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clash_bowley
About
- Username
- clash_bowley
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Comments
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Chakraborty made the decision to showcase objective magic. In doing so, she decisively moved from historical fiction to alt-historical fiction. She is obviously not interested in historical realism. I think you are reading the wrong book, one that y…
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(Quote) The Franks have taken Jerusalem and still keep it, so it is between 1100 and 1187
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It didn't detract. I will welcome more adventures with Amina al-Sirafi! It all seemed organic to me while I was experiencing it. Was the set up transparent? If so it was so transparent I didn't see it. I was too busy walking this glory road behind A…
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I found the setting utterly fascinating. I want to write an RPG set there, though my Outremer setting would be very close. I want other people to live there through their characters. This is like Dream Time Middle East. I am pretty familiar with thi…
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Everyone in this book is a person. I firmly believe that. The rest sounds analytical.
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hmmm. I read books like this experientially. There is no analysis until digested and ruminated upon. In the book these things seemed organic.
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I agree about the various types of family in the book. Blood families are put together through necessity. Some blood families are gigantic - I have sixty-six first cousins of the same generation - others are small. Found families are put together by…
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I was enchanted! For me, the 'cliche' was just the frame supporting and presenting the mad, teetering sequence of action and reaction. I watched this glorious novel as a film in my head, fully immersed, loving every moment! If I had a hundred millio…
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Actually, finished now.
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I'm almost done!
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(Quote) I got way behind because of one thing or another and it looked like I was just too far behind.
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I had to stop reading Amina al-Sirafi for a couple weeks. I was zooming through it! Back to it now.
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I'll get the kindle edition as soon as you say go.
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Ah! An historical artifact! Yes! ! https://www.ttrpbc.com/uploads/editor/x9/qv5nft5lala0.gif
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Yes - bland rather than generic - a better word. As for magic, I don't need to know how it works so much as I like self-consistency and the illusion that it isn't just ad-hoc whizz bang. I didn't care that the witch gave up her magic for her man - …
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I think the only thing I might ever crib from this is the only virgins can use magic thing, but I wouldn't make it also sex linked...
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I like this sort of set up, actually. It's the mechanism in my own StarCluster 4 - Saber And World planetary fantasy game - and tons of isekai manga and anime. No problem at all!
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I'm fine with Science Fantasy. That was not a problem. If you listen to my music you know I don't give a rat's ass about genre boundaries...
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I rather like slim pulp books - my favorite author of all is Vance - but even in those slim volumes his settings are far more developed than this. Nothing about the witch world setting held together particularly well, and nothing stood out as non-ge…
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I have no relationship at all with Andre Norton. I had read a couple of her books as a young teen or pre-teen, but they made no impression on me, I have no idea what they were now, and I never looked for more. I do remember back then, looking at the…
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Thanks, Richard! It sounds fascinating! And no book is ever as X as the blurbs imply... :)
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I picked Tripoint because it's very interesting but flawed. That kind of book tends to generate a lot of discussion.
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(Quote) <3
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I love Protector! Great concept! Yes, Niven is the grandfather of StarCluster if Cherryh is the the grandmother... :D
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I understand who he is and where he comes from, but he does feel artificial coming so late in the book without warning.
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(Quote) It's the same thing I deal with all the time as an RPG designer. Core book + supplement, or self contained game. With the StarCluster 4 line I have elected to write games that are complete unto themselves, and always run into the criticism o…
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Generally speaking, I would say so, by the old definition. She doesn't really care if she is thought to be Hard or not, calling what space ships run on fuel, for example, but she uses science well, and her tech feels tight.
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The relativistic effects are not so severe as in Forever War, as they are jumping short distances, rather than going full on STL. Cherryh explores this in Finity's End, where a pregnant crew member is trapped on station during the war, and commits s…
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I believe it is deuterium, heavy hydrogen, and thus the ships use a deuterium-deuterium fusion. if so it is far harder to find than normal hydrogen, and must be refined - probably by some combination of centrefuge, breeding with irradiation, and fil…
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(Quote) I believe you are correct on all counts