What Is Being Read

[Simon_Jester]

The draw of any immensely long series of anything is that, once you've found a character you are comfortable with, having them remain more or less unchanging while moving through a series of adventures can be appealing. There's interest in thinking "Gee, I wonder how Captain Jones will deal with this," where Captain Jones is basically a constant and "this" is a variable.

This doesn't require that Captain Jones be a one- or two-dimensional character (although it can happen).

In most novels or even trilogies, character evolution, as measured per book, is nontrivial. Should you ever reach a zone of comfort where you don't particularly want to see a character evolve, the massively serial work (TV, comic, novel, magazine serial) has advantages.

[Imperial Overlord]

Lev Grossman? Any relative of the great and terrible Vassily?

Apparently not.

[Crazedwraith]

Now there's actually an interesting subtopic; mainstream, if the concept still exists, writers who have dabbled in science fiction, and how well they did. Calvino comes close at times, does Borges count? (Who do I need to see to get a job as a Tlonist?) What does science fiction written with all the normal conventions and ellipses thereof of mainstream literature look like? Pynchon? Thomas Vollman? Mieville? Davfid Zindell? Eco?

Doesn't Iain (M) Banks count for this? He did equally well as a mainstream author and as a science fiction one. Though I recall his later mainstream ones were considered pretty science fictiony in his own right. So that's probably not what you were looking for.

I remember either reading or hearing him on the radio saying that mainstream fiction was quite easily because you just had to bolt together plotlines and characters and so on whereas to write science fiction you had to have actual creativity, which I thought was interesting.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Banks was almost too obvious to bring up; but the way his writing later went is what makes me think about this- we should be long past the whole two-cultures thing, but are we really? I don't think it's that simple; really good mainstream fiction is partly a matter of hiding the joints and boltheads, quality is a matter of grace of execution, telling the same old story perhaps but doing it well;

and for good science fiction he may be right, it is about new stories, but how much bad SF is there out there? Entire genres of sixguns in space, historical incidents with the serial numbers filed off, (which can be done well or very very shoddily indeed), things the author saw in a movie?

One thing I did get for Christmas and am currently boggling through is Chad Orzel, again, this time How to Teach Relativity to your Dog- and it is turning out to be seriously scary, in a very humiliating kind of way. It is making it painfully obvious just what cargo cultists the overwhelming majority of science fiction writers are, (shades of the Feynman lectures here,) and how little most of us who pick up and try to juggle with these things really know.

A large part of science fictional creativity, on that account, may simply be being too dumb to know better- for instance, as much as I love his work, and I have pretty much the complete set of everything he wrote for publication, Philip K. Dick was seriously hazy on the subject of physics, mechanics and all things material. Willing to play with any idea, because he didn't know what couldn't be done?

I'm starting to model the situation in terms of weak borders and a broad and lumpy debatable land between the two, full of mainstream writers getting bored and deciding to be experimental (Who was it who actually coined the phrase 'magical realism'? Rushdie? There's a fabulist strand in european literature that goes back to the invention of the modern novel at least,) and science fiction writers in search of sales figures trying to polish up enough to go straight- and also trying to beat the snotty litterateurs at their own game.


On the subjects of comics and things- I might as well admit that from my computer chair I can squint past the monitor and see a four foot stack of 2000AD trade paperbacks looking back at me. Not old enough for a mid life crisis and already into second childhood... I used to have that kind of dismissive attitude towards comic books (still do towards most American comics, for that matter), but sometimes you don't need intellectual exercise, you just need to jog along- just need comfort food for the brain.

Oh, and a mad notion in terms of the reviews of imaginary books that Stanislaw Lem used to do; Marcel Proust's The Remembrance of Things to Come- how would that read, if it existed? If one of the most hyper- literary of literateurs had attempted science fiction in the same excruciating minor detail as he turned on the world of the experiencable? Just a thought...

[Ziggy Stardust]

I remember either reading or hearing him on the radio saying that mainstream fiction was quite easily because you just had to bolt together plotlines and characters and so on whereas to write science fiction you had to have actual creativity, which I thought was interesting.

That's an idiotic statement. Sounds like Mr. Banks just has his head up his own ass. It's like saying that Robert Rauschenberg was "more creative" than Vincent Van Gogh, just because his paintings were weirder. It betrays a fundamental ignorance of literature as an art form.

I don't think it's that simple; really good mainstream fiction is partly a matter of hiding the joints and boltheads, quality is a matter of grace of execution, telling the same old story perhaps but doing it well;

No, mainstream fiction is just as much an act of creativity as science fiction. Why does "creativity" necessarily mean their have to be spaceships and such? How about a recent prize-winning novel: "We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves" by Karen Jay Fowler. It is a non-linear novel about a girl who was raised with a chimpanzee for a sister; it is a completely original story, with lots of interesting structural and formal experimentations, that acts as a commentary on the nature of memory and the act of story-telling in and of itself. Just because the chimpanzee wasn't a robot or something, it suddenly becomes a "less creative" piece of work?

A large part of science fictional creativity, on that account, may simply be being too dumb to know better- for instance, as much as I love his work, and I have pretty much the complete set of everything he wrote for publication, Philip K. Dick was seriously hazy on the subject of physics, mechanics and all things material. Willing to play with any idea, because he didn't know what couldn't be done?

Well, Philip K. Dick is an interesting case. For one thing, he was completely and utterly insane. And I mean that in a very literal sense. For another thing, his novels essentially used these science fiction settings as parables to explore elements of human nature. They weren't meant to be "hard sci-fi". Whether or not Dick was "hazy" on physics is irrelevant; he was simply uninterested in constraining his narratives with reality.

I'm starting to model the situation in terms of weak borders and a broad and lumpy debatable land between the two, full of mainstream writers getting bored and deciding to be experimental (Who was it who actually coined the phrase 'magical realism'? Rushdie?

Ha, no, not Rushdie. Rushdie was nowhere near the first mainstream writer to be experimental. The term "magical realism" far predates Rushdie by several decades, and experimentation in mainstream literature far predates "magical realism." By several centuries, as a matter of fact. Literature has been a focus of experimentation essentially since it's very inception; look at "Don Quixote", written in the early 17th century. If a work like that were to come out today it would be termed "postmodern".

Oh, and a mad notion in terms of the reviews of imaginary books that Stanislaw Lem used to do; Marcel Proust's The Remembrance of Things to Come- how would that read, if it existed? If one of the most hyper- literary of literateurs had attempted science fiction in the same excruciating minor detail as he turned on the world of the experiencable? Just a thought...

I'm a bit confused as to what you are saying here. Are you asking what if Proust had decided to write science fiction? I very much doubt it would be very different from the other science fiction works produced by more "mainstream" literary figures. For example, I highly recommend you look up E.M. Forster's "The Machine Stops."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

This is an excellent reason why the old thread went fallow, now I think of it- because it goes from sharing to shit-slinging far too easily and quickly, as one upmanship becomes the name of the game, the only point being to score points off each other, and all it takes is one pompous ass to reduce it to a joyless experience.

[Ziggy Stardust]

How on earth did you interpret my post as "one upmanship" or "shit-slinging"? Most of it was simply directly answering questions that you asked in your post.

[Simon_Jester]

That's an idiotic statement... It betrays a fundamental ignorance of literature as an art form...

...No, mainstream fiction is just as much an act of creativity as science fiction. Why does "creativity" necessarily mean their have to be spaceships and such?

...Ha, no, not Rushdie. Rushdie was nowhere near the first mainstream writer to be experimental...

I am not saying that any thing you said was objectively wrong. But surely one can pause and realize why the tone of the post might be taken as "shit-slinging."

It takes a very determined person to keep sharing things that they have experienced, brainstorming to come up with new and creative ideas, in the face of negativity and hostility. Many people either lack this determination, or choose to channel it into other areas of their lives where it can do them some direct good rather than spending it on their leisure time.

When one disputes much and adds little, one risks snuffing out the actual discourse.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

I came by that interpretation very easily, considering how selective the answers were. For instance, the rest of that partial lift;

I'm starting to model the situation in terms of weak borders and a broad and lumpy debatable land between the two, full of mainstream writers getting bored and deciding to be experimental (Who was it who actually coined the phrase 'magical realism'? Rushdie? There's a fabulist strand in european literature that goes back to the invention of the modern novel at least,) and science fiction writers in search of sales figures trying to polish up enough to go straight- and also trying to beat the snotty litterateurs at their own game.

Now, by replying

I'm starting to model the situation in terms of weak borders and a broad and lumpy debatable land between the two, full of mainstream writers getting bored and deciding to be experimental (Who was it who actually coined the phrase 'magical realism'? Rushdie?


Ha, no, not Rushdie. Rushdie was nowhere near the first mainstream writer to be experimental. The term "magical realism" far predates Rushdie by several decades, and experimentation in mainstream literature far predates "magical realism." By several centuries, as a matter of fact. Literature has been a focus of experimentation essentially since it's very inception; look at "Don Quixote", written in the early 17th century. If a work like that were to come out today it would be termed "postmodern".

first, beat you to it- you were making a point I had already covered. Choosing to carry on as if I had not, and trying to score on that basis? I cannot find an explanation for that that is both obvious and honest.

[Imperial Overlord]

Finished Glen Cook's Sung in Blood. A fairly tight action/intrigue story about the wizard protector of a powerful city-state getting assassinated and his son stepping into his shoes. What follows is a high stake cat and mouse game between Rider and his crew and the conspiracy that killed Rider's father. The story seems to be from early on in Cook's writing career, with elements that would be incorporated in his Dread Empire series. All and all a good, quick read.

[Simon_Jester]

Rereading Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber series.

Recently I saw it suggested that in the early scenes* dealing with Flora, she's actually a lot smarter and more in-control than Corwin believes. So keeping an eye out for that made things rather interesting.

*Where Corwin, the protagonist and narrator, who is totally amnesiac, manages to bluff his way into getting others to help him stage a nearly-successful coup attempt against his older brother who holds the throne...

[Ziggy Stardust]

When one disputes much and adds little, one risks snuffing out the actual discourse.

The "idiotic" part wasn't even directed towards someone in this thread, it was directed towards the comments of Ian Banks, as someone else quoted him. And I don't see how you can interpret my post as "disputes much" but "adds little". It's not like the only thing I said was "dur dur stupid". I made a clear and cogent point. And for the life of me I don't understand how you can possibly interpret the questions as I asked as being somehow "shit-slinging" in tone.

It takes a very determined person to keep sharing things that they have experienced, brainstorming to come up with new and creative ideas, in the face of negativity and hostility. Many people either lack this determination, or choose to channel it into other areas of their lives where it can do them some direct good rather than spending it on their leisure time.

I wasn't being argumentative or contentious in any way, I was contributing as I could towards the on-going discussion on the differences between science fiction and "mainstream" literature. Nothing I said was hostile towards the people posting in this thread. I was trying to further and continue the discussion, including correcting what I saw as misconceptions.

first, beat you to it- you were making a point I had already covered. Choosing to carry on as if I had not, and trying to score on that basis? I cannot find an explanation for that that is both obvious and honest.

What the fuck are you talking about? I wasn't trying to "score" (whatever that means). And I wasn't choosing to carry on as if you had not. I was continuing to elaborate on the point, and directly answering the questions you asked.

Seriously, YOU ASKED A QUESTION. I answered it as best as I could. And you for some reason get offended by that and accuse me of being dishonest?

I'm the only one here that was actually trying to carry on a discussion about the nature of creativity and the relationship between science fiction and mainstream literature. I honestly and clearly explained my opinions on the subject, and cited a number of authors and examples. I disagreed with what I viewed were misconceptions, and clearly explained why I thought differently. I didn't insult anybody in this thread; the only thing I said that was even remotely "shit-slinging" wasn't even directed at somebody in this thread, it was directed towards the comments of Iain Banks (and, again, I didn't just "shit-sling", I also clearly explained why Banks' position is wrong).

Instead of continuing the discussion, you (for reasons that I cannot fathom) somehow get incredibly butt-hurt, project some bizarre nonsense about me trying to "score points", and then accuse me of being outright dishonest. You are the one that went out of your way to make this issue somehow personal, and interpret it as some sort of debate where we are trying to score points. That you have your head so far up your own ass that you can't possibly imagine that I can provide my opinions on the subject of Salman Rushdie (and everything else) without it somehow being an attempt to argue with you or curry favor with an imaginary audience that's your dysfunction, not mine.

You don't appear to have any genuine interest in discussing the topic, or else I can't imagine why you would act with such incredible animosity towards me providing my own opinion on the issue. All you have done is ignore everything I have posted just to whine about the fact that I posted at all. Ironically, in a thread in which you openly wonder why the previous discussion had died you go out of your way to kill the dialogue I was trying to have with you. If you want to grand-stand your own opinions on things without listening to anyone else, I'll leave the thread. If you want to actually have a discussion, stop whining that other people also have things to say, and don't get incredibly butt-hurt over some imagined slight and throw a tantrum and declare the thread dead like you did here.

[Simon_Jester]

When your response to a couple of paragraphs of speculative meandering starts, almost literally, with "haha, no, you're wrong," and you wonder why people think you're trying to shit-sling, it really does strike me as a bit confusing.

Would this seem hard to understand in casual everyday conversation? If someone said "I wonder what country was the first to enact an old-age pension system... Britain?" and you said "Haha, no, Britain was nowhere near the first country to do it," and the other person took offense at your tone and felt like you were trying to score points by denigrating their intelligence and making them look stupid... would you really be that surprised?

If you are interested in discussing the topic, it is wise to not throw in gratuitous insults. Yes, yes, "grow a thick skin." But nobody should really be surprised if intelligent people lose interest in talking to someone who finds ways to call people stupid by implication in every paragraph. My view is, save it for the actual trolling bozos who have proven themselves too thick to get the message.

[Tychu]

Sword of Truth series. There are times however where I say, I wish I was reading Star Wars. Gives a Star Wars in Middle-Earth vibe

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

IO, I've been meaning to read more Glen Cook on the basis of your consistent recommendations; finally got around to buying an omnibus of the first three in the Black Company series, haven't had time to read them yet.

One of the reasons I've been putting it off so long is that I keep reading about the real world equivalent- my historical pet projects for this year have been the Thirty Years' War, the last and largest war in which mercenaries played a major role, and Byzantium; it is not merely an adjective, and to be honest one of the things that puts me off the whole intrigue subgenre of fantasy is that in the real world this is actually a fairly good way to destroy a nation from within, or at least reduce it to a ground state in which it is ready to come apart at the slightest external pressure.

On the thirty years' war, an intended quartet with two volumes complete and a third due, Weaponsmith and Queen's Pawn, Mike Crawshaw, and I cannot resist quoting from the author's note;

"The soldiers portrayed here are, in their own view of themselves, friendly, normal, even pleasant human beings. Within their own closed society, that assessment is quite plausible, despite the fact that their raison d'etre is killing people and breaking things outside their own circle. In the view of the civil population, however, the soldiers are objects of fear and loathing, given to extremes of violence under minimal provocation."

Simon, this is also the main reason I've never got very far with Amber- to be honest I only really know it through the roleplaying game, one of the very few functional 'diceless' systems- there's a finite limit to how many backs can be stabbed before the whole setup comes apart, before people stop trusting each other enough to work together and mere anarchy, etc etc, centre cannot hold etc, which I suppose is one of the places the fantasy comes in; the improbable lack of fear of the people and resilience of the system. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop; for the metaphorical fourth crusade to arrive and the disaster to become complete. I'm not sure I like Zelazny so much as respect his writing; but...

Thank you for that backup, by the way.

Tychu, that is also one I've been avoiding for years- the only Terry Goodkind fan I actually know is a black metal band manager whose backup career plan is to open her own dungeon. You can see why I'm a bit shy of having much to do with the actual books.

[Imperial Overlord]

IO, I've been meaning to read more Glen Cook on the basis of your consistent recommendations; finally got around to buying an omnibus of the first three in the Black Company series, haven't had time to read them yet.

One of the reasons I've been putting it off so long is that I keep reading about the real world equivalent- my historical pet projects for this year have been the Thirty Years' War, the last and largest war in which mercenaries played a major role, and Byzantium; it is not merely an adjective, and to be honest one of the things that puts me off the whole intrigue subgenre of fantasy is that in the real world this is actually a fairly good way to destroy a nation from within, or at least reduce it to a ground state in which it is ready to come apart at the slightest external pressure.

Not all of Glen Cook is good, but he's been writing since the 70s so he has a large body of work. The problems with a weak state and a strong mercenary are touched in some of the books. The books are, however, told from the perspective of a member of the mercenary brotherhood so the problems are engaged from their perspective, including the happy-fun issue of power shifts between their patron and his rivals and the consequences for the company of said shifts. The Limper is not a nice man.

Also, stay the fuck away from the Sword of Truth.




Tychu, that is also one I've been avoiding for years- the only Terry Goodkind fan I actually know is a black metal band manager whose backup career plan is to open her own dungeon. You can see why I'm a bit shy of having much to do with the actual books.[/quote]

[Ahriman238]

Just finished Small Gods a couple days ago. One of the Pterry books I've heard good things of but never read before. Now working on the opposite end of the mood spectrum with a Horus Heresy novel, Know no Fear.

Also from the Christmas gift pile, the Second Book of Swords, the Dark Lord's Handbook, and the Mistborn trilogy. All of which I'll get to eventually. I wonder what it says about me, the people around me, or my relationships with these people that these are what gets picked.

[Soontir C'boath]

I am currently on a fantasy route (though I am noticing some of you posting fantasy books anyway), but the last sci-fi book I read was "The Life Engineered" by J-F Dubeau which I thought had a pretty cool take on robotics and AI, and their role in their universe.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

I picked "the life engineered" up on the strength of that recommendation; it looked like where I was trying to take my faction in SDNW4, actually, so I want to see how it plays out. There is a small subgenre of the like, what do the robots do when the humans have gone away, is there not- Stross took a couple of cracks at it, in a way which suggests the machines have inherited much of the worst of humanity. Stanislaw Lem's Cyberiad has to be the highlight of the genre, simply for the wit and humour of it.

Ahriman, look at it this way- you have people around you who know what you're like and they still give you Christmas presents. I have read the dark lord's handbook, and I'm not sure I could pass on the recommendation- you can see what the writer was trying to do and why it seemed like a good idea at the time, the problem is that it quickly gets away from him and he seems to be determined to tell the story he wanted to write despite it's internal logic pointing in other, strange and lumpy ways; more ambition than execution, not enough preplanning, by the smell of it.


IO, some things may actually make better stories as television- Goodkind (a truly misnamed being)- from what little I know of his books, they practically cry out for a Laundry crossover where various innumerate posers are shown the true potential of efficient, computationally rendered algemancy. (or nuclear fusion, whichever comes first.) On the other hand they gave us Tabrett Bethell in a red leather catsuit, so swings and roundabouts there.

Some writers do enjoy torturing their characters, it seems to have been particularly big in the eighties (a reminder that the word "fantasy" can have many meanings)- a phenomenon with multiple roots? Subcultures bidding for respect, backlash against goody-two-shoes heroes, mainstream pushing the boat out? How quickly does edgy become creepy, and from there descend to overdone and passe?

And when you come right down to it, the conspiratorial/mercenary scene full of shady badasses hurting people for dubiously sufficient reasons, the whole Yeats inspired bit- ignorant armies clashing by night and all that- isn't actually a million miles away...


Oh, and a fresh one- Ejner Fulsang's SpaceCorp, supposedly volume one of a series- guy's a NASA tech writer, so may know something of what he's talking about; although like much that assumes any kind of space initiative in the near future it may actually qualify as political and economic fantasy, he basically stands the Kessler phenomenon on it's head and uses it to justify space stations. Large, manned stations that can be robustly shielded, and conduct their own damage control and debris clearance operations. On the other hand, things had to get that bad to begin with. The astronaut he got to write the foreword used the phrase "space dystopia". I'd call it more interesting than good, myself.

[Simon_Jester]

...Byzantium; it is not merely an adjective, and to be honest one of the things that puts me off the whole intrigue subgenre of fantasy is that in the real world this is actually a fairly good way to destroy a nation from within, or at least reduce it to a ground state in which it is ready to come apart at the slightest external pressure. ..

Simon, this is also the main reason I've never got very far with Amber- to be honest I only really know it through the roleplaying game, one of the very few functional 'diceless' systems- there's a finite limit to how many backs can be stabbed before the whole setup comes apart, before people stop trusting each other enough to work together and mere anarchy, etc etc, centre cannot hold etc, which I suppose is one of the places the fantasy comes in; the improbable lack of fear of the people and resilience of the system. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop; for the metaphorical fourth crusade to arrive and the disaster to become complete. I'm not sure I like Zelazny so much as respect his writing; but...

I can see why. The first four novels reduce to a three-sided civil war provoked by the de facto abdication of a monarch who neglected to establish a clear line of succession among his many (admittedly rather treacherous) heirs.

One set of conspirators plotting to seize the realm with foreign allies. And one arguably legitimate claimant to the throne who establishes himself in what is effectively a power vacuum. And one also arguably legitimate claimant (the protagonist) who is radicalized into seeking the throne at all costs, because he has a personal vendetta with the other claimant, a desire to seek revenge for several centuries' mistreatment, and a claim that is arguably about as good as his in the first place. Maybe. If you listen to his side of the story.

Then the fifth novel involves the mopup phase, the latter two sides (and much of the third) having reconciled their differences, in a desperate attempt to stop the other shoe from dropping on the realm (and the cosmos) with a sickening thud.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Just to maintain momentum...

I find myself particularly impoverished of late; given the way the Scottish law of probate works, the bills, and the liabilities, come due six months before anything I might be able to use to pay them off shakes itself out of the system. So I am reduced to especially cheap books for the time being.

Fortunately there are such things, compilations and anthologies that sell at a price that is vastly less than the sum of their parts. (There's always Project Gutenberg, but for some reason the indexing system there is all minor arcana to me, software or wetware, and there's relatively little there that belongs in a thread about science fiction anyway.)

I don't want to sing megapacks' praises too loudly because from some of the comments left elsewhere it seems as if the line editor already has a more than sufficiently swelled head, but at less than 50p for a few hundred thousand words, the worst they can do is take up a bit of storage space, and they do cover and include many authors of whom I would otherwise never heave heard, lost in the mists of time-

although sometimes there is a reason for that. Somewhat astoundingly, for the cynic, name recognition does turn out to be some guide to quality; names heard of or vaguely recognized through the mists from the Golden Age turn out to be a class above those who have been forgotten, and who are usually interesting rather than, say, brilliant.

The thematic compilations are usually more fun to read than the single authors, the likes of the Space Opera, Time Travel or Mad Science packs providing a more varied diet, some modern authors throwing in with them; overall generally positive.

I will say that there are a few authors whom I was happy to find, but went away disappointed; Edmund Hamilton, for one, who reads like warm porridge, the few good and famous stories are not enough to make up for a rather grey body of work, and Andre Norton. Whom I tried to like, but just could not tolerate the pacing- endless frustrations and agonies of indecision described in close detail, before anything happens, and the actual inflection point dashed off in a couple of lines.

There is one odd guilty pleasure; Eando Binder. Sometimes, even quality matters less than panache, and it is positively refreshing to read an author who has thrown the inhibitions of craftsmanship aside, is conscious of how much of a ham he is being, and is just rolling with it. John Sladek, a great surrealist, had a line that ran "Eventually, you will become disillusioned with cynicism; and what then?" One good answer is this, and things like it, unashamed adventure pulp.

[Simon_Jester]

And that panache-over-quality was rather more popular in the Golden Age; Doc Smith had piles of it, and I'm pretty sure he knew he was doing it because on at least one occasion he managed to parody his own style.

[Terralthra]

I just smashed through all of Alistair Reynolds' Revelation Space novels. Haven't read the novellas or short stories, but I really loved the novels.

[Vendetta]

I'm currently reading Chasm City from that series (I've read Revelation Space and Redemption Ark). I like Reynolds' approach to character focused space opera.

I've got another Witcher book lying around to read next.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Revelation Space is definitely among the good ones, but it does contain so much that I want to steal adapt for my own purposes; I am seriously envious of the concept of cryoarithmetic engines- we have played with scales of science fiction hardness (and cheesiness) before, they all tend to be so coloured by personal judgement that they don't translate and agree well, but I do rate them quite highly indeed. They take a moment of thinking to decide if they are brilliant or complete nonsense; in the end they are almost certainly brilliant nonsense, but it's the moment of thinking that is the payoff.

There is lots of speculative/advanced/fringe physics and technology to be found, some of it sensible and some he is clearly playing with; I like how his characters react to their technology, too. Especially the moments in which they are confused and bewildered by it. The timeline- unravelling events of the attempt to develop inertia suppression, I'm not sure paradox has ever been better done. The factions, too, conjoiners and demarchists, slashers and threshers, discussion groups and self appointed heroes- it works, in it's own odd way.

Is it that the fans have changed so much, from the golden age? Is it a matter of cultural commons, of appropriateness to an audience?