Help offset server costs by donating. This is totally optional. Any overages will go to library fines or new books.
RichardAbbott
About
- Username
- RichardAbbott
- Joined
- Visits
- 6,065
- Last Active
- Roles
- Member, Administrator, Moderator
- Games I like
- Sundry, mostly board
- Books I like
- Science fiction, fantasy, some historical fiction
Comments
-
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 …
-
They were fine for the type of book ie YA - I often wonder why SteamPunk in general attracts so many YA books and so few regular adult ones? So here Arabella solves nearly every problem herself to the amazement of all the adults around her - how doe…
-
I thought it was a nice fancy - I strongly suspect that in physics terms it would be very hard to make work, but that didn't bother me here, and I just took it as described that this was in fact the case. I rather liked the transferral of earthly oc…
-
I don't think she is intended to be part of a "movement" as such, in that I didn't read any suggestion that she thought that women at large ought to have equal rights etc. It seemed to me that her wants and wishes were entirely personal in…
-
Quick reminder... @clash_bowley is about to set up the discussion starters for Arabella of Mars For December @Apocryphal has chosen Shardik and the discussion area is already set up For January, @NeilNjae do you have any proposals? Then it's me in F…
-
(Quote) The Lensman series is full of hot-shot space pilots who with steely eyes fixed on the visiplate and hands on the rocket controls fight a reluctant spaceship down from orbit to ground in the fastest possible time. Autopilots are either simply…
-
(Quote) That was fun and thanks for the link - it's a short read and a fairly straightforward one. The usual theme of the time where it was taken for granted that a human operator would always outperform an automated or robotic one, and there's no t…
-
Hi everyone, if there are sundry comments about The Ship Who Sang still to come then that's cool but this is a reminder that this month's read is @clash_bowley 's choice, Arabella of Mars, to be read by the end of the month. Of course @NeilNjae has …
-
(Quote) I felt it was a theme based heavily on a US-style self-funded approach to medicine. McCaffrey moved to Ireland later in her life but was brought up in the US. It seemed to me as I was reading it that a European author might have approached t…
-
I've been having a little McCaffrey-fest lately - I read most of the Pern series years ago so have not yet dipped into that, but have been looking at others. I find it interesting that she (like Andre Norton) co-wrote a fair bit with different auth…
-
> @clash_bowley said: > Sigh... I was being technically correct, which is, as everyone knows, the best KIND of correct! :D
-
The later books, many of which were co-written by Anne McCaffrey plus A N Other, often have a vague overlap, eg Helva is mentioned in one book in passing as someone you might meet. The space station brain central to a third book is in contact with t…
-
Given the time of writing, I think it was a good choice to have a ship mind that wasn't an AI of some kind. That probably means that the core of the story dates less with the passage of time. The bits that show their age are, as @Apocryphal indicate…
-
> @BarnerCobblewood said: > The book was nice, and easy to read, but like @clash_bowley I wouldn't go out of my way to read more. If I fell on it, I think it would be a good way to waste an afternoon. > > As I mentioned last week, I'…
-
Helva thought of herself as mothering the large numbers of embryos she transported on one trip, though the story implied that nobody else agreed with her. One feature of her life is that personal maturity _couldn't_ come through sexual maturity, so …
-
Hello everyone, as mentioned I have posted the discussion starters for The Ship Who Sang today, as we shall be on the road for a lot of tomorrow and then a bit tangled with grandchildren during the week. Please feel free to tackle them as and when y…
-
I might put discussion starters up today or tomorrow as we're travelling Wednesday so just chip in as and when possible!
-
Hi all, quick check around to see how people are getting on with The Ship Who Sang?
-
Discussion area for Shardik now set up
-
If you're settled on Shardik I'll set up the discussion area in the next few days
-
In passing, it's an interesting choice to have a solicitor (and one barely qualified) as the main focus of action against Dracula. Sure they needed van Helsing's experience and practical know-how, but it was Jonathan who really began the program of …
-
Never read it but happy to give it a go
-
Over here I can get it in paperback or hardback but not kindle (nor Audible, though I probably wouldn't choose that anyway)
-
Arabella of Mars discussion area set up now
-
Off on a side-note, I spent a good deal of my childhood in Godalming, from about 10 years old until I left my parental home. There is of course no Lord Godalming, and so far as I know there never has been, but Surrey in general has a lot of large la…
-
(Quote) haha yes, though I was thinking more of Scar from The Lion King, or maybe one of the hyenas - "follow me and you'll never go hungry again!" "couldn't we just take one of the little weak and sick ones?" and so on. I guess …
-
(Quote) :)
-
(Quote) It might have been cool to have one perspective from which the Count was a good-but-misunderstood guy?
-
Yes, van Helsing is surely the prototype of the monologuing villain, even if he is on the good side! Lucy's death - at least one person had to die, I think, and I suppose Stoker decided Lucy was the one so that we would all want the same fate not t…
-
Isn't van Helsing aristocratic as well? I suppose he came over to me like that because he is decisive in directing all the others to follow his lead. Other period pointers - the predominantly agricultural nature of Europe, and the splintered state …