Oh, I'm not saying it doesn't work without knowing what it is, 'cos it obviously does, but the fact that they're drawing inspiration from it
means that it is stil relevant, by my definition. (And there's more to the similarity than just the aesthetic, he's a construct of the caldera -- his
very first appearance [collected in the Tides of Time Fifth ER book, which I heartily recommend] fits the description of being "boosted to full sentience
in an emergency" in the Book of the War pretty exactly.)
Newtons Sleep reviews
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 bthogg |
#41 | |||
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cousin
Posts: 128 21 August, 2008 5:27 PM |
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clockwork tin soldier |
#42 | |||
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little sister/brother
Posts: 35 21 August, 2008 7:31 PM |
Does the caldera have a neat ER equivalent?
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doloras |
#43 | |||
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mother/father
Posts: 439 21 August, 2008 7:39 PM |
clockwork tin soldier wrote: It's true what they say - irony really doesn't transmit over the intarwebz. The Stacks - the site for
Faction Paradox fanfic and other fanworks
"Larry was with us in spirit" - Kate Orman
(for more of my messed up thoughts on culture, magick and revolutionary politics) |
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bthogg |
#44 | |||
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cousin
Posts: 128 21 August, 2008 7:57 PM |
clockwork tin soldier wrote:I've always thought of it as a conflation of the Eye of Harmony and the Matrix. (The latter being the one Shayde comes from.) |
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felice |
#45 | |||
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Posts: 424 21 August, 2008 8:05 PM godmother |
bthogg wrote: Relevant in the sense of deserving a mention in the Roots section of a Discontinuity Guide entry for people who've read the book and found it interesting enough to want to know more. Not relevant in the sense of "must be explained in reviews to people who've never heard of Faction Paradox before and quite possibly know bugger all about the Evil Renegade". |
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clockwork tin soldier |
#46 | |||
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little sister/brother
Posts: 35 21 August, 2008 8:24 PM |
doloras wrote:Why would you assume irony? Looks like comic self-depreciating exaggeration masking underlying general accuracy to me! 
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doloras |
#47 | |||
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mother/father
Posts: 439 21 August, 2008 10:24 PM |
felice wrote: I heartily second that emotion. It is absolutely vital, from a marketing point of view, that the impression is not given that you have to be a hard-core ER nerd to dig FP - that's to guarantee that the fandom (or, crucially, the pool of available authors) will never spread out of the confines of the ER ghetto, and as War Arrow has said elsewhere that's increasingly infested with the kind of people who give "autistic" a bad name. The more reviews we get which make absolutely no reference to FP's origins in ER, the better. Actually, the more authors we get for FP books who have never written an ER work in their lives, the better. Actually, for me it was the opposite - I only became interested in the finer detals of ER fandom after already being sucked in by the (frankly superior IMHO) FP cosmology. The Stacks - the site for
Faction Paradox fanfic and other fanworks
"Larry was with us in spirit" - Kate Orman
(for more of my messed up thoughts on culture, magick and revolutionary politics) |
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JonDennis |
#48 | |||
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little sister/brother
Posts: 37 22 August, 2008 6:05 AM |
clockwork tin soldier wrote:I try not to be too sensitive to these kinds of things because, if you're going to be a writer, you better not be. I am happy, like the others, to take a kind of collective responsibility for the book. The bad part of that is I have seen/heard plenty of people proclaim that everything good in it is written by Lawrence and what a shame he has to surround himself with those "lesser talents." And it's not just about ego; I count a fair number of the others as my friends. Yes, Lawrence is an absolutely frigging brilliant writer, and he was a fantastic editor. A good chunk of my contribution to the book resulted from him reading a two paragraph entry full of snide jokes and saying, "That's good. Expand that please." I think you may have just caught me at the wrong time. And the Psycho gag was funnier when it actually said Psycho and Hitchcock.
Faction Paradox - They're here. They're not here. Get used to it.
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JonDennis |
#49 | |||
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little sister/brother
Posts: 37 22 August, 2008 6:08 AM |
bthogg wrote:We have a winner.
Faction Paradox - They're here. They're not here. Get used to it.
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felice |
#50 | |||
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Posts: 424 2 November, 2008 7:47 AM godmother |
There's another review up here: http://sfcrowsnest.com/ar...es/books/2008/nz13252.php
A bit confused, but recognises the quality of the writing... |
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doloras |
#51 | |||
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mother/father
Posts: 439 2 November, 2008 9:01 AM |
Bloody buggering heck. By publishing a book that complete idiots are not capable of understanding, we may have committed marketing suicide.
The Stacks - the site for
Faction Paradox fanfic and other fanworks
"Larry was with us in spirit" - Kate Orman
(for more of my messed up thoughts on culture, magick and revolutionary politics) |
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War Arrow |
#52 | |||
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mother/father
Posts: 703 2 November, 2008 10:33 PM |
The problem is that for many pages this book seems to plunge ahead without anything much actually happening, except for long conversations and exposition. Needs more spaceships, I suppose. Or elves. Not sure which. Too many new characters keep appearing until one loses track. Yes, and if the author had taken the trouble to give them different superpowers and costumes, wouldn't it just have been so much more memorable, not to mention snappy. In effect, we have a series of cameos that are spread across the mid-to-late 17th century, but non-sequentially. Which may be par for the course in a story that involves time travel, but does not make for easy reading! Take note Mr. Mahogany, when was the last time you saw a Garfield cartoon strip involving some needlessly complicated time-travel element? People like Garfield. Yet through it all there is the feeling that here is a very good writer and one who hopefully has a lot of better books inside him. And with such advice on hand giving clear indication of where he's going wrong, I'm sure Mr. Mahooty's next book is certain to be a winner. Ooh, my sarcastic self! Psst... wanna see some rocks?
Last Edited By: War Arrow 2 November, 2008 10:37 PM.
Edited 1 time.
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doloras |
#53 | |||
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mother/father
Posts: 439 2 November, 2008 11:16 PM |
The next FP novel better feature elves flying spaceships. Or tyrannosaurs in F-16s!!!
Seriously, there was that one creepy Garfield strip set in an alternate universe where he starved to death in an empty house. That was kind of FP-ish. The Stacks - the site for
Faction Paradox fanfic and other fanworks
"Larry was with us in spirit" - Kate Orman
(for more of my messed up thoughts on culture, magick and revolutionary politics) |
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War Arrow |
#54 | |||
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mother/father
Posts: 703 3 November, 2008 9:01 AM |
doloras wrote:What? You mean seriously seriously... [half an hour later, returns to edit post, barely able to believe he fell for it]... Psst... wanna see some rocks?
Last Edited By: War Arrow 3 November, 2008 9:04 AM.
Edited 1 time.
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doloras |
#55 | |||
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mother/father
Posts: 439 4 November, 2008 6:10 AM |
... fell for what? Those strips exist.
The Stacks - the site for
Faction Paradox fanfic and other fanworks
"Larry was with us in spirit" - Kate Orman
(for more of my messed up thoughts on culture, magick and revolutionary politics) |
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felice |
#56 | |||
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Posts: 424 18 January, 2009 10:11 AM godmother |
Another review is up, at Southern Ocean Review. "For serious
fans of Sci Fi, this book is a good one... an entertaining read if ever I saw one!"
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felice |
#57 | |||
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Posts: 424 1 February, 2009 8:34 PM godmother |
More comment on Newtons Sleep here. I'm not sure I entirely disagree with it, but it seems to me an exceptionally trivial point to
devote a long blog post to...
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doloras |
#58 | |||
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mother/father
Posts: 439 2 February, 2009 2:45 AM |
Isn't "exceptionally trivial" the definition of the fannish cast of mind? That's why Mad Larry thinks we're all scum.
The Stacks - the site for
Faction Paradox fanfic and other fanworks
"Larry was with us in spirit" - Kate Orman
(for more of my messed up thoughts on culture, magick and revolutionary politics) |
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War Arrow |
#59 | |||
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mother/father
Posts: 703 2 February, 2009 4:42 PM |
doloras wrote:Hmmmm. I sometimes get the impression that actually he loves us all very much but it's just that he's so bitterly disappointed. Maybe that's just me? More of my usual bullshit available at these locations: |
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felice |
#60 | |||
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Posts: 424 20 February, 2009 7:43 AM godmother |
Another review, this time at Genre Reviews. They
found it a bit more hard work to follow than they prefer, but are very positive overall.
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Quick Reply
Links
- Random Static - publisher of Faction novels
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- The Stacks - the Faction apocrypha archive
- The truth about Scientology - see Meme War
