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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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In my kindle edition there's a postscript which describes the Canterbury artwork on which much of the future "thinking about the world" is based - this gives away the identity of Eusa and the Littl Shynin Man, for example. Of the others…
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Agreed. The setting makes perfect sense but the speed of movement is extraordinary. Even though the roads still have their current naming conventions (eg the A26 really does go along the Kentish fringes between Maidstone and Newhaven https://en.m.wi…
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Oddly enough, I found this book and it's invented language far more approachable than Feersum Endjin which when I tried it (a lot of years ago now) I found just difficult. Here I got in the swing of it fairly quickly and almost stopped noticing it. …
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(Quote) Thanks! Suitably edited...
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It has been reminding me of the Suffolk accent which Ralph Fiennes uses in The Dig (a fictionalised retelling of the Anglo-Saxon ship discoveries at Sutton Hoo) - for non-UK residents, Suffolk is one of the East Anglian counties on the north side of…
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Category added for May's read, Daughter of Redwinter, by Ed McDonald. A good time to update notification preferences.
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For May I'm thinking Daughter of Redwinter, by Ed McDonald - it's a fantasy book published in 2022 which was passed on to me fr comment from our local bookshop and which I reckoned was pretty good. It's available in kindle, audible, and physical cop…
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I have just now added the monthly category for The Red Scholar's Wake, by Aliette de Bodard, chosen by @NeilNjae which will be our April read. Now's the time to set up notification preferences!
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I'll set up the discussion area
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(Quote) They both sound intriguing. It's harder to work out what's going on in The Red Scholar's Wake so that might be a reason for choosing it!
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Looking ahead, we have a current rotation of @NeilNjae in April, me in May, @clash_bowley in June and @Apocryphal in July. However if @BarnerCobblewood or @Michael_S_Miller want to host something somewhen in that span of months please post a messag…
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I have (rather belatedly) added the monthly category for Riddley Walker, by Russell Hoban, chosen by @Apocryphal which will be our March read. Now's the time to set up notification preferences!
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> @clash_bowley said: > Per Wikipedia - which I agree with - "His novels and stories tend to follow one of three patterns: > > Fast-paced, straight adventures in time and space, with an emphasis on lone-wolf, latent superhuman p…
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I've not come across those books either
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That's really interesting and helpful, thanks 🙂. > @Apocryphal said: > 1. The writing. It’s best if it’s straightforward, and the storytelling is linear. I thought Half Sick of Shadows was a good listening experience, enhanced by the Wels…
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> @NeilNjae said: > Then the question is, does the worldbuilding set up interesting stories? It could, but those will be the content of the later books in the series. We didn't see a lot of "things happening in other worlds" in this…
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Here's an article on flooding kindle with books written or cowritten by ChatGPT - not quite the same as the case you mentioned, but not all that different... https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/ai-author-books-amazon-chatgpt-b2287111.html
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A light fun read. I wouldn't go back to it for great prose or interesting structure, but the writing was competent, well edited, and well-suited to its content. Seeing as how I felt it could easily have been longer it clearly didn't bore me! Int…
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Trading Standards would probably insist that the name was changed to DangerTrek or some such! For all the reasons stated elsewhere it makes no sense to pitch it to scientists. It would be more likely as a kind of (very) extreme sport for bored ri…
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At a guess you'd either want to allow your characters to take some stuff with them (maybe with restrictions about size or composition) or else make it easier to build stuff when you got there. Otherwise it's hard to see how you'd make a campaign out…
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> @Apocryphal said: > Make sense? Nope, not really LOL. It probably would have made more sense if it was a team to scientists and engineers evolving their new tech by sending rich MMA clients on death defying adventures! Haha yes MMA test …
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To me it was kind of like cartoon violence or super-hero violence - loads happening but not really affecting the reader. Totally agree about The Orenda, and I think this was because that was much more about the people as individuals who we had got t…
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I didn't feel it was ever meant to be character driven so I never got invested in the characters! You just knew that Infinity was going to survive with difficulty, and that most of the others were red-shirts! I assumed that the whole call-sign thing…
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I was taken aback by the length, mainly because I never saw a physical book so my only clue was the percentage progress marker! But given that it was (if I recall correctly) written retrospectively to provide a start point for other already-written …
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Absolutely brilliant! Thanks so much for mentioning it!
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In the end I was so intrigued I bought it anyway and am very much enjoying it, not least because of the underlying mystery of what is actually going on. It took me a couple of chapters to work out that the chapter names are all apple varieties (many…
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This sounds fun, I've got a couple of books on the go at the moment but must remember this one for later :)
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> @Apocryphal said: > I'm leaning toward Riddley Walker, by Russel Hoban. Let me know if that appeals. Fine by me - I did read it many years ago but would enjoy the opportunity to reread. I like Hoban as an author and his children's books …
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If anyone still has thoughts they want to put out for comment about A Master of Djinn then feel free, but now we're into February we're into @clash_bowley 's choice Infinity: A Bridger's Origin. Any ideas for March @Apocryphal ?