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RichardAbbott
About
- Username
- RichardAbbott
- Joined
- Visits
- 6,175
- 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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(Quote) A similar background for me, but I'm not so sure. In a post-Einstein world, I am at total liberty to tell the story that my viewpoint does not move and everything else does - so long as I am also willing to pay the cost of vastly more comple…
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(Quote) That seems too narrow a limitation to me, though it's probably true that pretty much all allegory written in the English language is based on biblical material. Ironically, of course, very little (perhaps none) of the storytelling parts of t…
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(Quote) Totally agree - and also this is one of the major points of departure from the original Frankenstein, in which the creature kind of dallies with crime in the middle of the book but then turns away from it into a more remorseful state at the …
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I don't think that "allegory" is quite the right word - the pedant in me reckons that in an allegory you lose the sense that the characters are real people, and they are replaced by qualities or traits of some kind (the classic example bei…
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It's a topic that we have circled round several times in the last year or so - I remember a lengthy chat about it when we read The Orenda. Oddly enough I came across this article a few days ago https://lithub.com/between-fact-and-fable-historical-fi…
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It made me think about justice vs vengeance. Is justice always requiring like for like (ie an elaborately extended eye-for-an-eye concept) and if so what is vengeance? And how does either apply to a person who has carried out multiple murders - the …
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(Quote) One would like to think this was true, but I do wonder if it is. I have read that before both Iraq wars, the country was one of the most religiously tolerant in the world, which would support this. Whether that still holds true now is, I gue…
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This particular quote was something that stood out - there was an expectation set up from the start that some folk on the Iraqi side of the camp would be able to tap into mysticism and magic. But this assertion levelled the playing field - not only …
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I thought it was handled very well - on one level there was a huge amount of violence, but it was never graphic (even with the assembled body parts in Whatsitsname). So I never felt inclined to abandon the book because of it, nor that it was in any …
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I reckon this was a huge strength of the book, and a fascinating insight into what (I presume) Baghdad must be like. Like so much of the book, it was both witty but also full of profound sorrow - those distinctions used to mean something important t…
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I didn't feel that he got enough of a voice, or indeed enough individuality. I kept wondering if (and to what extent) the book was like the original Frankenstein, and concluded in the end that it really wasn't. Frankenstein was of course the creator…
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Together they depicted a city quite unlike any I have known, both in terms of its happier past and its more recent suffering. I thought they kind of represented facets of the city, very diverse and originally living in a kind of harmony, but no sepa…
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I was glad to have read it, but wasn't altogether sure what I thought of it! I went in not really knowing what to expect. I found it more built around characters than plot, which is no bad thing as so many books are basically just plot. And the char…
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Commenting so I get to see what others write...
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(Quote) I read it some years ago with mixed feelings (not that this is necessarily a bad thing). I like some of Ishiguro's work but not all of it - I thought Never Let Me Go was excellent, for example, in both book and film versions, and I very much…
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Me too
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Funnily enough the actual tree damage goes back to an Atlantic storm we had last November - Storm Arwen (also suitably LotR based, of course). There was lots of tree damage including this particular one. The National Parks Authority tried just putti…
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I hadn't heard of these books before and (accepting your caveats about the later volumes) the premise sounds interesting
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(Quote) Speaking as a bystander, wouldn't that be a problem in lots of areas outside specifically military ones? In a modern setting, most individuals can't just saunter off for long periods of time without life-consequences like losing your job. An…
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(Quote) Yah, this is why indie historical fiction writers feel aggrieved - the successful trad published ones like Cornwell seem to make shedloads of money by repeating a pattern over and over again through a series, while the indie guys and girls a…
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Adding a comment so I get joggled when other people comment!
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"A fun read which rattles along - don't expect too much character depth or beauty of writing, but just take it as it comes."
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Not a lot to add to wat @NeilNjae said
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There was also maybe a bit too much of Kirk's Enterprise vs Khan, with Spock saying "He is intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking." [Edit I think the Hornblower comparison is a really interesting …
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I thought this was a strong element of the book. I wasn't always sure that I understood where everything fitted, and wouldn't be able to draw an airship plan from memory, but I certainly got the impression that the captain and crew knew what was wha…
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It worked for the kind of book and what I think is the intended audience. So good for that, and I enjoyed the book on that level. But as mentioned before, I'd like to see a Steampunk book with a bit more depth to the writing, but haven't yet come ac…
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The two main characters, and the crew of the airship, seemed well defined and credible. I guess most of the others seemed a bit 2d, like the wicked and prejudiced general for example. The mum could have been an interesting person to develop more, bu…
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I'd expected it to be YA and so it was, so no surprises there. (For some reason that I cannot fathom, almost all Steampunk seems to fit here, although I'm sure the genre could lend itself to regular adult fiction) I had expected that the fussy nobl…
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All: I have added three monthly categories for Frankenstein in Baghdad, A Hero Born, and Ancestral Night, and set up the cover blurb for each. Now's the time to set up notifications for those who like to do such things...
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Here's another article talking about English translations of several of the books, and generally building a Big Picture of Jin Yong eg "in the Chinese-speaking world, has a cultural currency roughly equal to that of Harry Potter and Star Wars c…