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RichardAbbott
About
- Username
- RichardAbbott
- Joined
- Visits
- 6,283
- Last Active
- Roles
- Member, Administrator, Moderator
- Games I like
- Sundry, mostly board
- Books I like
- Science fiction, fantasy, some historical fiction
Comments
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Keen to hear what others say about this
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I would have liked more of this. It popped out a couple of times but was never developed in the narrative long enough for my taste.
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I thought this was a really strong point. I don't know enough about that region to know if the culture was accurately presented, but it was convincing to . I think it would be difficult in either Europe or America to find a group that had remained s…
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I thought it did very well considering the time it came out - sufficiently so that many of the points seem kind of obvious now! As mentioned in a different thread, although I wasn't convinced by the alluded-to theoretical underpinnings of technologi…
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I found her rather enigmatic, and never quite felt that I knew her very well - part of her was always hidden, which was an appropriate way to write her, I think. I was never quite sure how she would react to the next situation. I wasn't entirely sol…
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I wasn't persuaded by Air as a communications technology apparently based on hidden dimensions - I worked on such models back in the day, when they were collectively known as Kaluza-Klein models, and I'm not sure that the job of converting the rolle…
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I think the main message I took from it was the inevitability of change, and the sense that there was going to be an irrevocable loss of individuality. I admired the way that half the time one admired the villagers for taking on the global marketpla…
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I wasn't sure what to expect, and so I'm not sure if it accomplished what it set out to do! And indeed the end in some ways surprised me - not the flood, which was heavily signalled, but the aftermath with Air adoption. At some points it felt like i…
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How's everyone doing with Air? @kcaryths when do you think would be a good time to put up discussion starters?
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Still time to comment on Signal Lost and this is also a heads-up that August's read is Air by Geoff Ryman, chosen by @kcaryths
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(Quote) I guess if you're the Rebel Alliance you assume that anyone that the Evil Empire imprisoned is probably on your side...
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I think further adventures of... would be a poor choice with not a lot of good opportunities. The shared setting idea is much more appealing to me
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Yes I reckon this worked - their involvement began with the purely personal then gradually morphed into something bigger and more political. There's potential for getting a few more stories out of it I think
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Other than the aforementioned juvenile aspects, it worked for me. Except - call me weird if you like - I kept being perplexed anatomically! Would an alien amphibious creature, however appealling on many interpersonal levels, have sexual apparatus th…
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I couldn't decide if the idea of a cryo prison was inspired or crazy - I have always assumed that part of the purpose of prison was to force the prisoner to feel the passage of wasted time, whereas by definition this totally fails in that purpose. B…
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I thought the two main characters were well drawn (if a bit juvenile :) ) and there was enough variety and depth to the secondary ones that they had some substance. I guess the black vs white sides were a bit too sharply delineated for me, so for ex…
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Aha I didn't see this question when I burbled on with the first one. Yes the setting - both historical and spatial - intrigued me once I got used to the fact that although there was interstellar travel, this book didn't participate in it and the tra…
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It was interesting reading this only shortly after How to Find a Nameless Fae as although set in entirely different worlds they covered somewhat similar territory! I have to confess that personally speaking I liked Signal Lost better, mainly because…
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How's everyone doing with _Signal Lost_? @clash_bowley how are discussion starters coming along?
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and also the one for The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach.
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Discussion area for Air by Geoff Ryman now set up.
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(Quote) It's available in ebook or p/b from the UK bookshop.org site and Amazon
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(Quote) In the UK it can be obtained from bookshop.org and no doubt elsewhere
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Looking ahead to the next few months, the normal rota has: July @clash_bowley Signal Lost by Onyx Sullivan August @kcaryths September @Apocryphal October @NeilNjae then back to me. @BarnerCobblewood any time you have a title just let me know an…
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From a quick bit of research today none of his adult fiction suggests a response which is collaborative and community-based - apparently some books include short alliances of convenience, but these then crumble under further pressure, and leaders ne…
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(Quote) :D
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My impression from the UK is that there was a real urban vs rural style of response, which persisted afterwards because "rich folk from the city" who could work remotely bought up rural housing and were able to outprice "poor folk fro…
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I haven't read much of his work other than the Tripods series, which (as you probably know) is focused on a much younger audience. However, I do know that he got a reputation for writing a lot of books about how catastrophe might sweep over the worl…
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Discussion area for Signal Lost set up
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@clash_bowley let's go for Signal Lost by Onyx Sullivan this month if you're OK with that. I'll set up the discussion area this week