Odyssey 2010 - Message in a Klein Bottle

[jeremy_m]

It's Spring time, when young SF fans' fancies turn to spending 4 days in panels vaguely related to their topics, if not to SF, and so this year we came again to the Radisson Non-Euclidean Hotel, just off Heathrow Starport. Its topology remains as bewildering as ever, with non-contiguous floor numbering and parts of the fourth floor not path-

Comments

[desperance]

Have you seen anything of Christopher Logue's Iliad translations? I knew him when he was working on them, and they seemed to me to be just wonderful - but I was young then, and easily impressed by Writers (and we fell out later, and I never went back to 'em...).

[jeremy_m]

Not sure, I've looked at random samples in book shops and not remembered the names. What I really want is a style that's heroic without being ridicilous, which probably means not quite modern English. Something like the Iliad variant that starts the Dan Simmons SF/Homer crossover "Ilium":

Rage.
Sing, O Muse, of the rage of Achilles, of Peleus' son, murderous, man-killer, fated to die, sing of the rage that cost the Achaeans so many good men and sent so many vital, hearty souls down to the dreary House of Death.

[bopeepsheep]

I was wondering if the social gaming panel would get around to mentioning Travian (I've just finished on com2 and am making myself take quite a long break!) but I guessed it probably didn't fit the mould they were aiming for, although IME it's actually far more collaborative and therefore social than most games we did discuss!

[jeremy_m]

I think Travian _should_ be collaborative, but my experience was entirely of being tortured by my allies - my enemies were relatively little trouble. (Sabotaged by my sitters, led into friendly-fire attacks by central miscoordination, organised overall into fighting the wrong people, and finally prevented from building the monument efficiently so we Just Lost.)

But the real disaster is being real-time all the time, so you can't sleep for a year. For me that was even worse than the insiduous way it encourages you to spend a few pennies at a time constantly just to keep your position working. I'm back to decent turn-based games now, like our ancestors played by post.

[bopeepsheep]

my experience was entirely of being tortured by my allies
That's kind-of my experience of social groups during my university years...

I've been lucky with alliances in the last two servers, thankfully - and we won on 6 last year - but the reason I'm taking a break is mostly the drip-drip of money (I do like using gold, and I suspect it's the only realistic way to get on - I've finished in the top 300 for the last two games) and partly the time it eats. Getting up at 7am to discover your Malaysia-based neighbour has attacked you for the fourth night in a row is not enjoyable.

[jeremy_m]

I was on uk6 last year, in the ludicrous Northern alliance that declared war on its own training wing (while I was leading it), at the urging of someone who turned out to be a mole, but then carried on the suicidal civil war even after he changed sides. Unimaginably stupid.

I never caught up with the leaders, starting five months into the server, but did scramble up to end about 30th, chomping through a lot of gold and too many all night attack cycles on the way.

Not going to be sucked into another one of those.

[topbit]

The Rugby/Chess analogy was by me. I believe I had heard it originally from one of this years con-runners, watervole.

[jeremy_m]

Ah, sometimes my plan to record nothing and rely instead on my perfect recall falls afoul of my having no short-term memory :-(

[the_magician]

And I think I told it to her, as it predates her entry into Eastercon fandom ... I'm not 100% sure, but I think it comes from a 1980s eastercon in Liverpool originally.

[dru_marland]

Pope's Iliad? I think I'd get worn out by the couplets if I read it at a sitting, but he turns a nice phrase.

By the way, have you read Roger Norman's 'Albion's Dream'? -it was lent to me and I enjoyed it and thought it might be your sort of thing. And then I might be entirely mistaken. Who can say?

[rose_kolodny]

It's also difficult to find questions to which QI have not already researched and dealt with on the show. I decided against a theme, because I was already having a nightmare doing research.

[rockwell_666]

It was much easier doing the Pub Quiz!

And I was kicking myself for letting my BDSM talk over-run so even after dashing downn to Room 12 I missed my chance to get on the QI panel as a) I would really have enjoyed it and b) I'd have won! :-/