Tassie Dave’s Comments (group member since Mar 27, 2011)

Tassie Dave’s comments from the The Sword and Laser group.

Good job.

Some mistakes I did notice. With so many books it is easy to make a few.

You have Charlie Jane Anders as male. She is transgender and recognises as female.
Peter Watts was born in Canada
Guy Gavriel Kay was born in Canada
Richard Morgan was born in England

You have no data for Amal El-Mohtar co-author of This Is How You Lose the Time War. She was born in Canada

If I was in the US or Europe I would more than likely wear a mask, just because of the sheer numbers of infections in those places. Our social distancing protocols have been effective in keeping the community transfer rates to very low numbers.

Good point. We've been in disaster mode since October :-?

Trike wrote: "It’s the incompetence making everything worse that aggravates me. I wish we had smart people in charge, the way Germany, New Zealand and Norway do."

I promise to not to make this political.

You don't even need smart people in charge. You need people in charge who are just smart enough to realise they need to defer to the medical experts. That's what we in Oz have. Morons in power, but medical officials in charge of the pandemic response.

John (Taloni) wrote: "I see this hasn't been discussed to death in your part of the world, so let me share."

It has been discussed ad naseam.

The official view is that if you are sick (even with a cold), you should not leave your house until you have fully recovered. You shouldn't leave the house even with a mask on.

As for general use of masks (From the Australian Department of Health):
"Most people will not benefit from wearing a surgical mask. Masks are of benefit to people who are sick so they don’t cough on others, and health care workers who have frequent, close contact with sick people.

General public
Surgical masks in the community are only helpful in preventing people who have coronavirus disease from spreading it to others. If you are well, you do not need to wear a surgical mask as there is little evidence supporting the widespread use of surgical masks in healthy people to prevent transmission in public."

https://www.health.gov.au/sites/defau...

We're in our flu season now and we've run out of vaccines already. Winter is only 2 weeks away.

Most Kids are going back to school next week. Some are already back (Mid term 2)

I think Oz is ok to start ease restrictions. It will be months, possibly years before our borders are open (Except to New Zealand and some of the South Pacific islands)

Oz and New Zealand have been very lucky. Being remote island nations on the other side of the world has made isolating and controlling a pandemic more possible.

Watching what is happening in the US and Europe is devastating :-(

I wouldn't be surprised if the Oz recommendations change. Early on there was a shortage of masks and only health professionals were allowed to get them.

We are just coming out of our restrictions now, and I could see a change in protocol if our infection numbers start to rise again.

That's cool :-)

I've seen 2 people wearing masks here. It still looks odd to see them.

There is no recommendation from health officials (in Australia) to wear them here.

Though in countries that are faring much worse, I'd certainly wear one.

By set-up I mean that there's no resolution to the story. There is plenty of action in the first half.

M:A is like Acts 1 & 2 of a 4 part Story. The pieces have been put on the board. The game has started and we are at a stalemate. Chekov's gun has been shown.

Your getting the set up, the conflict and the heroes in peril, but you need M:M for any of the usual Act 3 & 4 story of rising conflict and climax to the crises.

and the gun to be fired ;-)

Some of us found it interesting from Page 1.

If it's not grabbing you by the end of Magician: Apprentice, then it's probably not going to. If you enjoyed M:A then you will enjoy M:M more. I rate the second half 1 Star higher than the first half (From 3 to a 4 Star rating)

"Milamber and Valheru" aka "Magician: Master" was by far the better half of Magician.

Anyone that just reads the first half "Magician: Apprentice" aka "Pug and Tomas" and judges the book only on that half, are really doing the book a disservice.

The first half is set-up and the second half is the pay off.

Also agree that the Empire trilogy was brilliant.

John (Taloni) wrote: "There's no intrigue in this book. Characters are straight up.."

That's not necessarily so. Not everything or everyone is as it/they appear(s) and doesn't become apparent to much later in the book (Magician) or later in the series.

A graph showing who picked the books by decade.

Nicholas wrote: "I remember thinking it wasn't very original, until I realized he pretty much invented the hardboiled subgenre (with Hammet). Chandler WAS original, everyone else is riffing on his theme."

That reminds me of the joke that the problem with Shakespeare's plays is they're full of cliches.

Very little of any genre is original. Even Tolkien was borrowing from older European mythology. Sci-Fi for all it's "modern" roots is borrowing from older literature for its themes and subject matter.

Magician does have some epic fantasy originality with space-time continuum rips, aliens and cross dimensional evil villains.

Conal wrote: "I have worked for a Japanese owned company (in the US) for more than 30 years and it is a common practice for Japanese nationals who come here for work purpose (at least those whose job would involve customer interaction) develop a use name."

I had a similar experience with an Indian company I worked with for 20 years. A lot of the Indians went by a shortened version of their name or by their initials to save us dumb aussies butchering their names.

I will agree that imposing a name on an individual, if they don't choose to do it themselves, is culturally insensitive. I wouldn't go as far as to call it racist. Unless the name itself is racist or the intent is to be hurtful.

Sean wrote: "Tassie Dave wrote: "I didn't find the women portrayed too badly. They did have lesser active roles in a martial, medieval-like society at war."

That's a myth. Premodern armies were always accompan..."

I wasn't undermining women's roles in society and history. I meant that comment as pertaining to the women and events of this book.

Most of the latter part of the whole book (Magician) was dealing with the war. The women were kept away from the battles and we only got scenes with them as the battle or politics came to those areas.

We do get some great action scenes with the women, but I acknowledge they are under utilised.

Stephen wrote: "How can you not put Homer in the Fantasy realm ? ."

I thought I did reference the works of Homer(s?) as being Fantasy :-?

If it wasn't obvious, then all the works I mentioned, I was classifying as fantasy.

Yeah Grimm's versions are certainly a lot darker than the Disney versions

Tassie Dave wrote: "To be fair, you had a head start, being so much closer to them in time.

(You have GOT to stop setting me up like this. 😂)"

I feel like I've ended up as second banana in this Grumpy Old Men coalition ;-)

We've, probably, all read old literature that goes back much further than we think. I've read everything on Trike's and 7 of Mark's.

I'm sure many of you read Shakespeare back in school. A lot of that is Fantasy. (400+ years)

Even us heathenistic Atheists ;-) have read parts of the bible. Parts of that date back 3000+ years and the original versions of those stories go back into prehistory.

Homer (the Greek writer(s?), not Simpson) stories which many of us have read are up to 3000 years old.

Norse mythology 1500+ years.

We'll pull that curve way down when we start reading books from the 2020s ;-)

I didn't find the women portrayed too badly. They did have lesser active roles in a martial, medieval-like society at war. Princess Carline and Anita (the Magicians: Master aka Magicians Book 2, sixteen yo version) do have somewhat fleshed out storylines.

From what I remember, they do go on to have increased and significant roles in the rest of the trilogy.

Trike wrote: "Racism?"

Yeah, I'm confused as well. I'm 90% finished the full book and haven't encountered any. Or it's so subtle than I'm missing it.

Trike wrote: "Tassie Dave wrote: "Boys just get bigger"

Some*"

Is that a jab at me being vertically challenged?
:-?


;-)