Help offset server costs by donating. This is totally optional. Any overages will go to library fines or new books.
RichardAbbott
About
- Username
- RichardAbbott
- Joined
- Visits
- 6,080
- Last Active
- Roles
- Member, Administrator, Moderator
- Games I like
- Sundry, mostly board
- Books I like
- Science fiction, fantasy, some historical fiction
Comments
-
I kind of touched on this stuff in my thoughts on your "what is culture" question... if anything else comes to mind I'll add it later!
-
@dr_mitch commenting on crime procedurals brought to mind Minority Report (I'm thinking of the film as I haven't yet read the book) - would we class that as Utopian or Dystopian, I wonder?
-
I've mentioned this before, but looking back at teenage efforts to play Empire of the Petal Throne, with its flamboyantly rich and diverse inner world, we totally failed to do it justice, and were just geeky south-of-England kids wandering round. …
-
I don't think I'm saying anything different from others, but I think a) emotional range is necessary for art of any kind (to avoid blandness or boredom) but b) art can and often is born out of emotional experience other than profound suffering.
-
A novel or film needs some kind of tension to move it along - as @dr_mitch says, this doesn't have to be an outsider but often is. An internal rebel or disaffected person (arguably Bernard Marx is this) is another way. I suppose it depends how far &…
-
I found the writing style to be largely rather dull and pedestrian, so agree with @NeilNjae that the book's main strength is in its ideas. In a few places it became (stylistically) more fluent and compelling... sufficient to make me wonder if the dr…
-
I suspect that Huxley was writing from a position where religious faith was seen as only having relevance in the gaps in knowledge, and that would (so it was thought) inevitably diminish as the gaps grew s
-
Something that struck me about this was that Britain has (so far) avoided the trend in Brave New World towards a kind of monoculture. In lots of ways we have become far more diverse than the Britain that Aldous Huxley knew: it is not always smooth, …
-
(Quote) I think that societies are often presented as utopian in contrast to some specific starting point. Take for example Avatar (maybe not the best case but it's fun) - the woodland world of Pandora seems utopian to Jake in contrast to the marine…
-
(Quote) Some churches do allow for voting in leadership, or at minimum the opportunity to ratify a decision. But I do agree that often the situation is set up, and emotionally laden, in such a way as to rubber-stamp the choice that existing leadersh…
-
(Quote) the last phrase ("that I might not walk shod on holy ground") is intended to remind us of Moses at the episode of the burning bush, and one assumes (by virtue of the complete lack of explanation in Exodus) that it was a routine way…
-
This is one place where the lack of technology development shows very starkly. The Epsilons are not, so far as I can see, essentially different from machines that we might use in a factory or whatever, and although there's less detail about them, I …
-
I think Huxley was probably reflecting the UK he knew - if he were writing today he would, I suspect, include a lot more overt diversity. As it is, he has the Controller called Mustapha, which must surely not have been a common UK name in the 1930s.…
-
I think the embed link is not the one to use to import into Google calendar. When I try adding from URL and use this, I get the error message Sorry, https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=5iar78lru0hgailkc1uo6lh6ag%40group.calendar.google.co…
-
Ok, I've been rereading these last few chapters, and dipping back into the early bits of book 1, on the theoretical grounds that the end of a book ought to address the problems raised at its start. I think - does anyone agree? - that Dorcas is Se…
-
I need to reread these four chapters. My first impression was that we finally learned something of Severian's parentage. But my main feeling on reaching the end of the last chapter was "er, um, was that a conclusion? Did we actually get to clos…
-
I've never heard that pronunciation before... I'd expect the gam bit to rhyme with ham. I have checked with my other half, who is biologically better-informed than I, and she has also never heard that pronunciation. Must be a personal idiosyncracy...
-
I was reading through a biography of Aldous Huxley and discovered that he was born on the outskirts of Godalming, Surrey - a town where I live from age roughly 10 until I left the parental home. How odd that I had never realised this while living th…
-
> @NeilNjae said: > Thanks for the offers, folks. I'll sort out the schedule and kick things off. If I flounder, there's help about. Do let me know if you're on holiday or too busy, and I'll try to bluff it in your absence
-
I'd happily help with a slow read but would prefer if it was a book I'd already read rather than one I was approaching new. So (for example) I'd be happy to assist with Moby Dick, since I have read it, albeit a long time ago. But I'd not feel so goo…
-
Out of interest I looked up the etymology of Autarch and found (https://www.lexico.com/definition/autarch via Google) Origin (Image) early 19th century: from Greek autarkhos, from autos ‘self’ + arkhos ‘leader’.
-
Thanks for letting us know!
-
I should also have said that the meta-explanation for why things might be different and why the (apparent) reversal of entropy of the New Sun should work, was very cool. In its conception of a set of beings outside the constraints of regular time it…
-
It all seems very appropriate for Severian to go back to his starting point - very TS Eliot We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. I liked also …
-
(Quote) Antoine Vanner writes some interesting naval fiction set at the end of the 19th century, ie during the very transition from the Age of Sail to the modern era. In a span of time rather less than a single lifetime, naval warfare transitioned t…
-
It's now December 18th and I thought I'd joggle this back up to the top of the stack...
-
I'm in :)
-
I had a thought about this while peeling apples just now... in TWOE it is clearly Ged who comes of age. While in both TTOA and TFS, Ged is the catalyst for someone else coming of age. So far is obvious. But the ways in which he is the catalyst a…
-
(Quote) Before reading Tehanu, I used to feel aggrieved that Tenar got kind of dumped unceremoniously after Tombs of Atuan, and that she deserved better! Which I suppose you could say signals that Ged was again the main character, despite not appear…
-
> @Michael_S_Miller said: > There’s even a few points where the Old Speech seems to be so profound, so full of truth, that it reaches right out of Earthsea and shapes the narration of the book we’re holding. .... > And later, the narrati…