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RichardAbbott
About
- Username
- RichardAbbott
- Joined
- Visits
- 6,369
- 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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I'm easy with however we nominate books, and specifically would be happy to be in the rotation.
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(Quote) Sounds a great idea. I'll organise the hikes - with due regard for mixed ability! - and I have no doubt I can track down some craft beer...
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(Quote) I think the big idea was the transportation one - this ship has to trail-blaze wormholes by a difficult and dangerous method, so that everyone else can just chuggle through them. Makes a nice change to both "we all have warp drive so we…
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(Quote) I must have missed something :smile: I could not work out whether Toum had fired on his own initiative, whether he had persuaded his New Mother and/or others, or what. It felt to me like a random event. Surely the Toremi would at least have…
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Nothing really to add here but if I make a comment then I get to follow the discussion :smile: Probably just to repeat the obvious point that conflict can take other forms than just combat.
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I think this is probably the discussion where I will talk a bit more about my general thoughts on the book. First, top line, is that I liked it, and thought it was a great attempt to present a future world. Especially because as I mentioned before,…
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(Quote) Yup, totally agree. It's like the film cliche of the computer programmer working by rattling away on a keyboard at about 2000 keys per second, not looking at the screen, and never never looking up Stack Overflow or similar resources to find …
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(Quote) I'd have a minor quibble here and say that the crew are middle class, or at minimum artisans, rather than working class! They are all in their own way technically skilled and adept, and their off-duty likes and occupations fit with that. But…
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I didn't feel that I had any real sense of what motivated the Toremi, and they remained for me an inconsistent and unfathomable group (which maybe was the point?). So the earlier passages suggested that within a clan group then total uniformity was …
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I agree about the 'hard to summarise' bit. To me a few of the things that stood out were: 1) Hildegrin/the Badger has been trailing Severian for a long time, though we have previously had no clue about this 2) Severian is once again unclear about l…
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Hi all, just got back from walking Hadrian's Wall and part of the Cumbria Way so haven't contributed to this. Happy to go with whatever is the decision for August. I have never read either The Chill or City of Brass, though I remember enthusiastic c…
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I found several interesting things here. First, Baldanders. It is suggested that he is linked to the undine, as @dr_mitch mentioned. But also that he is Talos's _master_ rather than any other relationship. And finally that odd exchange "the doc…
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I'm about 1/4 of the way through and enjoying it so far. That's partly because some of the plot elements and background are similar to something I once thought about writing (except I was going to use quantum probability tunneling rather than wormho…
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@Apocryphal that's really interesting, especially if - as we suspect - Severian is going to display the current Autarch (Talos)
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> @Apocryphal said: > I think it would be interesting to map the characters to the actors in the play, ... I wonder, is the play even possible, given there are only five actors? I wondered that too, but never actually worked it through
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> @Apocryphal said: > Anybody else waiting for @RichardAbbott to explain the play? LOL I might duck that one ho ho. But naturally the dialogue and nakedness of at least some of the characters was intended to remind us of Genesis and the …
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> @NeilNjae said: > A stylistic point was how dawn and dusk are described: the sun is considered fixed, with the horizon rising and falling to expose or conceal it. I'm not sure what the wider significance of that is, beyond the mental mode…
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And, astonishingly, Dorcas is endlessly forgiving.
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I agree that the Jolenta episode was disquieting. Just as you start to think that Severian is becoming sensitive and admirable, he does something shocking or repellent. In that connection, one of the play's messages for me was that Severian is d…
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No cheapo deal for us UK types... but it's only £2.99 so no problem...
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(Quote) Presumably then the PCs might well communicate with each other and avoid the GM altogether... is this a good thing or a bad one? How many others here have played Diplomacy with the crucial role of covert negotiations (and acrimonious repercu…
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(Quote) That sounds cool... presumably in some futuristic setting you could have signals amplified by odd electromagnetics in a nebula, or on a bigger scale gravitational lensing. Your comment reminded me of a James Blish story I read years ago (in…
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What a splendid piece of research joining things up! Thanks @Apocryphal
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Of course the other strand I forgot was Dorcas apparently starting to remember the reality of her death
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Unless the process of becoming Autarch involves cruel and unusual modifications...
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> @clash_bowley said: > Ah! OK, @RichardAbbott! I read that last as meaning "The autarch at times spoke to the androgyne", figuring the androgyne was high up in the autarch's favor, and was betraying him. Another fascinating poi…
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> @clash_bowley said: > I'm looking for the Autarch and you are distracting me with Father Inire! :wink: Try the 4 paragraphs from "For a moment the androgyne stood silent again" to "The Autarch spoke to him, something I was…
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The character who - so far as I know - we have never knowingly met is Father Inire, who seems to be behind loads of stuff but as yet has remained mysterious
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Love the cartoon 😁
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Right, let's have a go. There's so much in these three chapters, only some parts being explained. The fundamental thing that emerges for me here is Gene Wolfe's extensive use of metaphor. We begin with the finding of the sword - at first sight a…