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
- 11,779
- Last Active
- Roles
- Member, Administrator, Moderator
Comments
-
I'm also fine with either. I'm sure I read The Broken Sword a long time ago, but have no memories of it. _Piranesi _is totally new to me.
-
"Bustamonte sat in one of Aiello's black foam chairs. He had flung a black cloak over his shoulders, the Utter Black of a Panarch." This has to be one of Wolfe's inspirations for The Book of the New Sun.
-
(Quote) Sure, more player decisions make the game interesting, but combat also comes with more dice rolls, which (in many systems) make the gaming less interesting. For me, anyway, dialogue is where the real meat of gaming is, and it hardly requires…
-
Succeed in a singing contest to save your life. Succeed in a race to save your life. Succeed in gladiatorial combat to save your life. These are really all fundamentally the same, aren't they? The art (music, singing) in this case has nothing to do …
-
(Quote) Pretty much this is the main thing that separates a good setting from a bad one, for me. This is partly why I struggled with The Broken Earth so much, I think.
-
(Quote) LOL - in retrospect, so would I. I find this funny because it reveals a truth that hadn't occurred to me, and because it seemingly came out of the blue. Truth and Spontaneity - the essence of comedy?
-
I like this discussion about the nobility of art - maybe we can explore this again in other books?
-
(Quote) I thought I'd circle back to these because I find them interesting. For my part, the answer to the first question is probably 'no', but it's not that simple. I did run a funny game of High Strung. I did expect it to be funny, so in a sense i…
-
For some, the answer is to perpetuate human life. For others, the answer is to make sure they leave a meaningful legacy, to build something that will outlast them. Some want to leave the world in a better place. Others want to die with the most toys…
-
* In my experience, comedy in games comes naturally through play and improvisation. In one recent session of our game, one of the players (a military corporal) was given orders to accomplish a difficult task by another player (his commanding officer…
-
I was curious about when this book a written, because she made some very odd anachronistic references - at least one of which had me thinking "this book must be older than I though - nobody does that anymore!" (sadly, I can't remember spec…
-
Yeah, same. I noted the lack of plot. I don't specifically need plot - but when it's there, it does have to make sense. I'm not sure it did in this book, and I never really bough into the 'musical performance as a way to measure the worth of a speci…
-
Eurovision isn't a thing on my radar. I assume it's America's Got Talent for Europe - and as such it doesn't interest me much. Pop culture has taken a seriously wrong turn in the last 20 years, as far as I'm concerned. I also didn't find the book f…
-
Also, who knew Elrond drove a mini-van?
-
I dunno - both authors like to use more words than strictly necessary. Here's the category link for Space Opera, for those who like to set up notifications: https://www.ttrpbc.com/categories/92-%28september-2020%29-space-opera-by-catherynne-m-valen…
-
Category link for those who like to set up notifications: https://www.ttrpbc.com/categories/93-%28october-2020%29-the-languages-of-pao-by-jack-vance
-
I’m not sure there are unimportant things to say about racism, but I didn’t get that much from my surface reading of the book. But if the article is right and the main thrust is that racism is hidden under the surface and therefor easily overlooked,…
-
I had to time to listen to the book twice over, and on the second listen I noticed that there’s a LOT of foreshadowing with respect to Tehanu’s nature that I missed the first time round.
-
@BurnAfterRunning Are you a print only reader? (it helps to know when picking books - I myself do print and audio, but everyone has different preferences and we do try to keep them all in mind). There seem to be quite a few on Abe Books for less th…
-
There are lighter and heavier books, yes, but this has no bearing on how many reading speeds Apocryphal Chris has.
-
We definitely talked about Safir-Whorf quite a bit when we did Babel-17 by Samuel Delaney. But I also think it can up again in discussing another book - can’t think which one it was, though!
-
Btw, I can’t wait for the next instalment in this collection of books. Are there two more? The Other Wind has already been mentioned. Was the other a collection of stories?
-
Sounds terrible! Boughtenated.
-
OK - I read the article: https://tolkienaboutscifi.wordpress.com/2017/09/20/layered-themes-in-the-broken-earth/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CBroken%E2%80%9D%20is%20the%20Earth%20split,evolving%20identity%20from%20the%20beginning. It's a good article - enlighte…
-
What kind of racism were you hoping for? I guess you mean - you were hoping for more ideological depth? Honestly, reading more quickly made no difference to me. In general, I haven't found that reading slowly has changed anything for my appreciatio…
-
I think it's safe to come back to this, now. I can't say the last book changed my opinion of the overall work much - the main negatives for me were implausible and paper-thin worldbuilding and unlikable characters. The writing was mixed - at times …
-
There’s a discussion by game designer Ben Dutter about making a setting that revolves around the use True Names over at RPG.net: https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/worldbuilding-a-world-about-true-names.869413/
-
@BurnAfterRunning Discussions are nominally always held at the change of the month - this makes it easier for everyone to schedule their read. In practice, though, most discussions start a weekend or two after this, depending on how people have prog…
-
I've just heard it used informally as a nickname among women for a man who can't keep his hands to himself. Maybe its a north american thing. Unfortunately a story about an equestrian sex offender drowns out internet searches for it. In any case, I…
-
“Mr Hands” is a nickname for menaces worldwide - might that be implied here?