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Apocryphal
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You mean The Adjacent? Sure
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I’m easy wrt The Orenda. I can meet either Dec or January. If we don’t do The Orenda in December, would you like to do The Adjacent with me?
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I don’t think we currently have anything scheduled for January, so we could spill over if desired.
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BTW There’s a ‘companion volume’ to Strangers in Olondria’ called ‘The Winged Histories’. I don’t think it’s a sequel, but rather tells a different story in the same setting. There’s some small reference to the first book, but it stands quite alo…
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Jacq’s cat = Schrödinger’s cat! It’s fate will be determined when Jacj comes home and opens the door.
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@BarnerCobblewood Oh, that’s easy - you give your stave to an adept, along with 50 simoleons, and then walk backwards up a hill, drive forward down the hill, and row your luggage twice around the harbour… (a reference to The Gradual).
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We need to have the early part to introduce Jevick and his relationship to his father. And to his mentor, Lunre, who comes back at then end (ghostlike) as a more pivotal character than we initially thought. The story structure is something like:…
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If I was to pick the books again, based on reader reactions, I’d pick The Affirmation for the novel (much tighter around the idea and a more satisfying story), the The Dream Archipelago, and lastly The Islanders. I enjoyed the read - for me a 3.5…
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Interesting catch re: Dante. Although I agree it's a love story in a sense, though it never feels like a romantic love story so much as a story of love that evolves through shared experience. It's a love story, but not a romance, if that makes sense.
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@BarnerCobblewood What's "our present situation"? I agree with the mythic arc. Elsewhere, @RichardAbbott asked if it bothered us the Jevick shed his spice trader identity so soon. I would argue that was never his identity - is was rather …
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You might think that maps and games go together, given how often gamers ogle and make a fuss about them. But I think it's that gamers just love evocative imaginary maps, rather than that 'they go' with games. Some games are hard to imagine without m…
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My first impressions were rather of renaissance Italy and Constantinople. The novel definitely has a sense of place, and there's a lot of wonderful creative elements in the world building that I really enjoyed. What particularly caught my eye were a…
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There are a lot of rich characters - some of the richest aren't even named, like the old woman who lies in the rug but seems to communicate some much with her eye. Here's another example: (Quote) Those are the ones I especially loved, but all the m…
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I have a love-hate relationship with this book. I love the writing, and at almost any point you can find a wonderful turn of phrase. The prose is almost poetic (and oddly, the poetry is prosaic). I picked up several quotable passages on this read th…
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I think it's mainly about how our memories, past experiences, and the people who raise us can shape us. It's also a love story, but here love in the greater sense, rather than personal love. Jevick goes from fearing his ghost to loving it over the c…
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Yes
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And unsurprisingly, that’s what most reviews seem to say LOL.
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> @RichardAbbott said: > it is as though CP's main interest in writing shifts multiple times through a single novel. He did more or less say the book was about gradual change right at the very beginning. And he does like to take ‘concepts…
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Christopher Priest didn’t say that. One of his characters did. And that character might be misinformed, biased, or have an incomplete picture, just like real people.
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> "The only real record that existed of music was the original score, the black pen marks on the staves, but they were cryptic, had no sound, were written in code – they had no meaning without the human spirit that could break the code, inte…
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I’m 50 pages in, now. It’s very descriptive and definitely has a sense of place. Loads of little details make it vivid. Doesn’t seem like a book you can skim without getting lost - I find I have to force myself to read with purpose to get the most f…
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@clash_bowley Right… so the question remains as to whether this is one of those books or not. It’s definitely literary in intent. I don’t recall if the internal logic was sound. I do recall that it had a lot of words. :) and was somewhat rambly. …
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As I mentioned elsewhere, I’ve been reading Binti by mistake. However, I’ll catch up on Stranger. Might need two weeks. I think Stanger is more a book for @RichardAbbott , @BarnerCobblewood , @WildCard , and me, than it is for @NeilNjae ( who has…
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Oops. I’ve been reading Binti. However, I’ve read Stranger before. I’ll try to catch up… refresh my memory.
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I’d actually be fine with playing low level functionaries trying to steer a state. I prefer low levels to big heroes. But I don’t see how playing this kind of game on Dune would be more satisfying than in Gormemghast, for example. But when I thin…
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I honestly don’t think I’d try to game Dune. The politics are interesting, and especially the politics of scarcity, but I’m not good at running politics.
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Here are a few more books I picked up this year. The four on the left came from Little Free Libraries. The Farley Mowat book, No Man's River, is a sort of companion to his famous (and infamous, because it's the book the earned the author a reputati…
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It was Hellstrom's Hive - book #67 for us. You can find the list of the first 71 books pinned in the Nominations & Suggestions thread. I recently found a copy of another Herbert book in a little free library, called Direct Descent. I'll share a…
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I mostly know Anthony from the Xanth series, which I enjoyed as a young teen. Not sure I still would. I’d happily read The Adjacent with you as a side project if you like. Not sure the others would be interested at this point.
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I did read Ringworld once, but other that that am not wise to Niven. Was The Mote in Gods Eye a Niven and Pournell collab? Anne McCaffrey’s Deagonriders are famous, and we’re pretty big back in the early 80s, but I never read them. Same with Kath…