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NeilNjae
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- NeilNjae
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This was the "story" of a chunk of experimental archaeology, the historical re-enactment of a possible journey from Greece to Georgia. The Jason story was there as source material to guide that experiment. As such, I think Severin's treatm…
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I think this is a form of record that's best in a different medium! I found the book a bit dull: I wanted more immediacy than Severin's words could conjure. I was happy when I found the TV documentary on YouTube, as that gave a more vivid impression…
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Severin's account isn't a "story" in any meaningful change: there's no personal, internal journey to reflect the external one in the boat. The Severin that arrives in Georgia is essentially the same Severin that commissioned the boat-build…
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(Quote) I was thinking of going retro and reading Mirrorshades, the short story anthology that kickstarted the cyberpunk movement. It's online for free at https://www.rudyrucker.com/mirrorshades/
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I'm British, and I'd never heard the term "Gobbo" outside Warhammer. It was my first time reading the Burton translation, and it's definitely set up to make the region exotic to British readers. I'm not sure I could cope with reading much…
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Sorry, I was away at the weekend and didn't read the chunk before I left. I'll catch up.
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And another sign of the times: it didn't occur to anyone that the women may have been sterilized, or on hormonal contraception, or something else. It's a general issue. On the one hand, I like that Varley treats sex as something normal for adult…
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Another change missed could have involved the environment in Gaia. If it were less earth-like, the crew could have been physically changed to adapt to it. Maybe it is much colder, and the characters communicate by bioluminescent flashes, or somethin…
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We learnt about the reproduction of Gaia-things in one of the exposition monologues at the end. A seed grows into a ring around a moon, it puts down roots to extract matter to grow, and eventually pops off. This has been going on long enough that Sa…
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Given that Varley nicked most of the book from Ringworld, I think it should be easy enough to build a game on it. The obstacle will be information flow, so that it's not a case of the GM spouting exposition as the PCs explore parts of the mystery. B…
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It seemed rather contrived and there to set up the next book. Varley had done all that work into the mechanics of how Gaia worked, so he was going to get a return on it if he could! One thing that dated the book was the reliance on crewed explorati…
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This was a part of the book I liked. I thought the changes were interesting, and making them psychological rather than physical was an unusual twist. (But there could also have been physical changes as well, making the crew able to live in an non-Ea…
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I'm not a good one for picking up on writing, turns of phrase, and that sort if thing. That said, I think the writing here was serviceable if a little dull.
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Yes, it was another Big Dumb Object book. As you say, that's a fine tradition to join! But this book seemed just a bit too much like a low-budget Ringworld knock-off, even to following many of the same plot beats. As for the object? I guess we shou…
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Opening the novel with a sex scene was ... a choice. It certainly distinguishes the novel from the asexual stories of Clark and Asimov. This was a novel very much in the tradition of Big Dumb Object, so the characters weren't the focus of attention…
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(Quote) In my local group (the Milton Keynes RPG club) there are quite a few players who will make strong choices about how their characters will change, even over the space of a few sessions. In the game I'm currently in (Everway), one PC went from…
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Yes to clever women, but also a lot of women who are treated as no better than property than their fathers and prospective husbands. Disguises, yes, both deliberate (al-Rashid) and accidental (the three dervishes). Yes to stories and the power of …
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Yes, I also remembered the Odysseus reference just after I posted my notes. I also think that talking animals are a staple, but perhaps not ones as gifted or forthright as the talking bird in this one! As for the wrap-up, I think the introduction …
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OK, that all sounds good. And thanks for the comments on my notes. Let's keep to the schedule for a bit, we'll just post thoughts and musings as they come to us. But also, feel free to start threads on each week if you're ready before I am!
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On the one hand, this is somewhere the book could shine: hackneyed settings and plots often make for bad literature but excellent RPG settings, where everyone's improvising stuff and there's no editing. However, much of this setting is military age…
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There was the anti-progress slant, where the embracers of technology were all decadent wierdoes, but the "real men and women" of Virga were thrusting and assertive and heroic by being primitive. Or some tosh like that. I didn't get any mo…
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I'm not sure it really added much to the story. The only effect of the trip to the "visitor centre" was to prompt a complete reversal of what we thought Aubri's goal was. Again, I think this is somewhere the book fell between two stools. …
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I agree with the sentiment here. It was a setting that was trying too hard to mesh the hard SF ideas with the "cool vibes" approach of doing dieselpunk. If you compare this setting with some of the bizarre habitats dreamed up by Iain Banks…
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Aubri and Verena were the two most interesting characters. Aubri was a bit enigmatic and Verena had her own agenda, manipulating people around her. Hayden and Chaison were a bit one-dimensional and dull. Hayden's inner conflict, between hating the …
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I found it all rather dull, to be honest. I didn't particularly care about any of the characters, so wasn't involved with all the histrionics and angst over whether whatsitcalled nation was free or not. It was competently told and decently written,…
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Regarding Aladdin and his restraint: I think it's meant to be held out as a moral highlight of his character, that he continues to live modestly even when he could have riches. At least, that's what I think the author is getting at. I agree that th…
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(Quote) I'm most of the way through it.
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(Quote) "Members of the Hugos"? I'm not sure what you mean by that. The World SF Society doesn't have a great deal of structure or controlling officers. It has something to protect the "Worldcon" trademark and a process to shunt …
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See also the commentary from John Scalzi. It seems there was some pre-emptive censorship by the convention, which leaves a bad taste. I'm concerned about how the Anglophone SF world will further retreat from other communities. Not a good situation …
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I think we've rather lost track of the frame story at this point. These aren't tales supposedly to educate a psychopathic sultan, but ripping yarns to amuse in a coffee house. But I agree that there are a lot of tropes in this story that are very f…