books: Lake and Doctorow

Jul 26, 2009 19:54

I can't spend one more minute thinking about non-metric multidimensional scaling, so... books!

Mainspring by Jay Lake ( Read more... )

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jaylake July 27 2009, 12:35:27 UTC
Actually, axial tilt is handled by flexion in the orbital track, but there was no way to introduce that in the book...

I am going to break one of my own rules and comment directly on the review. This discussion comes as close as any review I've ever seen to reflecting my own, private (post-facto) thematic analysis of the book. Since I firmly believe that the story belongs to the reader, even (or especially) if the reader is a reviewer, I have experienced no distress over this issue. It's just fun to see it.

So, er, thank you.

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ithych July 29 2009, 01:44:13 UTC
Actually, axial tilt is handled by flexion in the orbital track
Aha! That eases my inner geologist somewhat.

So, er, thank you.
Glad to know I hit close to the mark.

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jaylake July 30 2009, 13:27:20 UTC
Curiously (at least to my mind) the books were always unequivocably fantasy. But Tor, and the market in general, seems convinced they're SF. Both genres have standards of rigor, but they're somewhat different standards, and I was not attempting SFnal rigor.

Live and learn...

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ithych July 31 2009, 18:40:46 UTC
Didn't anyone tell you? If it's got gears, it must be SF. *g*

Actually, I'm an equal-opportunity rationalist. When a high-fantasy protagonist starts questing through a lush forest that happens to be placed in the rain shadow of a huge mountain chain, I start twitching. Internally consistent world-building is not just for robots and aliens.

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