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rsbakker

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The ghoulish publishers worship the negative spaces between the words, they're really good at kerning.

To expand a bit on how each arc resonated with me:

Was cool to finally get Kellhus in the Outside sections, with the Sons and the head on the pole mantra.  We've debated the metaphysics of Earwa here for pages, and while things aren't much more clear than they were beforehand, Kellhus's conversation with Proyas about humans being bread for the gods, the Sons passage, and the "I tend the fields" part give us plenty to argue about for the next year.  Coupled with Koringhus's zero-god, lots to speculate on.

This definitely upped the stakes for what's been happening back in the Empire and with the Ordeal.  While Kellhus's endgame is still an unknown, his perceptions of the Outside seem to on some level support the Consult's goal of sealing off the world.  

But then we have the Ishterebinth arc, with Oinaral and the Amiolas bringing Sorwheel into the fold as an ally of Kellhus.  Not sure what to make of this other than it was fucking rad.  I enjoyed Sorwheel's chapters in the previous books but, honestly, the seeming direct intervention of the gods, specifically Yatwer was a little off-putting.  It was great seeing him torn between his infatuation with Serwa amd his hatred of Kellhus, and his doubts over the protection of Yatwer. Anyway, was awesome, literally, to see Sorwheel transformed into the guy at the end of TGO bringing a giant up from the bowels of a derelict Nonmen mansion to unleash Serwa and enlist another contingent to march on Golgotterath.

 

Anyway, as far as the 'awe' in the series is concerned, Ishterebinth and Ishual really delivered.  Dagliash as well, but it felt a little stale after so much of the dust clouds and skirmishing and starving and marching and honeyed anuses.  It was a relief to have some kind of significant conflict, and I did not see the Nuke coming as the inevitable ambush.  The highlight of Dagliash for me was actually Proyas observing that Kayutas was actually scared in the aftermath. That was a good measure of true stakes.

Ishual, Akka, and Mimara was wonderful to read.  So much in such relatively little space.  The revelations from the Survivor about the fall and the years of warring in the Thousand Thousand Halls were epic.   Especially given Akka and Mimara's exhausted mental states, debating on whether or not to kill them, the Whale Mothers reveal, etc.  

And then Cnauir being alive.  Fuck.  There was a lot of speculation as to whether or not Meppa was really Cnauir or Moenghus, or simply whether or not he was still alive.  I believe this was mostly based on a quote from you years ago stating or implying that his character arc was done.  (Just goes to show you guys to take authorial intent with a grain of salt ). Anyway, great to see him back on the page with Skinspy Serwe (please vote them for Earwa's Best Couple 4132)

 

Momenm was disappointing to me because it felt like the earthquakes were a bit on the deus ex machina side of things, and that they seemed beyond the powers of the gods to manifest.  (If Yatwer can bring down city walls, why does she need the WLW?  Can't she just have Kellhus get hit lightning or something?). Esmi throwing her chorae at Meppa was great.  Malowebi's fate was sort of interesting, and I didn't anticipate how much he would have descended into total fear and terror from WLW to TGO.  I guess his use as an eyewitness to Fanayal's court was up, cool to see him turned into whatever the hell that was, moseying on back to Zeum.

 

PS.  I had a crackpot idea I'd been advocating that Sorwheel's chorae was fake, so what do I know?

 

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17 hours ago, LuckyCharms said:

I was one of the people on the ARC feedback thread for TSA who was compiling errata that Madness supposedly emailed to you for fixing. I recall that only like 5% of the issues we found in the ARC were fixed for the official release, in the US at least. The umlauts disappeared from Zeum for this book. I don't believe that Sibawul te Nurwul had any umlauts in the previous two books, now they are present in this novel. Continuity errors for the seasons in the beginning of several chapters; encountering Cnaiur sends Achamian and Mimara back in time.

As far as actual content, A+ Scott, keep doing your thing.

Still have the list and we didn't end up having enough time to do anything about first round TGO publication.

6 hours ago, LuckyCharms said:

It must be a weird fixation that this text was packed to the gills with silly errata. I recall the previous problems, but nothing quite so egregious or widespread. Scott has a cadre of devotees who would pore over the manuscripts agonizing to correct every oversight. But alas, this resource can't be optimally utilized.

Working on it, LC. But also, it just isn't on us... when there are publishers... with copy editors... *le sigh*

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RSB: have you thought of working in a different fantasy setting? Or have you devoted so much work into TSA that you'd rather not?

Are there any more novels like Light, Time, and Gravity in the works? Of your non-fantasy stuff, that is by far my favorite.

Do you keep up at all with the fantasy genre? 

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On 10/2/2016 at 1:25 PM, rsbakker said:

Leading question. Presumes things were different!

nice.  neo-hobbesian piety as always already there, which is to say that the ideology that ideologies can be hardwired is itself hardwired? that's meta-neo-hobbesianism, or tetrated hobbesianism, or something. 

On 10/2/2016 at 8:19 PM, rsbakker said:

As opposed to an incarnate reductio of Logos?

that's not the dunyains, but the inchies?  curious.  though they are placed into equivalency by volume VI.

19 hours ago, rsbakker said:

Not only are New Critics dead, the critics of the New Critics are dead (well, almost). Which makes it pretty cutting edge, as far as humanistic theory goes! ;)

ha. has there been a resurrection of the author at some point?  i like the old wimsatt & beardsley thesis, and the positions of barthes and foucault are not obviously superseded?

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11 minutes ago, Andrew Gilfellon said:

On an unrelated note. I've always thought that the Tusk was introduced as a religion by the Inchies as a way to combat the Chisarum. Don't know if this was confirmed as true or not. Was it?

That cannot be true, the timelines are off (by millennia, I think.)

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16 minutes ago, Andrew Gilfellon said:

On an unrelated note. I've always thought that the Tusk was introduced as a religion by the Inchies as a way to combat the Chisarum. Don't know if this was confirmed as true or not. Was it?

Definitely not true.

5 minutes ago, Happy Ent said:

That cannot be true, the timelines are off (by millennia, I think.)

Indeed, The Tusk is over 4132 years old.  Fane was banished 3703 years after the Tusk was given to the Ketyai, so the Cishaurim post-date the Tusk by nearly 4,000 years.

Scott already gave us the origin of the Tusk in an interview on Pat's blog years ago.  TGO has a section that talks about it too, it has nothing to do with Cishaurim though.

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6 minutes ago, sologdin said:

dunno.  with the weird distemporalization of saubon in VI, maybe inchies [Kellhus] went back in time to deliver the tusk [himself] in order to kill a cishaurim hitler (AKA Moënghus) before he could exterminate them and thereby prevent their [The Consult's] plan to exterminate everyone?

Fixed that for you, B)

Now you are buying the kind of crack[pot] I am selling.

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52 minutes ago, sologdin said:

dunno.  with the weird distemporalization of saubon in VI, maybe inchies went back in time to deliver the tusk in order to kill a cishaurim hitler before he could exterminate them and thereby prevent their plan to exterminate everyone?

Godwin's Law

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1 hour ago, Andrew Gilfellon said:

On an unrelated note. I've always thought that the Tusk was introduced as a religion by the Inchies as a way to combat the Chisarum. Don't know if this was confirmed as true or not. Was it?

It was anti non men, with a few subtle lines added to that effect amongst the original religious text. They didn't introduce a religion, they just subverted one - and succeeded as it's an unquestioned part of that religion in the current timeline. I think this was spoilered in an interview.

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Quote

"There was a lot of speculation as to whether or not Meppa was really Cnauir or Moenghus, or simply whether or not he was still alive.  I believe this was mostly based on a quote from you years ago stating or implying that his character arc was done.  (Just goes to show you guys to take authorial intent with a grain of salt )."

I actually think I remember that almost lie... He's been scheduled for this comeback since the very beginning.

Quote

"Momenm was disappointing to me because it felt like the earthquakes were a bit on the deus ex machina side of things, and that they seemed beyond the powers of the gods to manifest.  (If Yatwer can bring down city walls, why does she need the WLW?  Can't she just have Kellhus get hit lightning or something?)."

Who better to play "god in the basket" than a God (Momus is in charge of earthquakes, just so you know)?

The question to ask is why bother gerrymandering anything, when that everything has already happened? The notion of Gods working within the framework of eternity is incoherent, but it remains a staple of our cognitive past. So there's no way the event is going to bear any sustained critical reflection. I tried to prepare the way in a host of different ways, to make the earthquake feel inevitable when it did happen... You're the first to raise this issue larry, but I'll definitely keep my open for seconds moving forward.

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4 hours ago, kuenjato said:

RSB: have you thought of working in a different fantasy setting? Or have you devoted so much work into TSA that you'd rather not?

Are there any more novels like Light, Time, and Gravity in the works? Of your non-fantasy stuff, that is by far my favorite.

Do you keep up at all with the fantasy genre? 

I've been offered a shitload of money to work in a different fantasy setting. Sneezed no, then spent some time spitting in a bucket. The fact is, I would be writing TSA whether I had publication deals or not, just much, much slower.

I hope to find time to rewrite LTG when I get a chance, pitch it here and there. But I think releasing it short possessing more cultural capital would be a waste of the thing.

I make half-hearted attempts to keep up now and again, but I'm always so far behind in my nonfiction reading. Consciousness will be solved at some point in our lifetime, and I'm lucky enough to be able hear the whispering, then smuggle that back into my work.

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