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clash_bowley
About
- Username
- clash_bowley
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- Member, Moderator
Comments
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It's both. I used to really like Saberhagen, and still own several of his books, but have not had any urge to pick them up for decades now, but I never was drawn to the Berserker series, and that remains true.
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I also thought that, but the one dimensional characters bothered me more.
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As I said in answer to the previous question, I used to be a fan of Saberhagen. He is a more than competent writer whose main difficulty was characterization. He would at times use simplistic one dimensional characters where he should have used more…
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I was a fan of Saberhagen as a young man, but avoided the Berserker books. I am no longer a fan of Saberhagen, but I wouldn't read any more Berserker stories.
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The worlds actually described seemed to be close-Earth-analogs, rather than anything different. No constructed worlds, no strange and marvelous worlds, not harsh and unforgiving worlds. His Federation to defeat the Berserkers made sense as a tempora…
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Very dated! As people point out above, it's SF by a cis white man about cis white men, for cis white men. The women were defined by their relationship to men. It's like "What were all the other people doing?" It was a product of his times,…
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Karlson's faith is indeed mentioned in narrative - in the Stone Place story. I thought he was far too Christ-like. Nogara was a boring simplistic EVIL man - evil in one way, evil in all ways. I didn't believe either was real, and I am a man of consi…
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Conversely I didn't care for the series of stories that start with Stone Place. I didn't care for those characters. I also didn't like Goodlife much either. The others I liked better.
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This was definitely an assemblage of short stories for me. There was no uniformity of tone and person that a novel would provide. It's short stories with a frame story, like 1001 Nights, not a novel.
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(Quote) Sleep? Sleep is for weaklings! :D
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I game on Discord twice a week - once in text and once via voice. I also game over IRC and face to face.
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Sounds solid to me!
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I have adapted Apocryphal's second idea: "The other playable aspect, I think, is to have the PCs be an alien team who arrive on earth to try and save their fellows on their decaying planet. They may or may not agree on the methods. Some may fal…
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I remember being totally drawn in - Bowie was spectacular as Newton - but utterly confused. How was Newton going to take enough water back in a space ship to make a difference for a planet? What the hell happened to Farnsworth and company? Why did t…
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Barner - that is exactly what I think is so compelling about the Bruegel painting - how life didn't even break stride for the boy falling from the sky. No one cared. It didn't touch them. That is the reality. It's all too big to care. Too many thing…
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Thomas Newton was a compelling character, though I couldn't identify with him and his problems. I felt sorry for him, but he remained alien. Bryce and Betty Jo were much better insertions for me. I could see things from their viewpoints much more cl…
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There were great changes in technology triggered by Newton, though they were not the changes that actually happened. They are intriguing in a "what would it have been like if technology went in these directions instead?" way, but what real…
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Whoa! I did not hear of this! Most excellent!
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(Quote) A two month read makes this sound much more attractive for me. I like the idea but the length is daunting.
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(Quote) Damn! Never noticed that! :D
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Made me think of Cities In Flight as well!
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I got no sense of place or time or anything. It the Grimdark Ages and it all must be bitter and sophisticated.
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Somebody should write a novel about Axl and Beatrice some day.
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It isn't fantasy. It isn't historical fiction. It's intellectual wankery and snobbish pretension.
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Like most current literature, it felt like it was written to address and play with themes and devices to explore those themes. The story was incidental and more a framework for hanging the themes and techniques for display that an actual story. It w…
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Most if not all sports have a very interesting and specific jargon.
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(Quote) I have been hard at work catching up on reading The Man Who Fell To Earth to lead my discussion... Dammit! Did it again! Wrong book!
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(Quote) Ha! True! I was thinking 'sexual partnerships' for 'family', and that is not at all true! Guilty!
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(Quote) There is some truth to this! This is why Toronto is used when filming many movies and TV shows as a stand-in for Cleveland or other generic big cities, Then again, when you see New York or Boston or Pittsburgh or Denver portrayed in fictiona…