot more to explore here (as they did in the film). The story barely touches on the theme if what happens when you learn an alien language, let alone explore the implications of…
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The international stand-off was probably necessary to ground to film and make it accessible. I think that if the film had stuck strictly to the story, it would have been too esoteric - maybe straying too far into 2001 Space Odyssey territory. Becaus…
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The aliens were definitely not humans in funny dress. They were very alien. It helped that we never really meet them, and that they remain enigmatic right to the end of the story. That worked better for me than in the film, where the aliens had come…
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I found the idea to be more clearly developed in the film. It was really only hinted at in the story. In fact, in the story, one really has to work to imagine the link between the mother's... letters?... to her daughter and the first contact scenari…