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RichardAbbott
About
- Username
- RichardAbbott
- Joined
- Visits
- 6,072
- 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) Only to some level of approximation. Pi isn't ones and zeros :) (though you can get arbitrarily close to it with enough ones and zeros). Hence my point about maths showing you what cannot be reconciled or brought into agreement, as well as w…
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Agree with @Apocryphal that it never had much explanation and remained a kind of rabbit-out-of-hat device. But I don't think that really mattered in terms of the intent of the book - we weren't really supposed to get hung up on what it could and cou…
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Not really doing gaming at present so my thoughts are theoretical, but I agree with @BarnerCobblewood that the mixing of attributes by biological infusion rather than magical prowess or technological implant was intriguing.
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I didn't feel many of the characters developed beyond being background... but also that this didn't really matter for the narrative purpose. Okwu is probably the only exception as he started to develop some complexity of tension between opposing imp…
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Agree with @Apocryphal that the whole thing was too early to feel actual shock. Probably perplexity comes closer to my feelings at the first read. And about the PTSD side of things. The whole university thread of the plot felt quite of tacked-on-we…
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I wasn't sure about this... on the plus side it's always great to read a book which delights in endless diversity of alien life, as part of a long tradition going back to EE Doc Smith at least. On the minus side I felt that many of these life for…
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A consequence of this form of growth is, I think, that the assimilation of the change happens after the fact, rather than a kind of "go up a level because of experience gained" model. That seems a very interesting twist to me, and works. I…
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I found an aspect of the series where the YA focus came most to the fore, and for me at least, detracted from the whole. So she's super skilled at lots of things and (as common in YA) is basically the only person who can solve intractable problems …
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A big handwavy but interesting and credible, and certainly different to a more standard technoverse!
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My feeling is that the perception of whether a culture was seen as more or less primitive had to do with social organisation and practice (unless it was simply bigotry, which appeared to be the case sometimes). So the Koush look down on the Himba pa…
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(Quote) Here in the UK it seems to be available in kindle and hardback only, not p/b or audio. A quick glance suggests the same on Amazon US and CA. Maybe that will change by February... I can't see any information about that online. As @NeilNjae sa…
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(Quote) Actually she doesn't wear either hijab or burqa... "[her face] was half shrouded by a scarf or shawl, a concession many Western women made to Islamic convention, but not formally hijab" - narratively useful as it means Tobor gets t…
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My feeling is that the first section is set some 50-100 years ahead of now. Climate change has reduced much of the countryside to wasteland, with trees in particular now very scarce, either because they can no longer grow or because people have out …
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Right, thanks all. How about the following provisional programme: Very soon: Binti trilogy hosted by @clash_bowley December / January The Orenda, hosted by @Apocryphal February: @NeilNjae March: Me April: @clash_bowley May: @BarnerCobblewood If …
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Hello everyone, I felt it was about time we thought about monthly rotation in the new year. Currently we have @clash_bowley soon to post discussion starters about the Binti trilogy. Then for reading in the rest of December plus January we have _T…
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> @BarnerCobblewood said: > Also, a so-called classical education is pretty much assumed. I have some good classical dictionaries, but for those lacking such education I am not sure that the ideas are that accessible. > Yes, agreed. I…
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> @Apocryphal said: > I’m easy wrt The Orenda. I can meet either Dec or January. > > If we don’t do The Orenda in December, would you like to do The Adjacent with me? Looks like there are 8 sections / chapters. What say anyone wh…
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@BarnerCobblewood I have now read the first of ER Eddison's trilogy (Mistress of Mistresses) and have got a lot more out of it than I did some 40-45 years ago :) The writing style is very like The Worm Ourobouros - archaic vocabulary and phrasing, …
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(Quote) Happily
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(Quote) No problem! I think probably in view of the length of @Apocryphal 's book maybe we'll have that for both December and January. Or do others think we can have a separate January book?
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All: I have added a category for @Apocryphal 's December choice - The Orenda, by Joseph Boyden, with a single post repeating the description / back cover blurb. This has already been posted but it seemed good to keep it all together. Anyone who lik…
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Yes, thanks @Apocryphal for introducing this series of books and persevering :) As you all know, I did come in the end to like what I think CP was trying to do with these books - while still being frustrated by his commitment to lack of consistency…
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Fear plays a huge role in The Worm Ourobouros - either the uncontrolled presence of it holding people back, or the overcoming of it to face the next threat or challenge. For those who haven't read it, there are a few different kinds of magic, none …
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(Quote) Well, I last read the trilogy as a teenager and got very baffled... I'm rather hoping I'll get a lot more this time around. They are set in the same world (Mercury, for those who haven't read the first one, but it's not in the slightest like…
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(Quote) I confess: once reminded of this I could not stop myself downloading The Worm Ourobouros plus the others and am starting to reread. I had remembered (of course) the frame story, which Eddison rapidly forgets about in Ourobouros, but I had co…
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(Quote) I'll probably do the same, once my reading pile has gone down a bit:) I had a look at the Goodreads reviews for The Winged Histories and they looked like they came out on balance rather like our reactions as a group here to Stranger - a bunc…
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(Quote) No, I think we're back to the start of the rotation - @BarnerCobblewood was going to consider whether January was a good time for him or not.
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Fine by me - it's not a place or time I know much about so happy to delve into it
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(Quote) Love it :)
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(Quote) Talking of editors, I am convinced that there is a slip in the whole subjective / objective time stuff. While Sandro is talking to Jacq he soliloquises "Of course I had no idea. I had been in Questiur for but an instant. Subjective tie …