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Apocryphal
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Comments
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Priest does like to play with physics, so the idea of two particles colliding rings true. There was definitely a coming together of the characters. I tend to write the summaries hours after I finish the section, so they might sometimes reflect my me…
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Hammurabi wasn’t the first to codify laws, though his stelae are more complete and well preserved than others. Furthermore he didn’t create the law - that was done long before his time. Most scholars think the ‘code’ isn’t really a list of proscribe…
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No reason to feel guilty. People can come as go as they please. But that doesn’t mean your friends won’t miss you while you’re away!
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Technically we discuss books at the end of the month, but in practice the start dates are always a little late.
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@RichardAbbott So, in saying ‘it would be arrogant of an author to impose a statement on the reader’ Priest isn’t trying to tell us what he thinks, because he doesn’t believe he should tell us what he thinks? Did I understand that correctly?
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Interesting, and well reasoned as always! Thanks so much. Looking forward to the next instalment, whenever that may be.
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Yes, precisely.
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Yes, exactly.
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Some additional notes from my reading: * Kaine explains: "There have always been walls, Dik. Two sides to everything." This recalls the dualities we encountered in The Islanders, and the panes of glass, and the yin and yang, too. * Dik re…
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Yes, exactly.
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Yes, exactly.
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@NeilNjae would you mind posting a more formal thread introducing this pick that I can pin to the top? Thanks!
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I thought the 'human sacrifice' angle worked as an imagined red herring fear, kind of the way PizzaGate does in the states. I wonder, though, if ultimately the book did fall into the trap of 'othering' the Aztecs at the end, when our main relatable …
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The world is quite gamble, though it would need a lot of work to develop it. I'd scale back the Aztec empire a bit, and I'd set the action in North America. I liked how iconic cultural elements like McDonald's Restaurants were supplanted by Aztec ve…
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I'd find it hard to pick an event - there are so many to choose from! But I do enjoy when authors explore these things. Another book I read recently - The Years of Rice and Salt - I thought was an excellent exploration of what the world might have b…
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As I mentioned elsewhere, this felt like an unnecessary intrusion into an otherwise fine book. But that said, the feeling of oppression at the very end - of being trapped in another world that was similar to, but clearly not, your own - was an inter…
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I thought the political situation in North America, with the various smaller states in balance against the behemoth Aztecs, to be the most interesting part of the world, and much more interesting than an Aztec occupied Britain. So I would have liked…
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Yeah... not really. Alex should have stayed dead, as far as I'm concerned. I thought it was moving along nicely as a quasi-personal political drama in which someone has to come to terms with the new normal, and would she eventually toe the Aztec lin…
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I liked the book. Early in the reading, I was thinking I'd probably rate it 3 stars (which in GoodReads terms means 'i liked it') but as the plot developed through the middle of the book, and the relationship between Catherine and Extepan deepend an…
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APRIL 2021 I definitely didn't keep up the blistering pace of the first three months, but still managed to complete 4 books - two print and two audio. Here they are: Taaqtumi: An Anthology of Arctic Horror Stories by various authors, 2019, 184pp …
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I had no issues with the pace, and never wondered if the book was progressing, though I did wonder at some time where the author was planning to take things. I liked how the pace gradually picked up and the book progressed - or was it just my intere…
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Further to my thought at the end of the last chapter about islands being people (or islands being stories about people), consider this third paragraph from the introduction, changing the words Archipelago or Islands to 'city' and or 'people': (Quo…
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So, with the next book - THE DREAM ARCHIPELAGO - we have short stories of varying lengths. I've tried to stick to about 20 pages a week, but most of the stories are 40 or 70 pages long. So I split the 40-50 page stories into two parts, and the 70-pa…
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I guess that’s why Glaund is sometimes referred to as simply ‘The Federation’. I only ever recall Glaund and Faiandland being mentioned in a military context.
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To those hunting for insights, I'd suggest re-reading the introduction again before we close the book for good - something might pop out that hadn't before.
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Not to mention slightly older BSFA and John W Campbell Award winners!
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And therefore the Islanders, like the Islands, are broken and separate?
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I do agree that this relationship is devoid of a real connection (I don't think it's trued for every relationship in the book). The final chapter feels more to me like a story about conception, than it does about sex as a pleasurable or titilating t…
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I'm seeing Yo and Oy as being inspired by Yin and Yang, a female principle and a male principle which oppose one another but contain an element of each other within. "Yin is the receptive and Yang the active principle, seen in all forms of cha…
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Makes no difference to me.