Help offset server costs by donating. This is totally optional. Any overages will go to library fines or new books.
clash_bowley
About
- Username
- clash_bowley
- Joined
- Visits
- 3,500
- Last Active
- Roles
- Member, Moderator
Comments
-
Beer comes in PINTS here!
-
Ah! A travel game! Horrible for a superhighway, great for a two lane blacktop! Sounds like fun!
-
Isn't having a pub cricket against the health laws?
-
Thank you, @Apocryphal!
-
Hopefully I will make it!
-
Damn! I missed this! :O
-
It's available again? Awesome! I have the collected hardcover, and it is great! :D
-
@RichardAbbott - I told you before that I think of this as a comic book without pictures! It works, salmon brother! BTW, Trigan Empire is a great example! :D @NeilNjae - We are not told, so I hesitate. Projecting from known bases is what gets one i…
-
The influence of Lovecraft is subtle, but pervasive! Like Tolkien... :D The killing of the sailors reminds me of the smashing of the lifeboats of the sunken Japanese troopship in Run Silent, Run Deep - the captain did it alone on the bridge because…
-
(Quote) They are more skilled, but less restrained. They are leaders because the author wants them to be leaders. Orogeny is good for anything, car washes, back rubs, better coffee AND sex! (Quote) Not particularly impressed. It's basically a sca…
-
They also wanted to send someone who wanted to go - I doubt Hap was disenchanted with her very short life so far. Also, she was IIRC a specialist in the one game, rather than being a generalist like Gurgeh, so I doubt they would want to send her...
-
I agree. I don't think it is so much safe for the Azadi as it is relatively safe for the Culture. The Minds may calculate that this is the least painful way, but it will not be painless, and they may be completely wrong - there are a LOT of variable…
-
Banks doesn't let coincidences happen... :P
-
@NeilNjae - neat! I hadn't noticed that Gurgeh was dark skinned until near the end of the book, so I missed connecting those two things! Subtle and deft! My already high respect for the author is raised again!
-
(Quote) As am I! Unfortunately you state as a given something which is in doubt. Destabilizing the Empire may cause the Empire to fall. Other things happen as a consequence, including definitely lots of people suffering and dying. It may lead to a m…
-
Probably because Jemisen wrote them... :D I kid! I kid!
-
(Quote) YIKES! I have/had a number of SPI wargames from the era - I got into wargames as a kid, and it was the other thing I spent a lot of time and money on besides music... I used to mod and design wargames in fact! - but never anything like that!…
-
Are the voices Salmon Dave singing "Sole Man"? That would be fishy on any scale!
-
(Quote) That is not a good argument. I have some control over who makes government decisions by voting or by going elsewhere. No Human has any influence over the Minds in the Culture. Humans can do what they want because they don't matter in the lea…
-
(Quote) At this point we have no details - and may never get any - but Antimony and our buddy from the obelisk are different stone eaters. Antimony rescued S&A, but we don't know how long ago. (Quote) Haha! Metal? Metal is useless! It rusts! A…
-
(Quote) Azad seems to be for those who found Phoenix Command to be for wusses...
-
BTW, Azad was such an 80s game!
-
My games feature all the above though I have never read a Culture novel before. These things are just standard SF tropes. I think a lot of the Culture per se is boring, unrealistic, and basically inflated by rainbow unicorn farts. I think any utopia…
-
I liked Yay the most. Honey badger don't care. :D Most of the characters were well drawn and interesting, but Yay was the one I liked the most, by a lot.
-
(Quote) Moral right can only be defined within a system of morality. The system of morality used by the Culture would say it was indeed morally right. The system used in the Empire would dispute this. The only answers are subjective. This lesson in …
-
The Culture is successful for it's people because the Minds are it people and the Minds run it. The people are the mice that live in the walls. :D
-
I predicted the end at about the 1/4 mark, and read to find out if I was right, to enjoy the writing, to find out interesting things about both the Culture and the Empire, to see if I would actually root for the Empire, to see if Gurgeh finally went…
-
Of course the real games are being played by the minds. Humans can be fairly clever, for animals, but their only real purpose was to create the first minds, after which their noble purpose served, they could be allowed to die out frolicking about in…
-
It's actually another view of Brave New World from a fan, and it scares me... :D Actually it does what most post-scarcity novels do and posits this is utopia, just like post-human novels posit everyone wants to be non-human, and steampunk novels po…
-
Don't try to work this all out, @RichardAbbott! It doesn't matter. Take it as it is, and don't try to look behind the curtains. If you think at it too hard, it just falls apart. Just accept it and deal with what the author has given. What you are do…