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felice |
Newtons Sleep: The Thread ***spoilers*** |
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Actually, there aren't going to be any spoilers in this post, but I thought it would make sense to start a new thread that people can post spoilers in, so
"IT'S HERE!!!" etc can remain as relatively spoiler-lite squeeage threads.
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doloras |
#1 | |||
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I've written a Newtons Sleep filk already. It's megaspoilery so I'll wait until at least one person's finished and is in a fit state to post
about it before posting.
...actually, I suppose I'd better tell you guys what I think. I don't want to be the first to post an actual review, for various reasons, but I heartily believe that this book is with little doubt the Greatest Faction Novel Not Written By Mad Larry Ever. (Disclaimer: I haven't read the Sherlock one yet.) 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)
Last Edited By: doloras 23 January, 2008 7:20 AM.
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War Arrow |
#2 | |||
doloras wrote:Just finished about 1/2 hour ago. Not sure. You might be right. In fact I think you might be right even including those written by Milesy. Head spinning a bit with usual questions. Think City might still be my favourite though. Ugh. Confusion. Only able to think in short sentences. First reaction: fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkk! (as a variant on 'duuuuuuuuddeeeeeeeee,' or 'wooooooaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh' rather than anything else) So er.... The Jesuitess and Larissa were one and the same, right? Dark hair then red hair and so on. Cousin Greenaway, Mistress Piper and Alice - this was down to the way the novel is written rather than me missing some moment of continuity rewriting jiggery pokery, right? Civitas Solis - er? Should I be reading them as a veiled version of something familiar (?), because at the moment I'm not. Though for a while it seemed like this might somehow relate to a place beginning with M. My oh my, what a lot of shagging there was! This is an observation not a question. I think I'm going to read it again, and soon. In conclusion, I can't see any way in which the Random Static line could have got off to a better start. Phenomenal. Really, really impressed. Think I need a bath now. A long, hot one. |
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doloras |
#3 | |||
War Arrow wrote:Yes. "The Jesuitess" was Larissa as she appeared when she first crashlanded in Earth's time/space area. She was badly injured getting her timesuit back from Bendo, so when she ended up in Aphra's childhood she had to regenerate. Which is why Aphra didn't recognize her in 1678, but did at Salomon's house. Cousin Greenaway, Mistress Piper and Alice - this was down to the way the novel is written rather than me missing some moment of continuity rewriting jiggery pokery, right?It's written well. You might have spotted something when Cousin Greenaway gets her hands on some of Nate Silver's DNA at Salomon's house. Civitas Solis - er? Should I be reading them as a veiled version of something familiar (?), because at the moment I'm not.The Book of the War speaks at some length about the Pilot's Coterie of Siloportem, and their use of an interesting, putty-like substance known as praxis. My oh my, what a lot of shagging there was! This is an observation not a question.Nate Silver is attractive and Aphra Behn is a woman of looose virtue. 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)
Last Edited By: doloras 23 January, 2008 9:59 PM.
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War Arrow |
#4 | |||
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Aha! Spotted the praxis but the rest of it remained mysterious, at least after I realise it couldn't have been some Celestis style mark-of-indenture thing
going on. Knew Civitas Solis sounded familiar, though I was thinking it might be something obscure from OTCOTS (due to reference to being from remote future
made at some point).
Anyone seen any reviews yet? |
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Craigacp |
#5 | |||
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I was impressed that it wrapped most of the loose ends I could see up within those last few pages. Going into it with about 60 to go today I still had no real
idea what was going on, and I just didn't spot the Cousin Greenaway/Alice thing.
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matt le wilson |
#6 | |||
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Having finished it, I think I'm going to have to go and read it again to fit the bits together. What are people making of the line from the prelude on the
website,
That was the day that you won the War for the Great Houses. |
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doloras |
#7 | |||
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That line was clearly the babel trying to persuade Thessalia to its particular genocidal agenda. "Join me and together we will rule the galaxy!",
etc.
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 |
#8 | |||
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Lordy. It makes for an even richer read second time around, though one thing still puzzles me. Inevitably. It was the posthuman pilots who caused a group of
people to live much longer than their ordinary lifespans, right? The price of this was to be the delayed post-mortem biodata of said people, but er... why?
Just to keep tabs on this crucial moment of their prehistory? In the hope of one of these people becoming a vessel for the babel? Just for a grin? What?
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GlynG |
#9 | |||
War Arrow wrote: Wrong!; that was a well crafted red herring. The bringing of the recently dead back to life was entirely the babel's doing. It was apparently trying to prime someone or someones to shape the future of humanity in a soldierly and susceptible way, purportedly as a proxy force to fight the enemy as it sold the plan to Thessalia, though it may well be more complicated than that (thinking this through still). War Arrow wrote: The posthuman pilot 'angels' made a deal with Silver as they talked to him in his commune, for them to be able to have his biodata to study, in exchange for which they would give him knowledge. When Silver dies in the novel, time (possibly his personal experience of time, possibly actual time) flows backwards and we get to a point where we the 'angels' are working on him. Silver and the reader's initial assumption regarding this is that they were healing him, in fact however I think they're actually examining his biodata at this point (so it's later in the 'angels' timelines than them having made the deal).
Big thumbs up and thanks to both Daniel O'Mahony and Random Static for such a cracking read!! More discussion and a proper review will follow when I have the time... |
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ushas the rani |
#10 | |||
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Not a bad part 1, I look forward to the rest of the story in due course
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doloras |
#11 | |||
Not a bad part 1, I look forward to the rest of the story in due course You referring to Newtons Sleep or to Glyn's review? If the former, exactly what would you like to hear more of - Cousin Greenaway's glittering career, what kind of deal Larissa cut with the Faction, what? 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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ushas the rani |
#12 | |||
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the rest of the story, it's only half told, there's no resolution it ends on a cliffhanger, it doesn't feel complete, then again they always say
leave them wanting more, so maybe thats why the books written the way it is...
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GlynG |
#13 | |||
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Really, how so? Didn't get that impression myself.
The Babel's trapped in the egg and it's power neutralised (at least for the moment, possibly permanently). It had been an important enough player that if it it had have been removed from continuity completely like Larrisa had been planning the effects on the major powers and possibly the universe as a whole would have been pretty catastrophic, but this danger has been averted. The two main characters of Silver and Aphra live out their lives till their natural deaths. Larrisa probably joins the Faction or at least goes off with them and they move on to pastures or adventures new. Nick is getting old and spending his time priming his churches as some kind of trap / weapon / spy against the Eleven Day Empire, but that's setting things up for future events after his death, which could either be explored and expanded upon again elsewhere in a different story or just left to our imagination.
Last Edited By: GlynG 8 February, 2008 12:56 PM.
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War Arrow |
#14 | |||
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Er... I thought Rani was referring to Book 1 alone, as in the first third of the book.
If not no matter, because I too seem to have missed a lot of this stuff first time round, which is actually one of the things I like about a good FP novel - second and third readings really pay off (notably with Lance Parkin's one - the Cwejen stuff entirely passed me by first time). To be honest it took me a while to reach the conclusion that Silver's resurrection wasn't a Celestis thang. Now somebody's probably going to tell me it was and I've fallen for a treble bluff. Don't care though - still a fantastic novel. |
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Phil PH |
#15 | |||
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I absolutely loved Newtons Sleep. Certainly the strongest Faction Paradox novel to date, and probably the best ER-related book
I've read since the Telos novellas ended.
I've a terrible habit, when I read books, of jumping backwards and forwards among the text trying to tie the bits together, rather than experiencing it linearly. This was a perfect book for that. The complexity of the plot and of the storytelling, and the deftness with which the story ties in with the War background and BotW in particular, were incredibly clever -- but still, I think the book would have been satisfying to read even without that background. The characters are brilliantly drawn (especially Silver, Behn and Greenaway), the historical worldbuilding is so convincing you can taste it, and the twisty-turny politics, both Above and Below, are compelling without being overly confusing. (Even so, I was almost at the end before I realised that "life-gifts" referred to "biodata". It's a calque -- a word-coinage formed by direct translation. "βιος" = "life" in Greek, "datum" = "gift" in Latin.) I enjoyed the characterisation of Newton / Jeova, too. (It even made more sense of the recent Evil Renegade audio where he works out the entire future history of Britain, plus the fact that the Renegade is an extraterrestrial time-traveller, from looking at a pocketful of coins.) It was a bit of a shame that Daniel couldn't have used the original Nicholas Hawksmoor as well, rather than inventing Nick Plainsong as an analogue, but I guess that would have stretched the limits of history a little far. The Faction are simply brilliant in this. Mother Sphinx especially is a wonderful creation, and the sequence where she escapes Plainsong's hex with Greenaway's help was marvellous... but the whole depiction of their methods, approaches and character was spot-on throughout. I found the story of Aki very poignant, as well. What else...? The parallels between Charles I and the Imperator, and Cromwell and the War King, were clever, as was Larissa's entire plot-thread, from her backstory to her non-linear appearances post-metamorphosis. (I liked the fact that Aphra never quite worked it out, as well -- she's not stupid, but her thinking is naturally limited by her time-bound state.) I'm going to leave it a while before rereading this, I think, but reread it I certainly shall. Although I caught a lot of the depth and meaning this time round, I'm sure there are layers buried deeper which I didn't see. If Random Static can keep this standard up with future releases -- and there's no reason at this stage to think they can't -- then they're worthy successors to Mad Norwegian, and able caretakers for the Faction range. |
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War Arrow |
#16 | |||
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Too right. Feel slightly smug having made the life gift's = biodata association straight away, however...
Plainsong = Hawksmoor D'oh! [slaps forehead] |
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ushas the rani |
#17 | |||
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The Nick thing was pretty much what i was referring to, especially with the Star Chamber's plot to invade the 11 Day Empire with the music box (as briefly
mentioned in TBotW), everything seems to be building towards that and then the book ends...
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scary man23 |
#18 | |||
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Really enjoyed Newton's Sleep. It funtioned perfectly well as a novel unto itself, had extra rewards for students
of The Book of the War, and also left a few questions that could be chewed over (most of which other posters seem to
have covered here - thanks all).
Excellent evocation of the period. An strong, twisty plot that wasn't so flash as get in the way of the characters, who were all engaging and well-drawn. Great bit a sleight-of-hand that Alice/Greenaway thing. Aphra's visit to Le Pouvior - shades of Fanny and Jack's visit to the Harlequinade in The Invisibles? And is Shayde from the ER comic strip a babel? |
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War Arrow |
#19 | |||
scary man23 wrote: Maybe a cast, I'm guessing - the precursor to the babels. |
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felice |
#20 | |||
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The Star Chamber invasion takes place much later - in the nineteenth century rather than the seventeenth, as I recall, and involves completely different
people. Would you have been expecting an invasion of the Empire if you *hadn't* read BotW first? I can understand being disappointed when a story
doesn't go in an anticipated direction that you'd been excited about, but if you put aside preconceptions, I think the story Newtons Sleep *does* tell
is pretty good in its own right.
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