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RichardAbbott
About
- Username
- RichardAbbott
- Joined
- Visits
- 6,095
- 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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After that the rota reads as April @Apocryphal May @NeilNjae
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Quick reminder that the selection for March is The Doloriad by Missouri Williams, chosen by @kcaryths . Still plenty of time for comments on Nada the Lily :)
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Interested to hear what others say but my feeling is that it would take a whole lot of research if not to end up with a rather simplistic arena for the game.
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My impression is that Haggard broadly speaking admire the Zulus and wrote highly of them (barring the overt cruelty of the leadership), then had the Swazis and a couple of other groups as a kind of second tier, then a whole bunch of other tribes who…
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As mentioned in another thread, I have been reading several of his books over the last few months and am enjoying them. I suspect that I'll want a rest from them after a while, and will then revisit at some stage - I don't think he's the kind of aut…
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I kept being reminded of Tolkien - we know that JRRT admired Haggard's writing and (so to speak) recycled elements of She into Galadriel. Here at the start of chapter 30 we have "All that is hidden is not lost" which it's surely impossible…
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Oddly enough I've been thinking about The Orenda lately and hadn't made the rather obvious connection between them until now. This for some reason bothered me less, perhaps because the cruelty in The Orenda was more prolonged and personal (and IIRC …
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Having read a few other Rider Haggard stories over the last few months I think he tries to create more roundness of character across stories rather than within them. This is (I think) because although the books aren't really intended to be read as a…
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I quite like frame stories - the usual problem is that it often gives away part of the characters' stories thus blocking future development. But in this case I don't think that happened, partly because the listener is not personally involved in the …
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How is everyone getting on with Nada the Lily? @clash_bowley when do you think you'd like to post discussion starters?
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A quick reminder that February's read is Nada the Lily chosen by @clash_bowley .
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Something else which occurred to me - this one's on a real tangent! A number of studies recently have indicated that there's a visceral and experiential difference between writing on a keyboard and hand-writing. In these, it is suggested that writin…
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> @BarnerCobblewood said: > Consider the discussion about dating over on the Discord - if that other theory was a only on a web page it would be considered crank science. But it is taken seriously because it was published in book form. It's e…
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> @BarnerCobblewood said: > @RichardAbbott I'm talking about books, print on paper, not fiction. We're reading this because it is a book, but how many of us read the book? Some of us seem to do most things on audiobook, I use an eBook for wel…
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I've not heard of it but happy to give it a go
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Same comment as for the "theory" discussion
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Interested in the discussion but I don't have any relevant recent experience to add
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The worldbuilding kind of felt to me like the most extreme form of space opera - push the stakes up until maybe the entire universe is about to be destroyed. Except that it then back off and (I think - I was kind of skimming by this stage as it wasn…
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Second part... I don't think there's any substantive evidence that books are in long-term decline? There certainly was a short-term blip during and immediately after covid, but the regular emails I get from Nielsen Bookdata indicate that 2025 saw a …
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Two separate thoughts here, the first about the book itself. I thought that it was a potentially interesting idea, spoiled by the implementation. I didn't get on with the writing style at all, I'm afraid - I like writing to have more depth and style…
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All: at present we have @BarnerCobblewood 's starters for Antimemetics in a few days, then February's read is Nada the Lily chosen by @clash_bowley . The current sequence has: March @kcaryths April @Apocryphal May @NeilNjae * any thoughts for th…
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Sorry not to reply to this sooner - I've been buried in a lot of work to do with the business and haven;t had much time for other pursuits. And having just finished the Antimemetics collection I strongly suspect that related points might come up the…
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I finished it today
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For completeness here are the links that @NeilNjae provided in the Discord channel; epub mobi
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(Quote) Sounds interesting, I'd like to hear more in due course :)
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Just a quick reminder that January's read is Antimemetics Division Hub selected by @BarnerCobblewood - the website is https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/antimemetics-division-hub - other formats provided by @neilnjae epub kindle mobi Discussion on Ammon…
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(Quote) I can see where you're coming from but am not convinced, largely because I don't think I understand your magic vs science dichotomy. The development techniques in this book were, surely, eminently social rather than personal, in that people …
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(Quote) I really liked it :) Specifically, I found both setting and development compelling and liked the particular spin on human development, especially that it was biofeedback-based and not drug-induced. (To be fair to Frank Herbert, the narrativ…
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Probably worth recalling that Ammonite was Nicola Griffith's debut novel - what would we make of Frank Herbert's The Dragon in the Sea if we read that?
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(Quote) I'm reading Hild at the moment but it's very long (well over half as long again as Ammonite) so I am working my way through it in easy chunks along with other reads. HF rather than SFF and I am finding it a fairly convincing view of that era…