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RichardAbbott
About
- Username
- RichardAbbott
- Joined
- Visits
- 6,074
- 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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> @Apocryphal said: >...It's the risk that makes combat interesting enough to focus on. There's much less risk involved in singing a song, so it doesn't really make sense to slow it down and focus on the details. I don't think the presence of…
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(Quote) No, and that was the problem. Those of us who thought in such terms generally agreed what kind of construction deserved "style points", while those who were, as @clash_bowley put it "viciously tactical players who win 9/10s of…
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(Quote) Yes, that's a fair point, which I hadn't really thought about. Which set me wondering why I think of Pandemic as qualitatively different? I suppose it's partly because it is a board game, which (as a rule, and excluding things like Diplomacy…
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(Quote) Yup, I can identify with all of that...
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> @NeilNjae said: > 2. Art > ... How can we represent this artistic struggle in games, and make it compelling for the players? > We had a loosely similar situation when family games of the various "Railways of the World"…
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Just temporarily thinking about board games as opposed to role playing, has anyone in the group played pandemic - I played it a few times a couple of years ago, rather before it became topical, and it was the first game I'd come across which was exp…
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(Quote) Eurovision has been going since 1956 and so vastly predates the various "xyz country's got talent" shows (it even predates me :) ). But it has never interested me as an event, and I share your view on the musical quality of the va…
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I guess the classic division is plot - character - setting (which last we often refer to as world-building here). I certainly don't think a book has to have all of these, and some authors excel at one of the three, and let the others just bobble alo…
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Everyone knows that only Grey Elves play soccer... true elves always play cricket...
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Something that struck me along these lines is that, whilst there were no overt religious structures in the book at all (so far as I recall), the quest for the transcendent / the numinous is what it's all about. On one purely physical level you ca…
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Enjoying the debate, nothing to contribute here!
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I have to admit that any political references kind of passed me by (rather like the pop-culture ones of your first discussion starter). Looking back, I think my main impression was of a kind of verbal exhaustion as I read through it... the endless s…
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Like others, I enjoyed the sheer diversity and range of aliens... it was like going back to EE (Doc) Smith with his "life is everywhere, and most of it's pretty weird" motif, except that the weirdness went far far beyond anything Smith mig…
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For me, zany rather than funny. Douglas Adams is definitely laugh-out-loud material for me, but this wasn't. Wild and crazy, certainly, but not funny in the way Hitchhikers Guide et al are. Pop culture references slid by me, I'm afraid. I'm enoug…
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> @Apocryphal said: > Also, who knew Elrond drove a mini-van? We've all gotta move with the times...
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Thanks!
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Out of curiosity (I don't mind a spoiler as I'm very unlikely to read the book) did Essun end up as a stone eater herself, like (I assume) Alabaster did?
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(Quote) I think it cannot fail to be very different...
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I had this thought while reading _Tehanu_, but had forgotten it until reading the Q&A with UlG that @dr_mitch posted. One of the striking differences with _Tehanu_ as compared to the previous three books is, I think, the way cosmic stuff abou…
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Thanks for that, I enjoyed it a lot (and it spurred me to remember something I had forgotten about while we were discussing Tehanu)
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(Quote) When we were reading Player of Games we talked a bit about the possible effect of language on mental state, with particular reference to whether Gurgeh was speaking Marain or not, and what impact that might have had on his ability to compreh…
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I got my Kindle copy for £2.99 (UK)
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(Quote) Totally agree with this. If I'm tired or zoned out for some reason, my read of choice is often an author like EE (Doc) Smith. I would never defend his writing as deep, or accomplished, or anything like that... but as a light, improbable, pac…
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Tales from EarthSea is the collection of stories, and The Other Wind is the conclusion of the whole. As I have mentioned once or twice, I reckon The Other Wind is totally awesome, not just as a piece of writing but as a way to subvert and overthrow …
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(Quote) Man, you sure know how to sell a book...
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(Quote) That's an interesting (and provocative :) ) meta-question... I wonder if there has been a rise in non-bleak super-optimistic fiction over the last 6 months? Or to people on balance like dystopia and bleakness more when they're surrounded by …
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@NeilNjae fair enough! I guess it's tribute to UlG that her books can give rise to differing interpretations. The political romantic in me wants to believe that Odonian society fundamentally works, and originally did work, and only slips away from …
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Hmmm, let me clarify what I meant. Not that the society was in a Utopian state at the beginning of the story (I'm going to limit myself to Tehanu and The Dispossessed for the time being, as I don't feel I know ACH well enough to comment). Rather, th…
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(Quote) My feeling is that it's a kind of shadow side to Ged's ability to turn up where and when needed. Both men display a kind of synchronicity, but exercised in opposite directions on the help-harm axis. We re explicitly told that Ged's ability h…
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We once grew figs very successfully in the Southampton area, but they struggle to fruit up here in Cumbria. Plenty of leaves though... Maybe I should find a south-facing spot and embark on peaches here :)