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Apocryphal
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- Apocryphal
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Comments
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We grow peaches in Canada, if that helps. :-)
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Yes, I meant to mention him. A man who takes his power for granted, maybe doesn’t even know he has it.
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I think the personal scope is the big one, here, and the idea of using role play to explore Power and how it’s used or not used, gained or lost, and to even question what ‘power’ means make for some very interesting gaming themes.
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Lots of liminality, in this book, for those enamoured of it. Is this a post-apocalyptic book? Ged has had a personal apocalypse. Tenar has too, hasn’t she? She seems so very much disconnected from her family and even her social circle.
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@RichardAbbott fascinating, as always. On the subject of naming, I think it mostly came up in the sense of relinquishing power by giving away ones true name. Much was made of the fact that Tenar knew Ogion’s true name, and both she and Ged seem …
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I think the status quo of women is portrayed here much more than the potential of women. It’s even pointed out by one character that political and magical power are the concerns of men, but that ‘nobody knows what women’s power is’. And I’m not sure…
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One of the reasons I love this book is it’s sheer domesticity, which is so very different from the grand deeds and high adventure of most fantasy. This is a nice change! We do get a little of this in the early chapters of The Lord of the Rings (whic…
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A lake in a crater on Ceres would be too small, I think (though of course, all the beings who inhabit the place could easily also be miniature). I’m attracted, too, to the idea of what a day on Titan might look like. A afternoon with an ochre glo…
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Wow - lots to think about. What is the ‘air’ made of? For this particular setting - which doesn’t need to be set on Titan, except that I fell in love with the name Kraken Mare - I was thinking more along the lines of a sword-and-planet vibe. The…
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Good idea.
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I finished it - not sure who else is reading it. Maybe @WildCard ? For those who, like me, didn't care much for the first two books - the third books doesn't break form, but it does have a very nice little end with a redemption and an afterword by t…
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@clash_bowley is October, followed by @dr_mitch in November. The coveted December slot falls to @RichardAbbott . A book adapted to film is fine. We did The Martian a few years ago, and The Hobbit, and Roadside Picnic. A number of books we read re…
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Ok!
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Welcome @BurnAfterRunning! We’re just about to discuss Ursula Le Guin’s Tehanu. And our next book is Space Opera, a pick by @NeilNjae (for which we need an intro post to pin up, btw, Neil) to be discussed at the end of September.
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I’ve heard people disparage Tehanu, but I never really got why. A friend of ours gave it a ‘2’ on Goodreads.
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Yep. You’ll never get that one back.
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Would a collapsing disk of gas even have a surface? Or would it be a liquid surface?
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I'm halfway through the last book now, myself (in case anyone's up to discussing it later).
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Finished. I’ve got time to read it again! I still love this book.
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I’m not sure if the concept changes depending who the characters are, though. The concept here is “Captain Nemo meets Captain Ahab in a battle for the soul of the 19th C.“ (which, btw, didn’t happen in this book). The high concept for Thackeray vs Z…
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> @NeilNjae said: > (Quote) > And while I'm here, I'm all for the club trying out new and different books. If you don't experiment, you don't stumble across new gems. Yes, there will be some misses mixed in with the hits, but that's what …
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I quite enjoyed the book, despite considering all of the criticisms quite valid. I did rather enjoy some of the writing passages, and I did have fun looking for deeper meaning from the text (maybe I invented it?) But I shall certainly think twice be…
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@clash_bowley As long as were not exceeding the vacuous post quotient, I think its fine.
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I don’t even use notifications. I just check in daily and new activity is highlighted for me, no matter which thread it’s in.
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Right. And now I’m reminded that I had flagged a short story collection called _The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_ on Audible.
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Good call on the Tim Powers books - Philby definitely didn't cavort with genies on Mount Ararat! I'm not as convinced by Wolf Hall or the other historical fiction mentioned. Of course, Wolf Hall used historical characters, but it used them to tell t…
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Further to this - now that I have time and my book handy - I particularly enjoyed how the author brought Ahab to life. He used Ahab's voice, but Melville's style of inserting digressions. Ahab is an irascible figure, like an old Clint Eastwood chara…
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More on this: The last paragraph of chapter 51 - Ahab's death scene. (Quote) I feel this is the heart of the novel. This, and two pages later, the dead eyes of Ahab meed those of Nemo as they descend to their supposed deaths. (Quote) Is that how w…
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I agree the denouement was too long. Why did he want to narrate the end of all the characters - even some of those who had just had ends. The Paris section was obviously there to say that Nemo survived and, I suppose, joined the Communards in Paris,…
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I think what he's trying to get at here is how the momentum of the industrial and scientific age callously sweeps away what was before - Here we have the empire (and its military action made possible by the telegraph) sweeping away the Princely Stat…