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RichardAbbott
About
- Username
- RichardAbbott
- Joined
- Visits
- 6,070
- 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) Yes - I am sure that she (author she rather than character she) wanted to bring the interesting biology in, and she also wanted to write about the way an interconnected society could fail catastrophically all of a sudden... but I don't think…
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(Quote) I agree with this - it shaped the way Frankie looked at the world and her relationships (which were largely non-existent in the present, and largely failures in the past), so arguably she started looking at relationships from a detached biol…
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(Quote) Agreed - the proposed biological theory made sense and I could believe that it was based on an extrapolation of current research, but there didn't seem to be any parallels between that and other parts of the story.
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(Quote) Yes this is a very good way of putting it. The various ideas didn't seem to gel into an overall whole ut remained separate all the way through. (Quote) Again an interesting point. I recently read Anthony Doerr's Cloud Cuckoo Land which (a b…
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(Quote) Hm, maybe so, though the teens did (there's a comment about some young lad not realising that his hand moves to page through results were bashing into Frankie). And presumably the parents of young kids could simply have cast Bindi results on…
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As a story (except for the end) I thought it engaging, different, and credible, and was very glad o have read it. One typographic question I was left with... which @Apocryphal may not be aware of if as usual he listened to the book rather than read…
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Adding a comment so I get to see notifications
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Yah well I kind of rambled on about this in an earlier discussion starter. It didn't work for me - it felt too abrupt for one thing, and implausible for another, what with them not finding any significant place of human habitation. I felt as though …
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I thought this was an intriguing and credible facet of the book, and the means chosen for its disclosure worked for me.
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I liked the individuals, both human and bonobo, and hey worked for me. What didn't really work was the romance between Frankie and Stotts. I mean, it was obviously going to happen, and the most interesting part of the development was the jealousy of…
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I thought that the interconnectedness was a really strong point of the book, especially in two areas a) the positive one of doing the equivalent of Google searches and not really memorising anything (leading to problems when the system crashed) b) …
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I thought Setup and Sandstorm both worked very well. I wasn't so convinced by Aftermath. I don't know that area of the USA at all, but it didn't seem credible to me that they could travel all that distance and not even encounter a decent size town, …
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I'd say yes! It happens to be very-near-future, and there's much more of a focus on biology and behavioural science rather than physics or engineering, but I don't see why you wouldn't classify it as such.
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Yup I'm ready too
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Category for Come Looking for Me ( @Apocryphal 's choice for July) now set up, together with cover blurb and about the author entries. Time to set up notifications...
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Yah, 2600 pages would be a seriously long read so we'd have to cherry pick. One of the interesting things about The Odyssey, Arabian Nights (I think) and Beowulf is that we would be dealing with works originally constructed in an oral tradition and …
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Sorry all for some reason I didn't get any notifications of all these additions and only just checked back. @Apocryphal for July shall I set up for Come Looking for Me, by Cheryl Cooper? @NeilNjae I'd actually be cool with an RPG guide book - it d…
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Sorry I posted this next bit in the wrong thread... All: we have Theory of Bastards, chosen by @clash_bowley as our June read. Presuming that the rotation goes on as before, July would be @Apocryphal then August @NeilNjae then September me. @Nei…
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Sounds good
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I think one can see the trend towards length even within authors - for various reasons I have started rereading the Foundation series, and the original three, written in the early 1950s, are short and punchy (especially when you remember that they …
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(Quote) Probably. I must start reading Theory of Bastards now...
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Now if only you'd written a book set in that world that you cold point to and say "just read that first" :)
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Maybe he's working out a world setting into which he can drop PCs at some future stage for their own adventures?
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I kind of felt most of them were 20s from the writing, and it was an adjustment every time I was reminded that they were in fact teens
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I think what I meant by "digression" here was something that could potentially have been pruned out if one was being ruthless with the main target of the story (viz, the unmasking of Veretaine's true identity and how he was defeated while …
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I have been meaning to read some Jack Whyte since you first told me about him but haven't yet managed it. Very interesting points about this story
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I guess that he wanted to avoid any suggestion that he was using actual Scottish clan names
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(Quote) :D
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I'd forgotten about Locke Lamorra - didn't we read it together in TTRPBC quite a long time ago? Not all that long after @Apocryphal invited me in I think.
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It's funny - first time I read this I hardly noticed the digressions, but after @NeilNjae 's comments on starting to read they were much more apparent to me. However, I ended up enjoying them all the more because of the fact that Ed McDonald uses th…