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Apocryphal
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I recently had the pleasure of reading Maps and Legends by Michael Chabon - a collection of essays on genre fiction. This books includes essays on Sherlock Holmes (in which he argues that ALL fiction is fan fiction), Cormac McCarthy's The Road, the …
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That’s a very interesting theory, @RichardAbbott
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When Jacj pointed out that Sandro was supposed to look after the cat, and then later called him ‘Sandro’ instead of ‘Alessandro’ or ‘Sir’ I took it as an acknowledgement that this was the real Jacj. I also see that Sandro‘a life is full of ghosts…
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> @clash_bowley said: > Perhaps, but the Islands seem a strange sort of hell. That’s definitely one of the messages I’m getting. Luckily we only have 3 weeks left after this. :-)
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I'm good with December, unless someone else happens to prefer it (because that's when they have free time).
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I’m mostly interested in the esoteric stuff - the mysteries and how they relate to gods. I mentioned in another Q how I developed a setting in which the syllables of the name of god had power, and that did form the basis of a good RQ3 campaign. Here…
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That was my take, and seems to lead to the possibility of more mystery in book 2 of this series. An interesting thought I had about ‘Open Sesame’ is that this is actually a magic spell. Ancient spells were said to have originated with the gods (o…
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“Open Sesame!” Is both an imperative and a password.
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In terms of the verb, I was thinking more generally, like “Be!” or “Exist!” or “Do!” In this sense, I can see such as word as being related to a password, in that it lets you pass into something else. For example, you’re in a room with a dog.…
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With a bit of imagination and leeway, could this not be made more compelling? Sure, she's a word, and that's only a fragment of language. But what if we accept the notion that what might take humans a whole library to express, God can express in a …
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I listened to the audio, so the lack of chapters was quite lost on me. It's not always easy to tell when you enter a new chapter in an audio book. The reader only reads the exact text. So if there's a chapter break, but no chapter title, you don't r…
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I don't feel especially qualified to comment, but am following with interest. Any thoughts on a relationship to the Kaballah? I seem to remember something about the syllables in the name of god, and how they might bring power.
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Yes, I’m watching it. I never read the novels, so I’m unspoilt in that regard. I have listened to the BBC radio dramatizations, and the series doesn't seem faithful to that - more like inspired by. This is probably a good thing - now I can read the …
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I’m still trying to parse the whole school thing. On the one hand, the school seems to be all about performing inexplicable tasks toward a mysterious goal. This strikes me very much as a parable for Christian faith. To become a child of god, you nee…
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With respect to the children in Narnia, I always had the impression they had to be invited to go to Narnia by a higher force. A stranger couldn’t just walk in. Gods purpose is in everything. I’m wondering about the children in A Series of Unfortu…
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I don’t think it’s about children and parents, but these children who are ‘words’ are clearly inherently words. That mysterious fellow at the beginning (whose name I forget) was searching for and recognizing these ‘words’ in society. Much like the s…
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I think the main thing was the deference to authority. There's much more of an irreverence here among people of that age - more of a rebellious streak. I can't see anyone putting up with all the gibberish that way Sasha did.
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I liked the characters and found them convincing. I thought the reason they didn't become something was because their inherent natures were not compatible in that way, and the profs recognized this long before the students did. There were some thin…
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I don't think Vita Nostra is about a child who goes to boarding school to learn magic. I think it's about a pupa that goes to boarding school to become a butterfly. That's a very different premise than Harry Potter. Harry Potter grew up while he was…
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Good questions :-) I definitely got that this was a coming of age story, but I'm not entirely convinced that everything in the book is a metaphor for coming of age. Or rather, I'm not convinced by these metaphors - I can accept that these are meant…
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Good for me.
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They’re young because they always lead people back in time? Makes sense. Maybe that’s also why they’re so bitter.
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The time slip after his first tour was 23 months, wasn’t it? And on this trip he racked up 17 days just getting to Muriseay. That’s the part where I really struggle. I mean, he can’t be the first. It seems like something important enough that it…
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We’ll, this isn’t really the solders story. I also think it’s possible that Denn and And Ante haven’t met yet. I haven’t thrown out the idea that And Ante is somehow Jacj, but given the time slippage and how Sandro seems to be able to be in two …
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That’s an interesting take.
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@clash_bowley I think we can examine it metaphorically, but the logic being used is not the logic we're used to. We may all struggle to find what that logic is, by the end. You know how in the multiverse, physicists say that different universes have…
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Speaking of the next batch - it is scheduled to include chapters 36 to 40, but I'll ask you to include 41 as well, as the end of 41 is a better logical break. This adds about 5 pages.
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@clash_bowley your going to hate the next batch of chapters. The thing is, this setting is built like a house of cards. A house of cards can be a marvel to behold, but it doesn’t bear close scrutiny. The minute you take one card out to examine it…
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I think his confidence comes from naïveté. Is the Generalissima Margaret Thatcher?
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In a way, it does seem out of character because he’s never really complained about his home country or his leader before. On the other hand, I think we can accept that he’s somehow been changed by his travels in the islands, so maybe this is not so …