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RichardAbbott
About
- Username
- RichardAbbott
- Joined
- Visits
- 6,146
- 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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Yes but I reckon the worker deserves his wages and all that :) It's a chunky piece of work alright
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(Quote) :)
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I also not heard of them, and assumed they were quite new, until I realised just how many there were in the series. The publication date for Temeraire is 2006, and the last one was published in 2016. Basically one a year, which is pretty rapid going
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Category added
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(Quote) I shall look forward to his thoughts...
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OK we've reached May 9th so while people are finishing chatting about The Jason Voyage it's probably a good time to start reading Mirrorshades On a related note, I have decided to go for Temeraire by Naomi Novik, first in a series of 9 ( :o ) books…
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(Quote) No, I agree it seemed quite ordinary. I wasn't that taken by the Lovecraft one either (and thought the connection was a bit tenuous). (Quote) Yes, it's an interesting one. I think you have to look at Christina Rosetti in her context as a mi…
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Mine too - I'd just forgotten about the train plus towing section to get Argo back from Colchis. My musing was mainly around the fact that in the original, the details and route of the return journey was not a matter of agreement between the differ…
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(Quote) That's a really interesting point - how does one get someone in a group of gamers to think of an outside-the-box solution? In fiction it's easy - the author has someone credible, ideally not always the viewpoint character, say "why don'…
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(Quote) Hm maybe I should tackle that at some stage - I'm thinking Brendan next though
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(Quote) Don't we all :D :o
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Another interesting area that Tim Severin (sensibly) glossed over was the return journey. His book was focused just on "lets get to Colchis and make some cool historico-archaeological discoveries along the way". But of course his account i…
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I liked the idea with the Clashing Rocks that the sudden changes in current and wind might well see like Athene giving them a boost at just the right time. But otherwise see my comments to another starter thread in which I ramble on about how at tim…
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I have broadly similar comments as @clash_bowley . The structure of the book was similar, with problems at the start finding a shipbuilder who knew enough to replicate the traditional mode of manufacture, the assembly of the crew taking care to have…
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I had mixed feelings, and still do. On the one hand, I really enjoyed the interplay between the two stories, in which Jason could indicate routes and stopping points to Tim (and conversely, when Tim ignored Jason to take a short-cut it ended up bein…
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I don't remember Freya Stark so that must indeed be Before My Time! Yes, I'd be interested in reading more such. In the Grasmere book club (which includes more non-fiction than we do, but with variable success) we read Nims Purja's Beyond Possible …
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I loved it - the blend of solving problems in the modern era while getting illumination from (and shedding light onto) the ancient world story worked very well for me. So yes, it was fun to read. I guess there's a drawback in story terms in that …
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Category for Mirrorshades now set up
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I'll set up the monthly stuff for Mirrorshades - I'm assuming it's the anthology edited by Bruce Sterling rather than any other book of the same name! If not please let me know before the weekend...
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Sounds cool to me
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Hi all, a few days until @Apocryphal starts the discussion off for The Jason Voyage, then in May it'll be @NeilNjae - any ideas for a selection yet? After that me in June (I have an idea but not certain yet) and @clash_bowley in July
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Cool That sounds fun, thanks for tracking it down
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You've gotta love a story that opens with there dwelt during times of yore :) A fun little tale told - as has been noted - in a very different style that Searle. But it made me wonder whether Asimov was familiar with The Arabian Nights - "a Hu…
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I'd never come across it either, so looked it up and found that it is an Italian term, with the only British use as a rough fantasy slang for a goblin... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobbo... but it does, apparently, mean hunchback
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Discussion area with blurb and about-the-author now set up
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I think it's @Apocryphal and I have a vague memory he proposed something, but I don't actually recall what it was
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> @clash_bowley said: > I don't think anyone WANTED to mention it. A very ugly incident... Yes, I agree that the characters would not have wanted to mention it... but why didn't the _author_ follow it up? Now I look back at the book it …
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Wow that is a seriously nerdy effort on somebody's part...
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(Quote) Very true... consider my question suitably modified... and I suppose this was potentially another way of separating April and August, though this particular way never got explored (in fact part of my original thinking was that the whole preg…
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Another thought about quite an early episode in the story, viz all the women in the group becoming pregnant and then going through a kind of back-street abortion. All in all a fairly horrific episode and I wasn't sure if we were meant to be more hor…