Help offset server costs by donating. This is totally optional. Any overages will go to library fines or new books.
Apocryphal
About
- Username
- Apocryphal
- Joined
- Visits
- 11,755
- Last Active
- Roles
- Member, Administrator, Moderator
Comments
-
I still don't understand it.
-
I mostly answered this in Q2, but essentially I agree with how Barner put it. The characters felt like placeholders for a conceit, and the conceit wasn't all that interesting.
-
I thought the pacing was fine. I didn't find the book all that interesting, but that was a content issue, not a pacing issue.
-
I actually didn't really find any of the characters engaging. Their naming was a big one for me - the names seemed to thrown together, like pulled out of a phone book. Murgatroyd? Heavens! Also the prose itself was really not engaging. I kept compar…
-
I just finished - took a long time. Not because it was a difficult book, but mostly I've been too preoccupied with the news to focus, and this books was just not engaging enough to draw me in. Like Neil, I found it rather boring. It wasn't all that …
-
The only Byatt book I have is Ragnarok, and I haven’t read it yet.
-
I’m about 1/3 in - still going. But don’t let that hold you back
-
Before even reading the article I thought it probably coincided with the rise of nationalism, which in itself is myth-making about good guys and bad guys. Canada has been described as a post-national country, but the conservative movement thinks thi…
-
👉*snooze*
-
After that you have to scroll through the monthly read threads. I’ve been meaning to update the list, but haven’t gotten around to it. I could do it next weekend, probably (if I remember).
-
No worries. Do we restart the rotation in April, after Emphyrio? That would be a good time to slot @kcaryths into the rotation, if he would like.
-
“It can’t be hard SF because I could understand it” doesn’t seem like such a bad metric 😁
-
You should look and see which books have won’t the awards - it’s not what you might think. Winners include LeGuin, Tolkien, and many more. Look at the legacy awards as well. The books don’t necessarily promote libertarianism - they just depict it, o…
-
@NeilNjae works in the field of AI and ethics, so he’s well poised to cut a path through the bramble.
-
I think it’s probably only really interesting if you have a variety of characters so a group can draw contrasts between sympathetic humans, artificial intelligences, SecBots, etc. I’d probably find it more interesting if the non-human characters wer…
-
Pretty sure it’s not meant to be a utopia… maybe not a dystopia either, but that depends on your definition. If you think as I do that a dystopia is a setting that to some characters is a utopia, but to the reader is the opposite, then I don’t think…
-
Im not sure we learned enough about the setting to label it as hard or not. How realistic is an organic/machine cyborg, and why does it need to be human shaped? Does it become un-hard if we don’t accept these setting elements?
-
We’re gamers - violence is pretty endemic to our storytelling experiences, isn’t it. I’m sure @BarnerCobblewood would argue we’re too used to it, and make a good case for people to stop telling violent stories. I’m not really able to argue against t…
-
Except for the organic parts, I found Murderbot pretty convincing. I loved that she (I know Murderbot is not a she, but she read very much like a woman to me, and I don’t think Wells was able to hide her own voice) called herself Murderbot in a face…
-
Agree with Clash on both points. I really liked Art and through they were a very interesting character. Art seemed to have a lot of independence, so I’m not really clear on their status - but I assume also not free. I really don’t think humans are r…
-
I also rather enjoyed them. Well, I like the stories, I liked the Murderbot character and what Wells did with shem. The only thing I didn’t really like was the prose style. Worldbuilding - mostly implied, so not much to like or dislike.
-
Good interview, thanks. Lots to think about.
-
I've finished reading Murderbot, so good to go, there. I like Vance and would like to read Emphyrio. I know Neil has had some issues with our past Vance reads, so he may be less keen to give Vance another go.
-
Yeah, same. I'll see if I can find a used edition.
-
I also hadn't thought of Aslan, but this rings true.
-
LOL that does sound like it might be fun.
-
No, I've never heard of a sequel. Maia is in the same setting, but an unrelated story set slightly before.
-
That's largely how I felt about it.
-
I'm not sure about that, but if I went that route I'd probably start with him as a captive and interlace that with memories of him encountering the bear to eventually becoming king, then skip most of the journey up to him getting captured altogether…
-
I agree, no overt magic. But there's also no magic in much of Guy Gavriel Kay's work, like The Lions of Al-Rassan. But it is entirely set in a fictional place that is obviously not our world, which makes it a fantasy. I do find a certain magic in t…