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NeilNjae
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(Quote) Big spaceships, galaxy-spanning empires, FLT travel and teleportation, the fates of entire planets depending on the actions of a few people... there's a lot of space opera in it. There's more than the superficial pulp of Lensman, but I think…
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What doesn't work? I think it's a combination of an insular point of view, the disconnect between the two halves of the book, and the paper thin pulp style. (Pulp can be good: this isn't.)
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I was meaning intellectual laziness and lack of curiosity, not a comment on Wilson's work ethic in his narrow interest. It never occurred to him to attempt to move outside his bubble. And I agree that we should call out this insularity and the effec…
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I like the idea of a mental enemy. I once wrote a Glorantha Lunar scenario where the MacGuffin was a mind shattering meme/Riddle that passed from person to person. It could also tie into Cold War fears of brainwashing and traitors, like The Manchuri…
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I've not read any Lovecraft either, but I recognised some of the names.
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It still came across as being a conflict outside the identity of Austin. It was a non physical space, but I don't see how Austin changed as a person through his struggle with the parasites. He didn't change his core identity and the parasites were a…
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I put it down to laziness and unchallenged unconscious bias. Wilson didn't need to move outside his comfortable little echo chamber, so didn't. And his readers were similarly cloistered, so didn't complain. And to bring out a point: the parasite…
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Insulting, considering the makeup of the few adults he intended. It's pretty much a eugenic argument.
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As @Apocryphal says, they were idealised pulp versions of people. Genre-specific stereotypes rather than people. The most memorable locations were hotel rooms, and I think that says a lot about the other locations.
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I don't think so. Industrialisation happened, and that changed things. But it was more an excuse for the plot than anything else.
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I think the physical and engineering parts were plausible extrapolations from the author's time. No problems there. Now, the social setting was a very different matter. He described a world where white male technocrats had all the power, and were co…
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I felt much the same. The first half was mostly good, even if it suffered from long irrelevant diversions. I lost interest in the second half and especially the last quarter. I didn't get any sense of menace or fear from it. It was all about her…
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I'm away this weekend, I'll join in soon.
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I've finished it, so post questions whenever!
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A quick look online shows various anti-war Japanese before and during WW2. I think I knew that the war wasn't universally popular before it started (but many fell into supporting the war once it did). But, the general point is one about the limited…
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Does that mean we should propose worse books in future?
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Veering away from the book, I've come to understand that most bureaucratic impediments aren't there to support the best of us, but rather to impede the incompetent and malicious. Bureaucratic checks often stop mistakes, and do more to constrain the …
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There's two ways of running investigations in RPGs. One is the traditional way, where GM prepares a mystery and a set of clues for it, then reveals the clues as the players do things until the players are also able to understand (recreate?) the exp…
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I agree that the descriptions of the deaths don't overly dwell on the gory details. There's enough there that you can imagine the scene, but not so much as to revolt the reader (or at least, me). But yes, when is killing morally justified? What kil…
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(Quote) So, John Smith's not a villain for torturing people to death? Takahashi Kansei isn't a hero for saving McGrady's life? How should McGrady be different in order to be a "hero", or is the hardboiled genre one that does not allow her…
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I was struck by the tension between the "rugged individual" self-image of Americans with the ideals of patriotism. How can a sovereign individual be loyal to a country? How can a patriot put themselves above their fellow citizens?
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(Quote) Really? I read it that he only decided to go back to Sachi once he'd run out of other things to do and was at a bit of loose end. OK, there's a bit more to it than that. I think that episode is saying something about alienation and people b…
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The erasure point is interesting and important. Actual history was, in many case, more interesting and diverse than we're currently led to believe. Which means authors have to balance representing something in line with current popular understanding…
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(Quote) I tend not to enjoy investigative games, so my response is coloured by that. But even general advice about running investigation games is to avoid red herrings and false leads, because the players have so much less awareness of everything, a…
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A couple of articles about internment of Japanese on Hawaii during WW2: * Hawaii internment, a website of resources for schools (a good primer) * A Time article on internment, indicating that only a small fraction of Japanese people were interred o…
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@Apocryphal reminded me of another question to raise here. McGrady generally comes across as the standard hardboiled detective: tough, physically able, shrugs off the mental trauma of killing, comfortable with people's baser instincts. In contrast t…
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(Quote) As an aside, I initially thought Molly would be a mythical figure, only appearing in notes and phone calls, and it would be a recurring theme that McGrady would be a constant long-distance relationship. That idea was quickly discarded. But …
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(Quote) Let me expand and clarify the question. I know what it means, even if I didn't express it! People in history commonly held views that are now considered sexist, racist, and so on. In this case, it's the idea that women should not exist as a…
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@clash_bowley , it's a shame you won't be joining this discussion. I hope you read the book sometime: I think you'll enjoy it. I've posted the questions, but no rush if people want to wait until the weekend.
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(Quote) I think it most often comes up when playing in cultures with different standards of politeness. Modern euro-anglophone culture is much more casual about things like given names / family names than we were just a few decades ago, or (the clas…