Help offset server costs by donating. This is totally optional. Any overages will go to library fines or new books.
NeilNjae
About
- Username
- NeilNjae
- Joined
- Visits
- 1,828
- Last Active
- Roles
- Member
Comments
-
(Quote) > (Quote) I agree there (bit it's a worldbuilding thing rather than a language thing). The whole island seemed to have a single culture, just different warring "counties" within it. It didn't come across as being a collection o…
-
(Quote) I'd call it high fantasy. It's about the fates of nations, the whims of powerful sorcerers, and the capricious actions of the fairy. Yes, there's politics and the like in there, but they're backdrop, not dominant. There's also the tone of th…
-
I read it a few months ago. I enjoyed it! It seemed rather Asimov-like overall, in terms of language style, structure, and the science used in the plot. It was refreshing to read something that came from a non-Western culture.
-
By the same token, characters like Sauron fulfil the same role a serial killers in modern crime drama: they're so evil they're literally inhuman, so there's no need to reason with or about them; they just need defeating. The villains in Lyonesse, th…
-
(Quote) Indeed. What about those strands of hair the gremlins snatched from Suldrun's head the first time she went into the room? Loads of setup about it and nothing happened.
-
(Quote) A few things stood out for me. * One was (as mentioned in another thread) is the ingenuousness of the characters: characters generally told the truth, and just about everyone was trusted to be telling the truth. * Characters generally act…
-
(Quote) Is that a side effect of magic, or is it because of Murgen's prohibition of direct interaction in the affairs of mortals? However, there's no reason given for why Murgen prohibits magicians from such interaction, beyond a possible hint that …
-
(Quote) Thanks for the clarification!
-
Not sure if this needs its own thread, but can we talk about the sexual violence in the book? I'm struggling to think of a female character who wasn't raped or threatened with rape, and how none of those offences was taken at all seriously by anyon…
-
If I tried adopting the tone of the novels to a game, I think I'd lose players very quickly. "Let me give you unusual and powerful magic items, then immediately take them away. Let me give you a quest, then immediately make it impossible for yo…
-
As I mentioned in the fairy thread, I like how magic is presented in the book. It seems to have its own internal logic, but it's nothing like the logic of the Enlightenment and science. I'd like to know more about the "rules" of magic that…
-
The fairies were about the best part of the book for me. I liked how they had their own priorities, abilities, and limitations, and how they interacted at cross-purposes to humans. The same was true of magic generally: while it seemed to have its ow…
-
I didn't much care for any of them. Except perhaps Glynneth, who seemed to have some empathy for others. The main descriptor I'd use for most characters is "ingenuous". Not quite naive, but definitely straightforward and trusting. Was ther…
-
Oh, one thing to add about the writing style: it comes across to me as being a long-form fairy tale rather than something cleaving closer to a naturalistic retelling of events. Both the style and the events show the sort of simplicity I associate wi…
-
I was struck by the lack of any sort of driving force and, indeed, the lack of any real plot at all. This isn't a novel where people go and do things: it's a novel where random things are done to people. Most of the viewpoint characters spent most o…
-
I liked the Fae and how they were written. As for the land, I couldn't see the point of it. It was a generic, romanticised early-medieval England/France with some made-up history, right next to a genuine early-medieval England/France with real hist…
-
I've read the Planets of Adventure series a while ago, and this seemed to be in a similar writing style. But I've not read enough Vance to make meaningful comparisons with his other work. Bits of prose are put together well, but there's a lot of fi…
-
I read it a long while ago, and really enjoyed it. It's not a pleasant book, but it is a worthwhile read. Lord Valentine's Castle is great! The other two Majipoor books aren't as good, but still worth the read.
-
Another good book was Under a Pendulum Sun by Jeannette Ng. A Gothic tale of Victorian missionaries in the land of Fae. Took a while to get going, but once it did, oh boy. (And my appreciation was helped by some twitter conversations with the author…
-
Only be reference to the recent film, and the comments that the film is good but the book is better. Perhaps one to pick up soon?
-
The Falco books are excellent! They do veer towards a bit more soap opera than hardboiled as they go on, but you're more interested in the characters by then anyway. And I really enjoyed the book written while the author was trying to move house, ju…
-
I've read Ubik and didn't rate it much. I'm not overly keen on Clarke. I know nothing about the rest, but Ballard's reputation preceeds him. So, my scores: Vermillion Sands 3, others 2, Song of Distant Earth 1, Ubik 0. Not overly helpful, I know.
-
(Quote) I'll be interested to see what you come up with!
-
Sorry, I'm out of this one. I got 200 pages in and realised I was skipping over chunks of pages at a time. A book that was just not able to hold my interest.
-
Am I right in understanding this is also the October book, we're just getting longer to read it what with everything else going on at the moment?