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RichardAbbott
About
- Username
- RichardAbbott
- Joined
- Visits
- 5,611
- Last Active
- Roles
- Member, Administrator, Moderator
- Games I like
- Sundry, mostly board
- Books I like
- Science fiction, fantasy, some historical fiction
Comments
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For December I'm thinking Ammonite by Nicola Griffith, a tale somewhat in the Ursula LeGuin tradition ie heavy on social interaction and the like. Published in 2011 and among other things shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke award. I've had a quick l…
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Still some chatter going on about City but this is a quick reminder that October's read is The House on the Borderland chosen by @Apocryphal
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(Quote) I increasingly think that the domestication of the dog was one of the crucial facets of human development - the implied need to recognise a similar-but-different social setup without annihilating it (contra what happened with other ancient h…
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(Quote) I'll set up the discussion area shortly (though it's a few months away I think)
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(Quote) That's a great point - I just did a quick look at census data and the UK average is 287 people / sq km, with a maximum in parts of London of around 12000 / sq km. Here in South Lakeland we're about 46, and the lowest I could find in England …
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(and then the mice)
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(Quote) yes... hence my point that the specific lure is kind of irrelevant and could have been any number of things, so I don't think the astronomical features of Jupiter are the main thing in focus here :)
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Curious to hear what people say!
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TBH I'd completely forgotten the content of Epilogue until you reminded me! So it obviously didn't have nearly as much personal impact as the other tales. Scanning back through it there seems to be a whole collection of different themes revisited - …
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I kind of felt that here Simak just went off on a curious tangent rather than developing the main thrust of the idea. For me this part didn't have the same appeal as most of the stories. Yes, Jenkins's moral dilemma was a nice twist, and I guess the…
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Yes, this was a curious spin on events which I hadn't anticipated. I guess for "Jupiter" you could insert any number of drug or experiential lures away from the "real world". Maybe a more recent author would have had cyberspace h…
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I have to admit I got confused by the cobblies when they first appeared, and it took me a long while to realise that they were kind of parallel universe figures. I never did really understand what Simak was trying to do with them. On the other hand …
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I liked the dogs! They were kept just enough different from people that they gave a different perspective, while at the same time being broadly speaking familiar. I think you'd need a domesticated animal with a humanlike social order to fit the way …
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Again, Asimov's Spacers (and especially Solarians) are a direct parallel. Again, from a rural perspective what we find is that the folk with the money want the opportunity to spend short periods of time away from built-up society, but don't actually…
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It's a theme that a number of authors have explored before, notably Asimov when describing the Space societies in Robots of Dawn and Robots and Empire (and probably a couple of others) - I'm particularly thinking of the planet Solaria here which was…
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I felt that this was a rather different take on the whole "future of humanity" story - a rather gentle and sorrowful tale exchanging the optimistic stance one often reads for one which gradually fades into oblivion. I'm not sure that I wou…
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September discussion questions to be posted by @kcaryths in a few days on his return. Then October's read is The House on the Borderland chosen by @Apocryphal . Beyond that, November will be a selection from @NeilNjae and December by yours truly...…
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I haven't but it sounds like it could be a good read :) I just had a quick look at its Wiki page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Eden_(novel)) and it seems overall to have bad better reception in the UK than the US, but is generally agreed to be…
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Still plenty of time to comment on Arkhangelsk but this is a reminder that September's read is City by Clifford Simak, chosen by @kcaryths
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(Quote) I think that can work really well if the struggle to communicate is what the author / screenwriter wants to make the main issue of the work. But if the main issue is not communication but reintegration of a splintered-off group, or the strug…
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For me, the first Dashboard page has some tabs across the top, but nothing seems to display however I navigate around it. The Moderation page has a whole lot of options most of which I don't really understand, and many of which are empty. Only the S…
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I've had a look around the dashboard - largish parts of it are apparently not functional (or maybe just not enabled) but I can't yet see anything like an error log.
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(Quote) Totally agree
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I agree about holding drafts in place, and also haven't personally encountered dropped posts. I'll see if the dashboard holds any logs or such like
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I think there's always in a novel going to be some sleight of hand regarding language and mutual comprehensibility. Star Trek and other such series of course take this to the extreme where every planet speaks pretty good English (possibly sounding a…
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It's not quite the same, maybe, but I recently came across this article https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ancient-dna-reveals-neanderthal-group-was-isolated-for-50000-years-180985068/ regarding a Neanderthal group in the Rhone valley who rem…
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Yes we haven't really talked about Hina until now - I get that the plot required someone from the ship to disappear, and there probably wasn't anyone else that we felt invested enough in as readers to care. Also I guess she was a mirror to Irina so …
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> @kcaryths said: > I liked the setting quite a bit. Enjoyed the constant battle against an enemy that will never give up (radiation or time). It reminded me a little bit of Seveneves in that sense, in that things just keep getting worse, but…
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I'd probably add to that as an enhancement of your first bullet point "at what point do different people simply give up the struggle for survival"?
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I was also doubtful that stuff could be successfully hidden / kept secret from the population for so long. Surely at very least there's have been conspiracy theories (which apparently thrived in at least one sub-community)