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RichardAbbott
About
- Username
- RichardAbbott
- Joined
- Visits
- 6,071
- 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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I agree, the novel still holds its own. I think this is partly because Tevis never tries to describe Newton's home (and so far as I recall never actually commits to Mars as an author, though some of the characters certainly do). I also think it's be…
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Early on I thought that the copyright lawyer Farnsworth was going to be a min character, but he seemed to fade out quite quickly. Otherwise I was convinced. With hindsight I do agree with @NeilNjae that Betty Jo seemed an odd choice, but suppose sh…
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Done - now's the time to update notification prefs!
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Cool, I'll set it up (and buy the book as well :) )
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So... what do we all think? The current apparent choices are: 1) @NeilNjae leads Babel in just one month (November) with me in December and @BarnerCobblewood in January (unless @WildCard wants to leap in) 2) @NeilNjae leads Babel over two months (…
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(Quote) Sorry @NeilNjae I posted at the same time as you so missed your comment
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If there are no objections I'll set up November's area
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(Quote) I'd be more concerned about the length than the content - I think, though I might change my mind later on :) Maybe it's worth downloading the Kindle sample and seeing what that reads like
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We now have a discussion category for October's Berserker, by Fred Saberhagen. Now's the time to update your notification preferences!!
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> @Apocryphal said: > Heard of it but not seen it. Which platform is it on? Over here it's on Paramount which we get through Amazon Prime
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@Apocryphal if you're settled on Berserker for October I will set up the appropriate monthly selection page.
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(Quote) Looks purchasable in several formats here in the UK, though I got sidetracked by a totally different book which seems to be "Short Notes and Extensive Analysis Of" said work - maybe fan-fiction? I couldn't be sure, but it's by a to…
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(Quote) Fantastic. Just let us know whenever: schedules in the group can easily be shuffled around!
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Seems there is no problem obtaining it here in the UK
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(Quote) Except here the flying city kind of came out of the blue - I really wasn't expecting it... whereas with Blish the title kind of gave it away!
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Hi everyone, lots of great conversation going about The Buried Giant but I thought it worth reminding everyone that at the end of September we have @clash_bowley leading discussion about The Man Who Fell to Earth. After that, the normal sequence wo…
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> @BarnerCobblewood said: > My question is why are the RPG scripts made by and for the system seem to be always the same thing over and over, when what inspired it is so much richer? Ah right, I see better now. My guess is that it must var…
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> @BarnerCobblewood said: > Sorry, to clarify I meant listening on the part of the PCs, not the players. RPGs have a second layer of play over participant games and sports in that the the PCs are playing, and so are the players, and that make…
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> @BarnerCobblewood said: > . While watching sports I don't explicitly think of the defender as listening to the attacker, and compliment them on their listening skills when they break the play, pitchers and batters etc., but it seems it migh…
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Typically someone with dementia has very accurate recollection of things from long ago, like their childhood or some such... it's their short- and medium-term memories that are shot. So I'm not at all sure that Ishiguro really intended the tale t…
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> @Apocryphal said: > For a time I wondered if the whole story was a fable about Alzheimer’s. I think it’s reasonable to add ‘Forgetting due to infirmity’, where there is no purpose to the forgetting; it just come unbidden. I read it one s…
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But the fellowship of the round table (however expressed in this book) had already broken up, so I assumed that Camlann was in the past - if Ishiguro was concerned about such things. I wondered if the son had any existence at all as a real person, …
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(Quote) I think that captures something of my feelings. I felt that far too much of the writing was basically along the lines of "they were simple folk back then", attributing childish vocabulary, attitudes and lifestyle to the various ind…
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(Quote) It was queens who carried Arthur's body away, either three or six depending on the telling. There's a rather nice Welsh version (but in English, not the Welsh language) at https://www.abctales.com/story/ieuancilgwri/death-arthur-sailing-ava…
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(Quote) That's an interesting suggestion. But isn't part of the idea that the quest starts and ends in the known, but explores weird and wonderful unknown places in the middle. So the Odyssey starts at Troy and ends at Ithaca - I know people try to…
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How interesting that you both thought of Cloud Atlas as that hadn't occurred to me at all! I see what you mean about both books dealing with themes, but it seemed to me that Cloud Atlas had a very strong metastory to do with the progressive and seem…
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I thought the themes were the strongest part of the story - it's good to see ideas about memory, its transience and ability to become lost and subverted being explored. I couldn't really say much about gaming, but surely it would be difficult to GM?…
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Where in England or Britain do any of us think it was set? The terrain didn't make much sense to me at all, either in southern or northern regions (my guess would be southern or possibly eastern, if only because that's where most of the Saxons were …
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I don't know how old any of us group members are, but at age 63 I couldn't relate to these "old" people! With the echoes of dementia running through the story they felt more like 80-something year-olds... and how many 80-something year-old…
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I have flicked through the comments by Neil Gaiman and Ursula LeGuin and I suppose in some measure I share them. Interesting though that some folk consider this fantasy as opposed to historical fiction (maybe historical fantasy?) - to me this shows …