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Ammonite 5: Parallels
There were several parallels in this book - The Word for World is Forest, Avatar, Dune (where the virus stands in for spice) and no doubt several others. Did this work for you? Did you like the parallels or were you annoyed by them?
Comments
Hmm, I didn't catch those parallels. The one that it reminded me of a bit was maybe The Left Hand of Darkness but to be honest it's been so long since I read that book that I might be off on that as well.
The fact that the book riffs off previous SF novels shows that Ammonite is part of the dialogue of SF. I think there's a fine line between works that are derivative, or basically remakes of something, or works that try to do a new thing while being inspired by other things. I thought Ammonite was sufficiently original to be in the latter camp.
Sorry @Apocryphal but I think you are being quite generous. They annoyed me. They weren't in dialogue, they were used as resources, but not cited.
It's a novel, not a scientific paper, @BarnerCobblewood! I definitely caught the Dune parallels, with the Prana Bindu training being bio-feedback based, and the Virus changing ones body like the poison/drug that is Melange.