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RichardAbbott
About
- Username
- RichardAbbott
- Joined
- Visits
- 6,136
- 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 was very glad you posted the map as my (fairly old paperback) version didn't have an overall one, just a bunch of individual small-area ones as you went through. But the map itself struck me as kind of naff - it reminded me far too much of the kin…
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I have put up the discussion areas for the next two months, plus the usual blurb and about the author posts
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Over here it's available in all the standard new formats including Audio, and there are a number of second hand p/b copies... though they're not that much cheaper than a new one
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Hello again, I'm just checking that we all agree that the first two in the Murderbot series are 1) All Systems Red 2) Artificial Condition Ta
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As no dissenting voices I'll set up the discussion area for The Murderbot Diaries vols 1 and 2 in the next few days. I'm thinking Eversion for February - near-future SF with a slightly Gothic twist and it's a kind of "can you work out what's h…
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I'm happy with that, and don't know anything about them
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Did Temeraire do a better job of delivering the Napoleonic trope? In both books there are the analogues of the major battles, especially Trafalgar (Arabella book 2) and other similar actions - from memory Temeraire referred to the Battle of the Nile…
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(Quote) Spoiler alert: in book 2 the marriage, which seemed on the verge of happening, gets postponed and partially derailed, thus keeping Arabella as a single agent rather than a married woman and (presumably) rather more subordinate to her husband.
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(Quote) This made me laugh :) A good friend of mine who acts as a kind of beta reader for me is always saying that I should bring in more by way of clove hitches and the like, as he also appreciates that kind of detail. There's a passage in my curre…
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(Quote) Was that a game or a book?
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I could imagine playing this - probably in a similar way to how we did WW1 aerial combat back in the day, with aircraft (ships in this case) as little models on bamboo poles, and various types of manoeuvre permitted depending on ship type and crew s…
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Yes it did, with my earlier caveat about YA books and lack of depth. I'd like to see the same solar-system mechanics and ideas dressed up in an adult novel and reckon there's plenty of potential for this. The link with Napoleonic stuff was (I think)…
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I thought the way the ship-to-ship action was done was innovative - enough like actual naval action that you could get the drift, but with enough allowances for low gravity and 3d manoeuvring to add some suitable changes. The fleet action in the sec…
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I liked the idea of a mechanical rather than electronic AI, and thought he was well thought-out and presented in the book. Given how hard it's proved to get AI of a broad-based convincing nature working with electronics, I took the comparative ease …
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They were fine for the type of book ie YA - I often wonder why SteamPunk in general attracts so many YA books and so few regular adult ones? So here Arabella solves nearly every problem herself to the amazement of all the adults around her - how doe…
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I thought it was a nice fancy - I strongly suspect that in physics terms it would be very hard to make work, but that didn't bother me here, and I just took it as described that this was in fact the case. I rather liked the transferral of earthly oc…
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I don't think she is intended to be part of a "movement" as such, in that I didn't read any suggestion that she thought that women at large ought to have equal rights etc. It seemed to me that her wants and wishes were entirely personal in…
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Quick reminder... @clash_bowley is about to set up the discussion starters for Arabella of Mars For December @Apocryphal has chosen Shardik and the discussion area is already set up For January, @NeilNjae do you have any proposals? Then it's me in F…
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(Quote) The Lensman series is full of hot-shot space pilots who with steely eyes fixed on the visiplate and hands on the rocket controls fight a reluctant spaceship down from orbit to ground in the fastest possible time. Autopilots are either simply…
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(Quote) That was fun and thanks for the link - it's a short read and a fairly straightforward one. The usual theme of the time where it was taken for granted that a human operator would always outperform an automated or robotic one, and there's no t…
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Hi everyone, if there are sundry comments about The Ship Who Sang still to come then that's cool but this is a reminder that this month's read is @clash_bowley 's choice, Arabella of Mars, to be read by the end of the month. Of course @NeilNjae has …
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(Quote) I felt it was a theme based heavily on a US-style self-funded approach to medicine. McCaffrey moved to Ireland later in her life but was brought up in the US. It seemed to me as I was reading it that a European author might have approached t…
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I've been having a little McCaffrey-fest lately - I read most of the Pern series years ago so have not yet dipped into that, but have been looking at others. I find it interesting that she (like Andre Norton) co-wrote a fair bit with different auth…
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> @clash_bowley said: > Sigh... I was being technically correct, which is, as everyone knows, the best KIND of correct! :D
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The later books, many of which were co-written by Anne McCaffrey plus A N Other, often have a vague overlap, eg Helva is mentioned in one book in passing as someone you might meet. The space station brain central to a third book is in contact with t…
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Given the time of writing, I think it was a good choice to have a ship mind that wasn't an AI of some kind. That probably means that the core of the story dates less with the passage of time. The bits that show their age are, as @Apocryphal indicate…
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> @BarnerCobblewood said: > The book was nice, and easy to read, but like @clash_bowley I wouldn't go out of my way to read more. If I fell on it, I think it would be a good way to waste an afternoon. > > As I mentioned last week, I'…
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Helva thought of herself as mothering the large numbers of embryos she transported on one trip, though the story implied that nobody else agreed with her. One feature of her life is that personal maturity _couldn't_ come through sexual maturity, so …
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Hello everyone, as mentioned I have posted the discussion starters for The Ship Who Sang today, as we shall be on the road for a lot of tomorrow and then a bit tangled with grandchildren during the week. Please feel free to tackle them as and when y…
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I might put discussion starters up today or tomorrow as we're travelling Wednesday so just chip in as and when possible!