I had spotted a used copy of it ~15 years ago and it sat on the shelf unread for a long time, such that by the first time I read it, I had kids. I am guessing it hits differently with/without. The detail and lack-of-being-obvious was fantastic, but a lot of the in-RPG scenes dragged for me. Still, fantastic book.
The RPG stuff is pretty weird, in a lot of ways. It's a little STAR TREK in the way young people in the twenty-[mumble]th century _just_ _happen_ to be really into a bunch of classic stories that a middle-aged author in 1993 might've been into as a kid.
I still enjoy SF, but I feel as if the window has closed on space travel, both as an actual possibility and as a literary device.
We can probably manage a small permanent base on the moon, but we could build a small city at the South Pole for a fraction of the cost and at much less risk to the inhabitants. Mars is a pipe dream with our current technology and anything beyond that is inconsistent with basic physics and biology. Voyager just made it one light day from earth, and that took nearly 50 years.
As for space-based SF, now that Iain M. Banks is gone, I don't see any need for more. Our survival on earth (as in Ministry for the Future) is where we need some speculative imagination.
It's a bit in the book-- one of the adults says something like "The kids are saying 'Lunnar' again, I can't wait until we're back to being 'Selenites'"
I didn't remember that part from the book. John M. Ford was such a great writer that even his usenet posts were better than some other people's whole books.
I had spotted a used copy of it ~15 years ago and it sat on the shelf unread for a long time, such that by the first time I read it, I had kids. I am guessing it hits differently with/without. The detail and lack-of-being-obvious was fantastic, but a lot of the in-RPG scenes dragged for me. Still, fantastic book.
The RPG stuff is pretty weird, in a lot of ways. It's a little STAR TREK in the way young people in the twenty-[mumble]th century _just_ _happen_ to be really into a bunch of classic stories that a middle-aged author in 1993 might've been into as a kid.
I still enjoy SF, but I feel as if the window has closed on space travel, both as an actual possibility and as a literary device.
We can probably manage a small permanent base on the moon, but we could build a small city at the South Pole for a fraction of the cost and at much less risk to the inhabitants. Mars is a pipe dream with our current technology and anything beyond that is inconsistent with basic physics and biology. Voyager just made it one light day from earth, and that took nearly 50 years.
As for space-based SF, now that Iain M. Banks is gone, I don't see any need for more. Our survival on earth (as in Ministry for the Future) is where we need some speculative imagination.
>>> Luna (said with a short “u”, please)
Never heard of that before.
It's a bit in the book-- one of the adults says something like "The kids are saying 'Lunnar' again, I can't wait until we're back to being 'Selenites'"
I didn't remember that part from the book. John M. Ford was such a great writer that even his usenet posts were better than some other people's whole books.
Since I'm now back where the book is, I looked it up: it's Albin talking with Gil Vela, the theater director:
----
"Have you noticed that people have started saying 'Lunna' again, just like forty years ago?"
"I've noticed. I wonder how long before we're Selenites again."
Vela said, with a flourish, "I'm holding out for Loony and Proud of It."
----