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BarnerCobblewood
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(Quote) Exactly. For me the book didn't seem to have considered this at all.
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(Quote) I'm not distinguishing magic from science, but from tech. Tech is premised on the user not requiring to care for the self - it works, no matter who operates it. See Mickey in Disney's Sorcerer's apprentice for an example. Magic is grounded o…
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@RichardAbbott I agree that the characters and individual relations were well drawn. And the biofeedback thing had possibilities, but I concluded that it was magic, not SF. One way I spot magic vs technology is that magic is personal, tech is social…
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Of course it could, but for me the world- and society-building meant that I wouldn't really be interested. Perhaps someone can tell me what the focus of the story is.
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I think this is why I became more irritated with the story as it progressed. I found myself incapable of believing that the characters in the story had no idea what inter-stellar travel and technology means e.g. the communications issues, computers.…
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Sorry @Apocryphal but I think you are being quite generous. They annoyed me. They weren't in dialogue, they were used as resources, but not cited.
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I thought it was a missed opportunity. This kind of bodily control is clearly a fantasy of many people, but it is presented as individual accomplishment, which raises the question, Where did it come from? Why isn't it widespread through the interste…
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It wasn't credible as SF / Fantasy because I think the novel is straying closer to allegory than world-building, but the variations etc. worked for the socio-political critique that the novel is a cover for. In other words, they weren't original, bu…
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Not really. I think the problem was that the exotic things filled all the same niches as they do 1) on earth, 2) on typical alien worlds. Like, there's only one problematic virus? The various biomes are just like earth? I think this was because the…
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I became disappointed as the story progressed. A bit busy now, and I'll say more later, but like @kcaryths I thought that it wasn't as tightly focused as it should have been, and thought that was because the main character wasn't established. For th…
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Also these people really weren't militarily powerful. They couldn't even invade or migrate into their neighbour's spaces, instead they were having trouble with people leaving their kingdoms, presumably because life was not very good. The idea that p…
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Does anyone know how widespread silent reading, and reading at all, was at this time in Europe? I'm under the impression that it hasn't really developed yet, and that literacy depended on the religious institutions. I've always thought these stories…
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> @RichardAbbott said: > Indeed this is a classic problem for a military ruler in peacetime - what to do with highly trained skilled and aggressive followers who have no "real" battles to fight. If you;re going to stop them just fig…
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Yes. We believe that de Troyes was writing Lancelot for a female patron. See https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/companion-to-chretien-de-troyes/chretiens-patrons/6B0CF28697C78852A8DA1F37BE63750B
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Yeah, I agree. I just find it fantastic, and part of what leads me to consider these stories fantasies, rather than say novels which seek to produce a greater similitude.
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People certainly take them to be relevant, which (like @Apocryphal ) is all that matters I suppose. I certainly don't see Lancelot as anything other than selfish. I consider Yvain a different kind of man in lots of important ways. @clash_bowley I …
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I think these are stories emerging from civilisational collapse in North-western-Europe. I think these remain relevant today, because I'm not sure that civilisation has been restored for these people. Are these people good, justified etc.? (Why res…
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Agree they were meant to be fun adventure romps, with a heavy dose of self-legitimisation, but I think the intended audience was quite small. I don't think we can draw much about the majority culture's thoughts on fun and adventures were. I enjoyed…
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Ready for Monday
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> @RichardAbbott said: > Right let's assume we're going for it, tackling the material @BarnerCobblewood outlined > > (Quote) > So... when would you like to slot this in to the sequence? Let me know what month you'd like to pick a…
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If love to hear @Apocryphal discuss the world building.
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@kcaryths Yeah, the issue around the format needs to be examined. There is no paperback of the book available. And it's not cheap even in ebook considering that you can read it for free on the website. It's an interesting development in publishing.…
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@kcaryths The novel seems to consist of the sections on the webpage called 1. Critical background reading, 2. There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm, 3. Interlude, and 4. Five Five Five Five Five by qntm. I say seems to because I haven't done an …
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It's more of that cosmic horror stuff.
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@RichardAbbott As I mentioned there is a novel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Is_No_Antimemtics_Division It's on the usual places: https://guardianbookshop.com/there-is-no-antimemetics-division-9781529953176/?utm_source=editoriallink&utm_…
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So I've started reading this web site https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/antimemetics-division-hub, and thought it might be good for the club. Found it because it is being published / is recently published as a novel. We could also read the novel I guess,…
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@NeilNjae Interesting. Doesn't sound like something I'd want to play, but I know some people who run their PCs in just this way.
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@NeilNjae That's interesting. If I'm understanding well both meters (hardened / failed) can only increase, and when they reach some value the PC becomes ineffectual. So it's a one way trip. Is that right? There's no mechanism to reset the meters?
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@Apocryphal I think you're right. Fear is of use, whereas horror has something to do with the realisation that nothing is of use. There's something about inevitability, and the realisation that the inevitable has not happened yet, that is related to…
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(Quote) That's a cool way of helping the table organise the role-playing. I might try that at my table. (Quote) It might be that we collectively are in denial. I'd say these are all methods to "avoid the void" if you like. Playing at horr…