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RichardAbbott
About
- Username
- RichardAbbott
- Joined
- Visits
- 6,360
- 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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Hello everyone and especially @Apocryphal - I have a feeling that our standard rotation means that I'm up for another choice somewhere before the end of the year. Am I right? If so, I shall start thinking about a selection... and as a seed question,…
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(Quote) Likewise
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Just finished watching it, definitely worth a view. There's a fascinating section about Tehanu and how it was both a pivotal book in her own development as a writer, and also extremely hard to write (and invoked criticism from some of her earlier fo…
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(Quote) Thanks for the heads-up... I did a quick search and seems it's on BBC4 for exactly four more days, at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000bh0x, presuming it's the same one called "The Worlds of Ursula K Le Guin" Interviewed guest…
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(Quote) With surface temperatures so low, I'm guessing that some at least would have a liquid surface. But probably internal heat keeps messing it up.
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> @WildCard said: > Once you become as powerful as a god, particularly one who has been controlled out of fear and controlled by fear, lashing out and murdering more and more and more people might not be unanticipated. I’d say even it was ant…
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Just started Tehanu last night and am totally enjoying the reread. Thanks for choosing it :)
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> @BarnerCobblewood said: > ...I did spend some time asking myself how it got published - the decision tree I mean. The combinations of genre-maps with identity-branding by publishers suggest to me that there is a closer relation to publishin…
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(Quote) Vanity Press refers to a style of publishing rather than a particular genre or style of writing. It used to be used as a kind of insult word by the traditional publishing industry, to suggest that if you paid enough then someone would publis…
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> @WildCard said: > I have my notifications turned on, but I have to manually select it when new discussions get set up. Am I going about it wrong? The notification system here is not intuitive to me. When a new area is set up, notificatio…
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(Quote) And after all that, neither one of them is actually dead at all...
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(Quote) There's an interesting resonance with Ged summoning Elfarran in Wizard of Earthsea - she's a semi-legendary figure being called into the real world. But of course at the end of the day Ged is also a character in the story, and there is no at…
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I don't feel this is the same as fan fiction - to me that suggests a work which is built around essentially the same world and presuppositions. So (for example) a novel which claimed to be Star Trek TNG fan fiction, but didn't in any way involve the…
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(Quote) Yes, I thought that was what this thread was about, and got confused by the straight historical fiction titles being quoted :) I suppose you could class most fan fiction in this category - there are lots of Star Trek and Stargate books out …
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A friend of mine (mostly online but we have actually met once or twice) writes naval fiction set in the 1880s/90s and frequently comments how fast naval technology changed. You could easily have (and did have in reality) a character who first entere…
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A few things here, with negatives first. 1) I had hoped to get some insights into Brunel in terms of the sub refit, but in fact it was all handled with a quick "he had done all the work", as though Rodman couldn't be bothered to write tha…
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I liked Nemo's voice, but detested Ahab's - I have read Moby Dick much more recently than 20,000 Leagues and I am convinced that it's nothing much like Melville's writing. For sure Melville has his digressions into apparently superfluous exposition,…
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(Quote) I get caught every time by the notifications defaulting to "off"....
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Like others, I thought the use of historical detail was good, especially the idea that some folk would have vehemently (and aggressively) opposed the construction of the communication wires. Definitely some contemporary analogies there. The basic…
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(Quote) Sorry, missed them, will catch up later today or tomorrow!
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> @Apocryphal said: > The Pastel City must have been a comedy - doesn’t make sense any other way. Before my time, I think 🙂
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I'm happy whichever of those two is chosen. I don't think we've had a political thriller for ages, and I don't ever recall a comedy!
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> @NeilNjae said: > I gave up on it about half-way through. It'll be interesting to see the comments. I thought it could have finished well before it ended :)
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I'm finished now
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> @dr_mitch said: > Le Guin's Earthsea books are very different kettles of fish to Always Coming Home. I love Earthsea. Always Coming Home I'm pretty sure I didn't actually understand, let alone come to a decision whether I liked it or not. …
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> @clash_bowley said: > I will not be with you. I just can't deal with leGuin. You'll be missed :)
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CamelCaps are TheBest, as many of us know...
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I'm really enjoying the concept and the plot, though the (to my sensibilities) rather overdone archaisms of sentence structure are something of an irritation. "The captain did go down the street" and such like. But I can get past that. …
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> @clash_bowley said: > I can't imagine what I WOULD expect - except the Spanish Inquisition! ;) "Nobody expects..."
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Looking forward to this... it's quite a while since I read it!