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NeilNjae
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(Quote) Indeed! Having such a list of missions would be an important part of the game, as the rest of the fiction hangs off what happens with these. @clash_bowley , is the game available from somewhere?
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Relating this to gaming: how do you make this gameable without having things bogging down into endless fiddling around with numbers? Where's the gaming fun in maintaining the trim levels in an attack on an enemy convoy? Taking inspiriation from The…
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Military games are difficult for me, because of the focus on the mission success, and the chain of command. Recently I played a Star Trek game (where I was the ship captain) and ran a game of The Watch. In the Star Trek game, I tried (not always suc…
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I'm with @Apocryphal : I didn't notice it being particularly British, but then I probably wouldn't. I'd be interested to hear what people thought was so British about it!
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I found all the characters interesting and distinct, and well drawn. There were some good examples there of how to have a cast of competent characters, all good at their jobs, but still very much people. This is the sort of thing I find difficult to…
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I liked most of them, mainly because of how it affected the tone. It was somewhat a boy's own adventure book, but the inclusion of the fiddly engineering aspects kept the book a little grittier. Knowing that the characters had to keep in mind all th…
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Not much to add here, but would the "sub-culture" (groan) have been as apparent had we not seen alternatives? We start with Harry not fitting into the surface navy way of doing things, and we see how the Kiwi navigator slowly becomes accep…
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I didn't like the occasional wodge of unnecessary exposition, such as the several pages of the thought process of the ship officer, when he was deciding what to do about Harry request to transfer to submarines. The romance side story of Harry's gir…
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The idea of a close-knit community, isolated, and with a mission, is one that works. It's very similar to other military fiction, with surface ships (Hornblower) or "special forces" (Sharpe). The submarine setting in particular emphasises …
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I'm glad things are looking up!
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(Quote) I got the impression that Tirimo was a small but reasonably prosperous farming-based community, a town of around a thousand people. Similarly, Damaya was being held in a barn full of straw, and with room for various animals. The "villag…
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I'm somewhat surprised by the interpretations of Schaffa's "I love you" to Damaya. Damaya's been rejected by her community, even by her own family; Schaffa's removed her from all her possible support networks, says he's the only one who ca…
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Really sorry to hear that, Clash. Take what time you need, and I hope your wife recovers quickly.
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(Quote) Methinks you're not taking this entirely seriously... (Quote) Is it something to do with marking the imperial orogenes as separate, apart from the normal population? There's an element of clothing restrictions too: orogenes wear black, Guar…
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It's interesting that the slow read format is already allowing greater exploration of the book than when I read it first. In my first read, I got so caught up in the book that I didn't stop to think about anything that was happening. But by taking i…
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The Chapter 2 and 3 thread went up a couple of days ago.
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Just in case people have missed it, I've posted the first thread about the book. Further threads will be in the Broken Earth category.
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(Quote) That's an interesting parallel! Well spotted.
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(Quote) It was the culture aspect I was aim towards in the question. Obviously, things are changing: does one have a sense of what they're changing from? (Quote) It's "use of the sessapinae sense organs." I've no idea of the (invented) et…
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Related to this, someone on the Indie Games Reading Club slack posted this old StoryGames thread on detailed settings and story games. There's a lot of chatter, but there are some gems in there.
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Wasn't the enemy the "Savages" on their reservation? Reject the BNW order, and we'll all be plunged into barbarism like them!
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Very good! Thanks for drawing it to our attention.
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(Quote) Yes, it was quite didactic in style, and the racism and sexism is ever-present. But then, it's a book that's about how eugenics can make the world a better place. But I must admit, I'd not noticed the -isms either when I first read it, many …
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(Quote) I'm not so sure. I think there's some truth to the idea of the "metropolitan elite". I think there's a fairly consistent world view of people who embrace diversity and multiculturalism. But at the same time, and as you say, that ma…
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It was a somewhat provocative question. But the ethical choices brought up by the issue do seem to be good fodder for a game!
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(Quote) No, the Notes author thought less of the writing than Richard did. But they were being paid to write a book of notes and criticism about Brave New World, and that's what they did.
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(Quote) Deconditioned, or brainwashed to be unhappy and rebellious? Are the Jeshen doing anyone a favour by their re-education, or is the stronger moral choice to prevent the slaves from being created in the first place? And from the game point of …
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Another couple of topics that could be interesting stories in utopias: * Romance and relationships. People form attachments and pair-bond. Sometimes those relationships are wanted from only one side (many romance stories) and sometimes the relation…
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Not directly related to the question, but... I bought a book of "York Notes on BNW" and reading that criticism of the book was eye-opening. The notes author was a literature academic, and had no time at all for the ideas presented: that wa…
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My own opinion matches @RichardAbbott : range is needed, in both artist and perhaps audience. But even if suffering is needed, it too high a price to pay for art. A friend of mine has suffered a lot, and draws on that to make their art, as a way of …