Subject: Which is a shame, really
Author:
Posted on: 2020-12-23 19:40:55 UTC
What I've read of Garth Nix's stuff is good - I remember quite liking the Abhorsen books way back when.
(My personal top bit of comfort food space opera is the Chanur books, probably because they've got a lot of alien-perspectives stuff going)
A while back, Granz said good things about Garth Nix's A Confusion of Princes in the chat and I thought it sounded interesting, so I grabbed a copy and promptly ignored it until yesterday. My high-level thoughts on said book are that it's very tightly paced (in that I picked it up in the evening and just kept reading) and that the first-person perspective works well for the story being told. The book does a good job of throwing you into a universe without infodumping or leaving you confused.
(Also, if you find yourself worried about how the viewpoint character is at the beginning, it gets better.)
I wouldn't say it's the best book I've ever read, or that it's got infinite reread value, but if you're looking for the book equivalent of a generally entertaining movie that'll keep you munching popcorn, A Confusion of Princes will do it.
So, at the last minute, I got a copy of 7 Wonders for my family for Christmas since I figured having more board games around couldn't hurt. My decision process was roughly to scan the highest-rated games on BoardGameGeek that were good for 5 or so people and weren't too complicated, and it seems to have paid off.
The core idea of the game is that, over three ages, you want to build the best city you can along some (combination of) metric(s) to win, that is, you want the most victory points. At the beginning each age, you get 7 cards (with the sets of cards being different in each age) and, on each turn, you choose a card to play (or sell, or to use to keep building the unique ancient wonder in your city) and then you pass your hands around the table. This also means that everyone's playing simultaneously, so there's not really any sitting around and waiting, and, since, there's a fixed number of turns, so each game takes a rather quick half an hour.
The rules are rather straightforward but are somewhat tricky to explain, so your first round will probably include some confusion (unless you're the sort of group that passes around the (rather short) manual beforehard) but it's not all that complex a game to get the hang of, and you'll soon find yourself understanding enough to form a plan - and to start eyeing your neighbors for how you can take advantage of their plans (since there are cards that'll give you points based on how your neighbors at the table are doing) ... or mess them up (by not giving them cards they need).
The game does need a reasonably-sized group of people (4 to 6 or so - the minimum is 3 but that might be a somewhat different experience, and the maximum is 7), but I can report having a good time - and, as our second game was wrapping up, we were thoroughly enjoying ourselves and my mom was saying we should get this for our aunt.
Anyway, this has been a rambly review-shaped object in case anyone wants it.
Ah, I love that book! I read it when I was pretty young and it was one of my first space operas, so I definitely have some nostalgia for it. I feel like it'd be really fun to write a fic about. Also, I really like how it depicts Bitek.
I'd say "I should fix that" but that would require ideas, motivation, and time.
Do you have any favorite space operas you'd recommend at me?
It's not much my genre, which is why I like A Confusion Of Princes so much. It shows me a lot of the strengths of a genre that usually doesn't work for me. And yeah, I don't think Garth Nix's books seem to have a lot of fic in general. Which is a shame, since I really like his work.
What I've read of Garth Nix's stuff is good - I remember quite liking the Abhorsen books way back when.
(My personal top bit of comfort food space opera is the Chanur books, probably because they've got a lot of alien-perspectives stuff going)
He's still writing Abhorsen books! You don't really need to read Goldenhand, but Clariel is a sorta prequel that you might not have seen and it is my precioussss.