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Apocryphal
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Yes, as per Richard's reading, I though the book reflected society's stereotyping pretty well, but the actual protagonist, Mina, bucked this trend rather effectively. Stoker's later book, The Lair of the White Worm, is much more sexist and racist t…
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As I mentioned elsewhere, I didn't find the main character voices all that distinctive. I think Lucy's death was needed to ramp up tension. To my mind, Mina is the main character of the novel. She is first threatened (indirectly) by almost losing h…
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Richard captures my thoughts well. I found the constant pointing out of everyone else's genteel qualities was most striking. A modern book would quite likely have some people who didn't have such kind thoughts to one another!
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These things didn't bother me in the slightest. I don't think Dracula should be re-told to suit a more secular age - let it remain a hallmark of it's own age. But I suppose Peter Watts tackled how vampires might be dealt with in the space age in his…
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Wait, do you think Dracula is undeniably scary, or that it could be made scary again (as per the first question)? Not quite sure which way your are leaning. I felt like the delivery was working against the novel at times. At times, it felt like the…
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I also didn't find it scary. I'm never really sure if these novels are supposed to be scary. To me, horror has more to do with disgust than with fear, or it somehow lies at the crossroads of those two things. There are certainly some good creepy mom…
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I am considering a few titles. Was leaning toward Everfair by Nisi Shawl, but maybe that’s too similar to the November selection. Will look at some other options.
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Will finish tomorrow (Sunday).
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I’ve not read any McCaffrey, and I’m really only aware of her Pern novels.
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What’s next after Dracula?
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I agree - it's not pulp in the usual sense. But maybe Barner here means 'disposable' or 'lightweight'.
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(Quote) I think that's a fine message to take, and I do think there's an element of that in the book, but I don't think that's him main message. I think the message is more that we are all animals at heart, all beasts at heart, and that animals are …
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I thought the space 'message in a bottle' was pretty unbelievable. Also, that Ulysse pointed out he had a chicken run on the ship. I wasn't expecting hard SF, so it's not like any of this bothered me - I found it amusing. It contributed to the fairy…
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The film is very good. Some of it's sequels are also good - particularly Escape from the Planet of the Apes. There are some similarities between film and book - Zera, Cornelius, Nova, and Zaius are all characters, for example. But ape society in th…
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I took the end as a recursive element. Ulysse completes this long voyage, visiting a planet of the apes where it became obvious that apes supplanted humans, only to return home to find that apes have once again supplanted humans. So off he goes into…
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I took the name to mean that he's a traveller, yes, but also one of the school - one of us. A representative of all groupers. Unlike Odysseus, though, Ulysse cannot return home. It's as if Odysseus had returned home to Ithaca after that long journey…
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Sadly, I don't have a l'Engle connection. I was just trying to work in the ideas of Swift and being off-kilter (hence 'tilting') and that's what came out.
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(Quote) Except that Ulysse is not heroic - he's more a villain than a hero. Smug at first, then a victim, and when finally free, he resorts to his old humanist ways. (Quote) On the other hand (for most of us, I suspect, though not all) the frame st…
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Pictish stones in the south suggest at least a trading relationship, I think. You might find the hints of an answer here: https://gallowaypicts.com/gallowaypicts/lectures/
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I’d be up for Dracula. I can’t even remember if I read it before, but if I did it certainly wasn’t in a minute or even an hour.
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Yes, it’s pretty well accepted that somehow Dal Riata came to merge or absorb the Pictish kingdom to become Alba. How this happened is not exactly known. And how the ‘Picts’ disappeared is also not exactly known. Much of this is covered in a very go…
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Yeah, I find it very strange that racism can exist against a basically non-existent people. I think that by the time there was any meaningful writing about picts, they had long become mythological. I suspect they were largely equated with fairies ou…
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In Harkfast’s head. He has the vision, but the author keeps it close to his chest.
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True, but no biggie.
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> @clash_bowley said: > (Quote) > It's been a minute since I read that last. Does that mean you read it only a short time ago? Or that you haven’t read it in a long time?
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Yeah, the alternate Arthur is interesting. One common speculation is that ‘Arthur’ was a title, not a name, so possibly Ruan would become Arthur, and Harkfast becomes Merlin - or Merlin replaces Harkfast. But then the rest of the myth doesn’t really…
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Yeah, I thought Harkfast sounded more Saxon than Gaelic, but I couldn’t find any equivalence in either language.
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I'm not sure there's anything here I would us. I really like the setting of an early Post-Roman Scotland, but this book is so a-historical that it couldn't possibly be used for that. I certainly wouldn't use the brutality/rape. I might use some plot…
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Yes, it felt like there would be a sequel, and Id' likely read it if there was. I'm curious how Ruan goes from gormless boy to King - seems like he has a long road ahead of him. And what kind of king will he be? Presumably one that rises above the b…
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I enjoyed the book. To the best of my knowledge he mostly wrote romances, which don't interest me at all, so I don't think I'll be double-dipping into the author. But if he had written a sequel to this, I'd read it.