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RichardAbbott
About
- Username
- RichardAbbott
- Joined
- Visits
- 6,366
- 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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That's an interesting thought and I shall be intrigued to hear what people make of it.
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Oh! I'd totally missed the Wizard of Oz reference! I guess it's not a story that I know very well at all. However, on the plus side, the quote you started with is another recurrent theme, with BJ frequently drawing parallels between the story being…
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The stand-out one for me was what I mentioned in the Q1 thread, that everyone around Sarah projected their own presuppositions onto her, and they were almost certainly all wrong. I don't mind that she herself remains a mystery, though the novel wold…
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While reading the first 1/3 I kept thinking, wow this is really good. The main thing for me was the way everyone kept projecting onto Sarah their own preconceptions... was she a spirit bride? Mentally ill? A wolf child of the woods? An exhibit? A ru…
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(Quote) And in turn, Yesod is a Hebrew word meaning Foundation, often encountered in the compound plural phrase yesodei hatorah (foundations of Torah), and having particular reference to the Jewish mystical scheme of Kabbala - I suspect this latter …
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Found it thanks
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(Quote) Yes, definitely (Quote) At the risk of repeating myself, I think she is a really interesting character, and one who definitely increases ,my opinion of the Pellerines. For example "[the Claw itself] was only a flaw at the heart of the …
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I agree about the soldier not being Jonas: I'm not altogether sure why Severian would jump to this conclusion. In these chapters I was particularly admiring Gene Wolfe's ability to describe people of different cultures or habits of thought. So t…
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I stopped at ch7 but will hastily read ch8 as well :)
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Great!
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(Quote) Jonas surely has to come back, given the nature of his departure. Back with the narrative, I found it interesting that the Claw took a very long time to get the soldier back from wherever it was that he had gone. It was certainly not an ins…
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(Quote) Interesting to get your perspective. I read this a few months ago and found it on the whole disappointing. George Martin's clear forte is social structures, and for me the book shone in this area. Unlike Game of Thrones, where much of the fo…
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Apropos of nothing to do with the final chapters, I discovered by chance that Star Trek DS9 and Voyager used Autarch of rulers, typically imperialistic and unpleasant (see https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Autarch). Given the dates these were wr…
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(Quote) I'd not heard of it before but the Goodreads blurb and review comments make it sound appealing
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I still only get them for discussions that I have positively contributed to (hence my earlier "Commenting so I get notified of further comments" comment on the Slow Read 2020 thread. I can't find a way to register interest without actually…
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Commenting so I get notified of further comments
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I can't resist it... this is the end for Terminus Est :smiley: But it was a good way to go. Other things I noticed: Even now, Baldanders might not be dead... Severian explicitly notes that he has confronted challenges from all four elemen…
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(Quote) Should some kind admin person set up a thread to chat about that? Two things occurred to me as possibilities: 1) The Long Earth books (Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter) - I have read the first but not the others, and am aware that some re…
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(Quote) You're right - we all felt back in book/chapter whatever that that play was very meaningful, though IIRC most of our discussion focused around what history or myth Gene Wolfe was drawing on to write it, rather than how it might prefigure lat…
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> @dr_mitch said: > I did like the two masks of the cacogens. And it seems they know Severian will become Autarch? But yes, it's something where the significance escapes me. > It just occurred to me that some of the travels and meetin…
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For me, the main project is finishing my latest book, set in the universe of Far from the Spaceports, but a couple of decades on and with a completely different focus. It's called The Liminal Zone, 'cos after all you can never have too much liminali…
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I suppose it shouldn't have surprised me, but I really hadn't expected the promised giant to be Baldanders - after all we have met or heard of so many giants that I was genuinely surprised when it turned out to be him. The whole conversation betwee…
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(Quote) Yes, that helps, also someone's comment somewhere about how the subjective timeline of the actual traveller was simply linear in terms of their perception, though not of course in terms of their calendar lookups. not unlike "World leade…
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I realised reading the last few posts on this thread that I could not remember (if it was ever explained) how the specific target effect was selected - the individual in the chair had to identify a vivid memory, but I don't recall how that translate…
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> @NeilNjae said: > @Apocryphal said: > @NeilNjae We've never done Brave New World. > But, [Brave New World is] a good and classic book, so perhaps we should read it? I've been meaning to reread it all this year - it must be s…
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A great piece of speculative analysis! Seems sadly plausible to me. I wonder if the race to be the dominant nation would favour an individual leader or a small cabal? Also, on the basis that the universe tends to dispel any apparent advantage, I …
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(Quote) Hmm yes, fair point. But quite a lot of the book circled around the reaction of bystanders to the use of the chair, and in particular the first time that Helena witnessed it being done to a heroin addict picked up from the street. So, seemin…
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> @dr_mitch said: > At no point was violence or killing an actual solution to the problem. Sometimes it seemed to be, and made things better for a while, but then things always got worse. Except that the main trigger for the Chair to do it…
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> @BarnerCobblewood said: > I found the ending unsatisfying. I thought that it was simply shoe-horned in to produce a work of the 'right-size' to bear the price-point. I think you have identified a very common problem. It can happen both …
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I'm really enjoying this book right now :smiley: I think this section integrates in a very interesting way with Typhon, the link being made by the net. Typhon tried to snare Severian with a magical/psychic net and failed... the hetman used a reg…