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I'm reading Gormeghast for the second time, twenty years later. The description of the headmaster's job is priceless. I have a brother who's the accountant for a rural school division and I had to call him up and read it to him and he said, "I work with her."
The headmaster does so little that even his signature is forged when it it is wanted.
No offense Voros but we don't need another thread exploring your hardcore wall fetish. The "Thicc Bricks, Me Gusta!" thread was enough.The first book is a masterpiece for sure. Several pages describing a wall and I was riveted.
How is it so far? Is this a must-have for cultural anthropology enthusiasts (like me)?
The Berzerk Manga. Wow. Some super dramatic stuff, some interesting twists, some cheesy cliches, but fantastic artwork.
most of the big fights are too abstract for me. I really hope that the “power levels” don’t get too crazy (“Nani?!, Guts has trained hard, he cut that entire castle down in one stroke, what a technique!”) but otherwise nifty.
It is an interesting telephone game of inspiration: obviously the author took stuff from Hellraiser and Evil Dead, and the Kingdom Death author took from Berzerk in turn. Fascinating.
I got to the part where they meet the mage girl in the Troll forest. Crazy posse he’s formed.How far have you gotten?
Power level never gets to that extreme. Once Guts acquires the Berserk Armour he's basically at his strongest, which is enough to cut a few guys in half at a time, but mainly it just allows him to take more punishment - temporarily.
Berserk also inspired Dark Souls which in turn inspired Kingdom Death, and even Final Fantasy 7 onwards shows ispiration fro Berserk, especially once you get to the Fantasia arc. Berserk has a lot of interesting other influences as well - each of the Archangels is named after a classic Science Fiction novel.
I got to the part where they meet the mage girl in the Troll forest. Crazy posse he’s formed.
Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, vol. 1, Biblical and Pagan Societies.
But all this and similar is comparable to reconstructing an anatomy from the shreds of broken grammars, or an economy from a single page of arithmetic. Todros Podrosi has summed the subject up: Whoever wishes to learn of the Helm Wind and the Cap of Grace, whoever wishes to know what occurred in the Year of Ro between the times of Starflux and Earthflux and where to find the traces of the blood shed then (which is the blood that has never dried), whoever desires to discover why there is seldom true thunder on the land, how the thunder heard upon the sea is really the noise of Rahab roaring forth her love for Leviathan, whoever looks to find the Far High Glades where the centaurs resort in their heats and seasons lest the sons of men mock their lusts or the wild asses envy them, whoever yearns to sit beneath the cedars and listen to the sound of silver and gold growing beneath the soil: the accounts of all these and all other doings and designs and places and persons of the Island Under the Earth must be sought for in The Book Bound in Black Hide.
And this seeking is of certain peril.
This weekend, I read Avram Davidson’s The Island Under the Earth on Kindle. It was first published in 1969, but was reissued as part of the Prologue Science Fiction line in 2000. It’s actually fantasy, not SF.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. It’s a brief book—less than 200 pages in the original paperback—but it seems longer, because Davidson packs so much in. It is set in, well, a mythical ‘island under the Earth,’ a fragment of reality spun off when the cosmos was formed. The background is Greek Archaic Age in terms of the society and some of the mythos (there are harpies and centaurs), with some elements of Hebrew lore thrown in. But this world is quite odd and fantastic. For example, the stars appear at night as lines across the sky—some of them intersecting—rather than points, and denizens are familiar with sudden slips in location and time, known as ‘gathering up of the ways/days.’
The story at first appears to be a straightforward adventure tale, as sea-captain Stag, on the run after a raid at sea, decides to rent a house in the hills from his partner, the merchant Tabnath Lo. But the narrative soon branches out from this premise, to focus also on Tabnath Lo’s competitor the eunuch Delantidintilla and his dwarfs, Atom and Mote, the master thief Zorbinand, a nameless homophage, various centaurs, a mysterious otherworldly city and its inhabitants, and more. It’s a rich concoction, made more so by Davidson’s prose, which is often intentionally oblique.
From a gaming perspective, the setting struck me as tailor-made for Runequest. It has the same ‘feel,’ the same combination of down-to-earth details of premodern societies (the issue of pudding barley and its relationship to having a bakery in town plays a small but notable role in the book), thick descriptions of rites and bits of everyday magic (like the augury that Stag commissions before setting out on his journey), anthropological treatments of non-humans (we learn that, because centaur blood is very poisonous, humans typically ambush them from a distance with missiles, leading centaurs to view humans as cowardly and sneaking), and full-on weirdness (I won’t give examples as they would be spoilers). Things like the ‘gathering up of days/ways’ could be hard to handle in a gaming context, though—or not, depending on your group, I guess.
The book ends quite suddenly, though in a striking image and sequence, with much left unexplained. Poking around, I’ve found that it was intended to be the first in a trilogy, but the other books were apparently never written. A shame, but this one is still well worth reading. A bit from its prologue gives a good idea of its charms, though not its contents:
Davidson is an amazing writer, I've read many of his short stories which is a form he is considered a master of but not his novels although I do have one or two and intend to read them. Your summary certainly inspires me to dig them out and give them a read.
His literay reputation has certainly been on the rise for a number of years and he is one of the few sf authors whose reputation outside of sf/fantasy circles may be greater than within genre circles. He was a mentor to many important Jewish American writers.
How is it so far? Is this a must-have for cultural anthropology enthusiasts (like me)?
Yes, that's a good one!
I read those a while back. I think there are more books in the series but I never got around to getting them. One of the days I should reread the first two and continue with the series. I remember the first book getting badly panned by a number of online reviewers when it came out but don't remember why.I've fallen out of the habit of reading over the last few years (I blame my job) so I'm having to force myself to read.
I've just demolished the first two Merchant Princes books by Charles Stross. Imagine the inter-family politics of Dallas crossed with Amber but with less powerful (than Amber) protagonists.
I remember reading a review and thinking it sounded awesome (but I'm a sucker for parallel dimensions and alternate realities) but never tracking down the books at the time. Don't know why.I read those a while back. I think there are more books in the series but I never got around to getting them. One of the days I should reread the first two and continue with the series. I remember the first book getting badly panned by a number of online reviewers when it came out but don't remember why.
Read The Last Duel by Eric Jager. Didn't think much of it. It's pretty short, the edition I got was 209 pages, and still felt like mostly filler. I guess Ridley Scott is going to do a movie of it, so that'll probably be awful, but at least I won't care.
Yeah, the book would really benefit from more firsthand accounts from any of the participants. There are a few minor quotes from the accused's lawyer, but otherwise we don't get any insight on any of the major characters. The filler is often explaining just basics of medieval life that anyone who reads much medieval history would already be familiar with. And it kind of reads like the author is just pointing at a time and place and saying 'this is weird' rather than having any fascination for the subject.Sorry to hear that--I've had that book for some time but never got around to reading it. We don't know a great deal about its main event, I think, which might explain the filler issue.
Yeah, the book would really benefit from more firsthand accounts from any of the participants... The filler is often explaining just basics of medieval life that anyone who reads much medieval history would already be familiar with. And it kind of reads like the author is just pointing at a time and place and saying 'this is weird' rather than having any fascination for the subject.