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RichardAbbott
About
- Username
- RichardAbbott
- Joined
- Visits
- 6,067
- 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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(Quote) Hm, not so sure! Dal Riada seems to have been basically the west coast and islands, plus a bit of what is now Northern Ireland, and was at its greatest extent around 600AD. After that it declined and was successively defeated by sundry other…
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I don't think I've ever read it so sure, let's go for it!
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One of our collective motives for picking this was the absolutely glowing review I came across on Goodreads. Looking back, it's hard to see this review as describing the same book!
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Like a lot of racism, I think it has its roots in a lack of knowledge of and fear concerning "the other". Plus a feeling that the culture and motives were so different as to be incomprehensible and fearful. This would be in contrast with a…
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(Quote) Totally agree about the lack of vision. Given Ruan's youth you'd expect it to come from Harkfast at this stage, but he seems to play things so close to his chest that not much leaks out to us as readers. As an Arthurian retelling you might c…
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Discussion still ongoing about Harkfast but this is a quick reminder that August is Planet of the Apes selected by @Apocryphal . Also, @NeilNjae do you have a title chosen for September yet?
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It's an interesting "translational" problem that I encounter in writing as well. Apologies if necessary for the following musings if they are of little relevance to the Harkfast discussion! As (some of you) know, my current WIP is set aro…
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I'd've liked more, to be honest - since I was reading an actual dead-tree book it was abundantly obvious that I was reaching the end, and so I knew that the tale wasn't going to get anywhere conclusive. But it still felt disappointing that so little…
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It was very bleak, and I tend to like books that are rather more upbeat and optimistic. (Even if set in a fundamentally pessimistic part of history, as this is). There's something about a character's (or author's) ability to find goodness and happin…
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Hmmm, good question. Not really, I guess. I did feel sympathy for Ruan's plight at first, forced to flee from his home and family, and I liked the way he was drawn into the druidic world. But not long after that it seemed that he wasn't actually goi…
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There was a lot, I felt, and on all sides so there certainly didn't feel like there were good guys and bad guys - everyone was pretty brutal to each other. probably the ones that I found most unpleasant were when the story was set up to make you thi…
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Yes, this is fairly standard - the picts are either short and nasty or short and clever, but they're always short...
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I'm totally convinced that he intended to write at least one more in the series - the story kind of goes nowhere at the end if there's no intention to follow it on. So then the question becomes, why didn't he? This was published in 1976 and he lived…
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I liked it at first, but after a while it got to feel a bit like hard work. Some of the vocabulary was familiar to me through various routes, other bits were new. Again, at first I looked things up but after a while I just assumed meaning from conte…
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Cover blurb and about-the-author now posted as a category for @Apocryphal 's choice for August, Planet of the Apes
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Part of Temeraire's outsider-ness is indeed his name. All the others have funky Latin names because their riders knew that this was the convention, but Laurence used his own naval conventions to give a decent ship name, which then immediately expose…
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(Quote) While I was writing that I suddenly had a little wave of nostalgia for those plasticard ships :) and poring over Jane's Fighting Ships and other similar sources in Godalming and Guildford libraries. I had a quick search online for the rules …
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It was a fun morph of the "I do not say, my Lords, that the French will not come. I say only they will not come by sea." quotation :)
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To repeat a thing I said on the Discord channel, "Back in the day, a bunch of us had some WW1 flying rules played with Airfix models (1:72 scale) on long bamboo poles so you were doing the manoeuvring and all for real, lateral and vertical, to …
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(Quote) Going back a few years to the Dragonriders of Pern series, Naomi Novak here avoids the topic that Anne McCaffrey tackles head-on, viz sex between two dragons triggering simultaneous sex between their riders. So here, although the closeness o…
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(Quote) I haven't read those books - I tried one of Robin Hobb's very early books and didn't really get on with it, so haven't gone back to her later ones (which may well be a mistake). I was also thinking of a book you chose a while ago, Red Schola…
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That's an interesting idea (maybe suggest it to Naomi Novak :) ) to do a prequel series of the "long species war". Maybe this word's equivalent of House of the Dragon?
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I hadn't come across that before but it's nice advice. Good point about the chronologically first Hornblower book.
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Discussion starters for Temeraire now in place...
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(Quote) How cool! I've never read it
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Harkfast category set up now
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@All: couple of things... 1) How are people getting on with Temeraire? If all good I'll post discussion starters in about a week 2) @clash_bowley you're up in July... you talked about Harkfast by Hugh Rae - still on for that? If so I'll set up the c…
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Some relentless searching finds that the first episode of season 1 is available on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2warRbMFOpk together with a whole host of short clips. Allegedly all four series are also available through Britbox streaming…
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Still plenty of time to comment on Mirrorshades but now is also a good time to remember that June's pick is Temeraire, also known as His Majesty's Dragon, by Naomi Novik. Discussion starters will be put out by yours truly around the end of the month.
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(Quote) What a tactful way of saying I'm older :) But also, that made me think, "wouldn't it be cool to watch Blake's 7 again", only to discover it's extremely hard to find on UK streaming sites