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  • Jack Glass. Adam Roberts.

    From Titus G@21:1/5 to Tony Nance on Sun Mar 31 15:59:20 2024
    On 30/03/24 08:46, Tony Nance wrote:
    On 3/29/24 12:56 AM, Titus G wrote:
    On 21/03/24 09:33, Tony Nance wrote:
    Last week I managed to visit a couple of used book stores,
    ostensibly because my wife wanted the next books in two long-running
    series she reads, but of course, while I was there...

    Anyhow, part of the haul included a nice MMPB version of Verne's
    Journey to the Center of the Earth, which I picked up because it said
    "complete and unabridged" on the cover, while the one version I own
    is neither.

    In my tweens and early teens, this was one of my very favorite
    books, and I enjoyed the 1959 movie several times whenever it came
    around on TV.


    Perhaps you would enjoy Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea, an
    imitation of Verne in style and content by Adam Roberts?

    Maybe! I do want to read something by him sometime. I'd probably start
    with something that wasn't a pastiche or homage or whatever word I'm
    looking for.

    Roberts is an authorial chameleon! I have been disappointed with his
    mimicing pastiches mainly because of content. My favourite of his own
    style, (if he has one), is the first of three parts of Jack Glass. It
    reflects the characters and the background as do the different styles in
    parts 2 and 3. Part 1 is dark, part 2 is more refined being about an
    upper class, part 3 is brilliant physics fun.

    Here is the first page of Jack Glass.
    This narrative, which I hereby doctorwatson for your benefit, o reader, concerns the greatest mystery of our time. Of course I’m talking about McAuley’s alleged ‘discovery’ of a method of travelling faster than light, and about the murders and betrayals and violence this discovery
    has occasioned. Because, after all – FTL! We all know it is impossible,
    we know every one of us that the laws of physics disallow it. But still!
    And again, this narrative has to do with the greatest mind I have known
    – the celebrated, or infamous, Jack Glass. The one, the only Jack Glass: detective, teacher, protector and murderer, an individual gifted with extraordinary interpretive powers when it comes to murder because he was
    so well acquainted with murder. A quantity of blood is spilled in this
    story, I’m sorry to say; and a good many people die; and there is some politics too. There is danger and fear. Accordingly I have told his tale
    in the form of a murder mystery; or to be more precise (and at all costs
    we must be precise) three, connected murder mysteries.

    But I intend to play fair with you, reader, right from the start, or I’m
    no true Watson. So let me tell everything now, at the beginning, before
    the story gets going.
    One of these mysteries is a prison story. One is a regular whodunit. One
    is a locked-room mystery. I can’t promise that they’re necessarily presented to you in that order; but it should be easy for you work out
    which is which, and to sort them out accordingly. Unless you find that
    each of them is all three at once, in which case I’m not sure I can help
    you.
    In each case the murderer is the same individual – of course, Jack Glass himself. How could it be otherwise? Has there ever been a more
    celebrated murderer?
    That’s fair, I hope?
    Your task is to read these accounts, and solve the mysteries and
    identify the murderer. Even though I have already told you the solution,
    the solution will surprise you. If the revelation in each case is
    anything less than a surprise, then I will have failed.
    I do not like to fail.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Titus G@21:1/5 to Tony Nance on Mon Apr 1 17:42:03 2024
    On 1/04/24 01:32, Tony Nance wrote:
    On 3/30/24 10:59 PM, Titus G wrote:
    On 30/03/24 08:46, Tony Nance wrote:

    matters. Bigger problem (for me) is that I'm not interested
    in pastiche/homage/mimics that follow too closely

    Four stars for Roberts' The Thing Itself, which solves the Fermi
    Paradox, but I was not familiar with John Carpenters' The Thing.

    One star for Swiftly, where the British Empire exploits Lilliputian
    slaves for great wealth but the French might invade with their
    Brognagnian? giants. The SF element is enhanced with the Lilliputian
    slaves exploiting slaves the same degree smaller than themselves and so
    on, same with the giants.

    Solid 3 stars for the non-patiches, By Light Alone, nutrients by
    photosynthesis through hair for poor, through eating by the wealthy some
    of whom demonstrate conspicuous consumption through baldness,(Surprise,
    there is conflict), and Stone, mainly about quantum physics.

    Those four, the Verne and Jack Glass are those that I have read and Jack
    Glass is my clear favourite. The titles when he copies literary giants
    usually have a pun in them identifying the book or author.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Titus G@21:1/5 to Titus G on Mon Apr 1 18:30:53 2024
    On 1/04/24 17:42, Titus G wrote:

    Those four, the Verne and Jack Glass are those that I have read

    And 3 star Yellow Blue Tibia.

    and Jack
    Glass is my clear favourite. The titles when he copies literary giants usually have a pun in them identifying the book or author.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Scott Dorsey@21:1/5 to noone@nowhere.com on Mon Apr 1 12:50:44 2024
    In article <uuddut$2a3re$1@dont-email.me>, Titus G <noone@nowhere.com> wrote: >On 1/04/24 01:32, Tony Nance wrote:
    On 3/30/24 10:59 PM, Titus G wrote:
    On 30/03/24 08:46, Tony Nance wrote:

    matters. Bigger problem (for me) is that I'm not interested
    in pastiche/homage/mimics that follow too closely

    Four stars for Roberts' The Thing Itself, which solves the Fermi
    Paradox, but I was not familiar with John Carpenters' The Thing.

    Don't forget Godzilla vs. The Thing, in which the Thing referred to was actually Mothra.
    --scott


    --
    "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Paul S Person@21:1/5 to Scott Dorsey on Mon Apr 1 08:59:38 2024
    On 1 Apr 2024 12:50:44 -0000, kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

    In article <uuddut$2a3re$1@dont-email.me>, Titus G <noone@nowhere.com> wrote: >>On 1/04/24 01:32, Tony Nance wrote:
    On 3/30/24 10:59 PM, Titus G wrote:
    On 30/03/24 08:46, Tony Nance wrote:

    matters. Bigger problem (for me) is that I'm not interested
    in pastiche/homage/mimics that follow too closely

    Four stars for Roberts' The Thing Itself, which solves the Fermi
    Paradox, but I was not familiar with John Carpenters' The Thing.

    Don't forget Godzilla vs. The Thing, in which the Thing referred to was >actually Mothra.

    Ah -- an edited version of /Mothra vs. Godzilla/.

    Which introduced a trope -- Mothra /herself/ isn't effective, but her
    newly hatched youngling(s) defeat Godzilla by encasing it in the silk
    they /should/ be using for their cocoons. This turns up in at least
    two other movies.

    The question this raises, of course, is: how is it that Godzilla
    always knows when Mothra is old and weak and only appears then?
    --
    "Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
    Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
    Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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