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Apocryphal
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My proposal is The Jason Voyage by Tim Severin, which is a travelogue that records his attempt to follow in the path of Greek hero Jason in a reproduction of fhe Argo.
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Today I saw a ‘finger boarding’ display on our Main Street, featuring a product made by a German company and repped by a guy from Chicago for 2-week promo here in Toronto.
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It didn’t bother me. It reminded me of Genly Ai’s journey across the ice.
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It doesn’t excite me as a game theme, let’s put it that way. Players likely would behave the same way and see this as a cue to broker peace. And player efforts should meet with success (after a little resistance). This could drive them to the core t…
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I see the next book, Wizard, has a good star lower rating on GR. Still, worth a try, I think.
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But is it asexual? Is there a fertilization?
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Very much so. I don't think I'd nick-and-file though - space centaurs and avians aren't that interesting, but I did like the space whale-sharks whose mouth you ride in). But once concept I've been noodling about for years (and was explored in Hull Z…
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I don't think it range any less true than the rest of it. Yes, it seems obvious this was meant to set up the next novel. I think that's OK. But I also think it worked to satisfactorily close this novel, so I didn't feel cheated at the end, like I mi…
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I'm with Neil in that I think it might have been interesting to have Jones changed more, mentally, after re-birth. Maybe Varley thought about it and decided that was a bridge to far for the reader. though. Hard to say - it's easier to second guess t…
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It didn't annoy me - I think he's a very serviceable and engaging writer. But neither did I ever find a passage so nice I was moved to jot it down - which I did with the other books by Boorman and Cooper that I read this month. The writing here was …
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Though I'd agree this is a Big Dumb Object book, the twist here is that the BDO isn't dumb (it speaks) and isn't an object, but an organism. So this is really more like a Big Vocal Organism book except we don't find that out until the end.I'm n…
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As I mentioned in my march book roundup at The Agora, one thing I really appreciate about Varley is that he's the only male author I'm aware of that will put so much effort into understanding women and portraying women's issues. He's also been very …
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X-eteras, I guess. 😁 And I thought the same thing re: The Godfather.
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Properly fleshed out, I think I would have liked The Sultan of Samarkand quite a lot, as there are many twists and turns and some proper wonders. But as it is I find these note form versions hard to follow. Reflecting on the extensive use of ‘etc…
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In campaign game play, these changes can happen quite organically as the circumstances around the character change. This is especially common in horror games, where a character is exposed to increasingly surreal or unsettling events. At a very basic…
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In the first section, too, there was the word ‘equipage’ translated as ‘saddlebags’ rather than ‘equipment’, which calls attention to the root of the word (referring to equus, equestrianism, etc) which feels somewhat lost in English word ‘equipment’.
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I suspect what we see here is the method a master storyteller uses to learn a tale from another master. These notes are pretty spartan, and full of ‘etc.’s which I’m sure Galland used as short hand to say ‘flesh out as needed’. I definitely prefer t…
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This is a problem with other ‘Arabian Nights’ themed games I’ve read - they only give you a cursory and vague Arabian masque without capturing the essence of the Nights. I’d think you want to have a fairly strong nod to the frame story, which mea…
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Yes, good point and thanks very much for taking the time to prepare all those summaries.
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Native Americans had lots of talking animals, so I suspect it’s a global way of helping creatures to express the personalities we perceive within them.
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That’s a pretty entertaining bio. He must have written it himself. His collection of stories, the John Varley Reader, intros each story with similar biographical anecdotes.
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Agree re: the diminishing returns, but I’m going to finish the book regardless. The ‘works inspired by’ section might be interesting. As will the afterword, having enjoyed Irwin’s companion. I also bought a fiction by Irwin called ‘The Arabian Nigh…
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Children (boy and girls) having a say in their own marriage would not have been the norm across most states f the world over much of its history, I don’t think. The Baby in the basket story goes at least as far back as Sargon of Akkad (and hough …
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String on anecdotes? Yes, I can see that - but I think that holds true for most of the tales we've read so far. The glue that connects these particular ones into an overarching tale are not that strong. As per earlier comments (and I think Irwin ref…
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Catching up here... I was not quite clear as to whether the wealth presented was meant to be for the princess' brideprice, or if it was a bribe for the sultan. Also, the story just sort of glosses over how the princess ended up with the vizier's son…
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I’m very skeptical, Clash’s non-fiction experience notwithstanding.
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I suppose these things are possible, but the question this begs is: would this be the first time an author worked out the intricate details of the setting, but then didn’t include any of that detail in the text?
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Oh yeah - I remember Sweet Chariot, too.
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I remember that one. It reminded me of Joust (the arcade game)
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Zero G isn't a common trope, but I fell that airships and floating islands (in a gravity environment) are a very common trope. Honestly, I think that Virga would make a very fine gaming setting if the setting details were more concrete. Aside from s…