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RichardAbbott
About
- Username
- RichardAbbott
- Joined
- Visits
- 6,064
- 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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@BarnerCobblewood yes I tend to agree with a lot of what you said. I was trying to puzzle through the question "what did Adams think he was trying to achieve" given that collectively we've all decided that the book failed in various ways t…
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(Quote) That's a really nice summary, and got me thinking about other story arcs. The classic (and slightly simplistic) distinction between comedy and tragedy is that comedy follows an arc like \/ - it goes down first when everything's going wrong, …
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(Quote) That echoes something Ursula LeGuin wrote in the forward to Left Hand of Darkness: (Quote) Now, whilst I agree with that as a matter of principle, it doesn't IMHO address the practical problem that we face when reading a genre book... I hav…
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I downloaded the kindle sample and have just finished whatever fraction of the book that makes it - her writing style (like Piranesi) is clear and direct, and IMHO very enjoyable. As probably most of us know it's another look at Napoleonic Britain (…
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(Quote) Sorry to hear that, hope you're on the mend now (Quote) I partly agree with this - I still struggled with the writing and flicked rapidly through it... but I did appreciate the way Adams tried to tie start and end together, most notably wit…
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Welcome Joe! You probably already know that we take it in turns to pick a book each month. So as and when you want to join in that rotation just let us know. The "current book rotation" thread should give you the next couple of months. I s…
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(Quote) Talking to my other half about Shardik, she said almost the same as you... read it years ago and enjoyed it, but on hearing my comments about the book now doubts whether she would like it a second time around.
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Finished last night and my feelings weren't really changed by the ending - it all felt too long and too slow with too much elaborate verbiage. I don't mind lengthy writing if someone's prose style can support it, but I don't think Adams's is up to t…
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(Quote) I wondered lots of times if the problems I was having with Shardik were simply that it has not dated well? Some of the attitudes and tropes seemed stuck in their era (early 70s) and haven't survived the years in between very well. (I'd certa…
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(Quote) He talks in the intro about writing it after the success of Watership Down and I guess nobody had the nerve to edit him down :)
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(Quote) Oh yes, I am intending to finish and have been reading at a faster pace the last few days :)
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Personally I wouldn't rush to read anything else he's done! Shardik is the first of his books that I've read, and has kind of put me off him - I certainly wouldn't rush to tackle 1000 pages of this (though I suppose it might tell me more about the s…
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Speaking personally, I'd say no - even though I'm still reading it I'm struggling to remember the names of any characters other than Kelderek, the Tuginda and of course Shardik (who as you say is not really a character but more a force of nature). I…
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Aha, I'd migrated slightly into this discussion starter while tackling the last one. I found it needlessly long - it was obvious for about 100 pages or so, if not more, that Kelderek was going to meet the Tuginda again (though I had not anticipated …
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Yes, totally, and this approach has a lot of mileage (my comments to your second discussion starter notwithstanding :) ). This particular trope is one that I like, particularly when you get to experience the same events or individuals in opposite wa…
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You're right - it's kind of deity by consensus! If enough people in a particular area agree that X is a god or Y is a prophet, then so be it! In passing, the TM folk used to quantify this and reckoned that once you had enough of a fraction of the po…
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I was very glad you posted the map as my (fairly old paperback) version didn't have an overall one, just a bunch of individual small-area ones as you went through. But the map itself struck me as kind of naff - it reminded me far too much of the kin…
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I have put up the discussion areas for the next two months, plus the usual blurb and about the author posts
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Over here it's available in all the standard new formats including Audio, and there are a number of second hand p/b copies... though they're not that much cheaper than a new one
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Hello again, I'm just checking that we all agree that the first two in the Murderbot series are 1) All Systems Red 2) Artificial Condition Ta
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As no dissenting voices I'll set up the discussion area for The Murderbot Diaries vols 1 and 2 in the next few days. I'm thinking Eversion for February - near-future SF with a slightly Gothic twist and it's a kind of "can you work out what's h…
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I'm happy with that, and don't know anything about them
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Did Temeraire do a better job of delivering the Napoleonic trope? In both books there are the analogues of the major battles, especially Trafalgar (Arabella book 2) and other similar actions - from memory Temeraire referred to the Battle of the Nile…
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(Quote) Spoiler alert: in book 2 the marriage, which seemed on the verge of happening, gets postponed and partially derailed, thus keeping Arabella as a single agent rather than a married woman and (presumably) rather more subordinate to her husband.
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(Quote) This made me laugh :) A good friend of mine who acts as a kind of beta reader for me is always saying that I should bring in more by way of clove hitches and the like, as he also appreciates that kind of detail. There's a passage in my curre…
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(Quote) Was that a game or a book?
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I could imagine playing this - probably in a similar way to how we did WW1 aerial combat back in the day, with aircraft (ships in this case) as little models on bamboo poles, and various types of manoeuvre permitted depending on ship type and crew s…
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Yes it did, with my earlier caveat about YA books and lack of depth. I'd like to see the same solar-system mechanics and ideas dressed up in an adult novel and reckon there's plenty of potential for this. The link with Napoleonic stuff was (I think)…
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I thought the way the ship-to-ship action was done was innovative - enough like actual naval action that you could get the drift, but with enough allowances for low gravity and 3d manoeuvring to add some suitable changes. The fleet action in the sec…
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I liked the idea of a mechanical rather than electronic AI, and thought he was well thought-out and presented in the book. Given how hard it's proved to get AI of a broad-based convincing nature working with electronics, I took the comparative ease …