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NeilNjae
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- NeilNjae
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I think the preference is for Babel in two months. I'm happy to go along with that.
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I hadn't realised is was such a long book. Do we think it's too long for this venue? Or we could split the read over two months, if that's easier. Or, I could find another book. It's not like there's aren't lots of books to choose from!
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(Quote) I'm open to hearing other thoughts. There's no point proposing a book that no-one will finish or enjoy. There are reviews from The Guardian and Goodreads, and others at Grimdark Magazine and Paste Magazine. Take a look, see what people thin…
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(Quote) Ah, found it. It looks like a summary of the book, perhaps like a budget "Cliff Notes".
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RF Kuang's new book's just been released (she previously did the excellent Poppy War, though the sequels were less good): Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution A review of Babel from the Guardi…
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(Quote) I think RPGs, as a medium, can "play the notes requried". There are plenty of games (Nordic LARPs, and any number of games on itch.io) that are built around a particular "theme" or "play experience". If you play…
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(Quote) I'm sorry, I'm obviously missing your point. How is "musicians collectively improvising a composition" not "jazz" (or "jamming")? Jazz and improvisation are not deep musical skills. Similarly, actors improvise.…
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That idea of listening as a part of interaction is a basic technique of RPGs, I think. In Improv it's described as accepting offers and building on them, the "Yes, and" approach to interaction. But just that, I think, gets you nowhere nea…
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(Quote) I strongly suspect that Ishiguro wrote the book with more than one possible interpretation. (Quote) Yet Axl remains, with his memory returning. Is he the only one left who was there at the start of Arthur's great project (of genocide and pr…
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(Quote) Interesting then that the monks weren't developed more, to illuminate the importance of written texts to record things outside fallible human brains. Why did Ishiguro do that?
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(Quote) Given that the "truth" of the son is revealed at the very end of the book and not developed, I'm inclined to take it as face value: a literal son who died from disease.
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(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 don't remember all the events in t…
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(Quote) That's an interesting thought. It seems like Camlann hasn't happened in this book, so perhaps Axl is Arthur, Beatrice is Guinevere, and the son could be a metaphor for Camelot. That could equate Wistan with Mordred, and hint at the battle to…
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One can understand good stories as having three elements. There's the external, "procedural" actions that take place, the sorts of things that can be observed and recorded: a dungeon crawl, a conversation. Actions and obstacles. There's th…
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Axl is our viewpoint into the allegory, giving us insight into how people forget their past actions in order to move on with their lives, and how those actions come back to haunt them. Some of those actions, like the ethnic cleansing of Saxons, need…
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I think many "nerd" types are deeply conservative. Some of that is restricted to the adoration of "canon" and the urge to specify all the loose ends in a setting. It has its uglier side too: witness the controversy about casting …
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I think it's meant to be set somewhere from Midlands to South West. But I agree, the geography doesn't match anything actually in that area. But then again, the book's not about "realism" as "allegory", so I don't much mind. This…
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I think this book should be read as "allegory" rather than "story". It's not a retelling of events that happened (or could have happened). It's a collection of vignettes that point to a theme of memory and forgetting. Once I rea…
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I've finished, so ready when you are.
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But then, what counts as "family" as distinct from "friend" or "crewmate"? I associate "family" with "caring for children" so I didn't consider the Haimey, Connla, Singer group to the a "family&…
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(Quote) All very true. She's written a second novel in the same universe, called Machine. I may pick that one up, especially as it's got a good dose of medical drama included.
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That's a good observation. Haimey did experience first-hand the effects of maladjusted people, with the bombing. But she didn't know about it when she was having those discussions. Would the book have been better if she'd had those revelations earli…
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You could easily read Haimey's final transformation as being an allegory for trans "awakening": she consciously decided the person she would be, going beyond the social role she was groomed for (by her clade and then by the court). But wid…
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(Quote) I think Bear likes 19C novels, and has enough love of good literature to want to draw on them. Perhaps that was a goal she set herself in writing? And just because she's taking care to ensure the book is commercially successful, it still nee…
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I think it's a reflection on the commercial side of genre publishing. There's not much money in any one book, so authors have to keep churning them out, and making sure they sell in large-enough numbers, to pay the bills. Some authors (e.g. Charles …
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We both missed rightminding, psychological alteration of people to make them more social. Or, from the perspective of the Synarche, make people sufficiently social that they can get along, without freeloaders or worse.
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Looking at Bear's bibliography, she's got a varied output. She doesn't have a single, hugely successful series to build a career around. Instead, she seems to spend her time writing books in the currently-fashionable style.
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I think there was plenty gameable in the book. The Synarche would make a good setting: enough control to make a base, and enough freedom on the fringes for adventure. The notion of having to justify the use of additional resources with the communist…
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I'm not too sure any of them were mentally or culturally different from the humans, except perhaps the Ativahika. (I think Cherryh's Chanur books have some of the best space-opera aliens). Then again, we didn't really spend much time with them, apar…
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I think the only "alternative" group was the clade, and that was presented as a constricting cult, as you say. Were there other family structures?