House Share
Jul. 10th, 2014 09:37 amTwo young professional magic-playing friends sharing a house in orchard park, and are looking for someone to take the third (en-suite) bedroom. If anyone is looking for a room to rent, I can put you in touch.
Jul. 10th, 2014
Dear Fate,
I spent all yesterday being nice to people, and last thing when I cycled home, my front tyre valve popped and started leaking air. I was :(
This morning, as I was reluctantly driving to work, the heavens opened and the great deluge swept all the titans, leviatha and glasses-wearing cyclists off the streets of Cambridge, down the conduit, and into the torment of the eternal pits of stygium (Citation needed -- ed.).
I'm sorry I doubted :)
Love Jack
I spent all yesterday being nice to people, and last thing when I cycled home, my front tyre valve popped and started leaking air. I was :(
This morning, as I was reluctantly driving to work, the heavens opened and the great deluge swept all the titans, leviatha and glasses-wearing cyclists off the streets of Cambridge, down the conduit, and into the torment of the eternal pits of stygium (Citation needed -- ed.).
I'm sorry I doubted :)
Love Jack
http://www.tor.com/stories/2013/02/the-water-that-falls-on-you-from-nowhere
The Water That Falls on You From Nowhere is one of the hugo nominated short stories. It's about the family problems of a man, his other half, and his chinese-american family, in a world where water falls on you from nowhere whenever you lie.
What I liked about it is that it embraced a bold premise that most authors wouldn't have thought of, that this water suddenly appeared. And it didn't waste a lot of time making up implausible excuses for where it came from, but dwelled on the characters interactions in this world.
I liked that it touched briefly on the limits of the water -- it can be cold and intense enough to be dangerous, but not usually; evasions and near-lies come close to triggering it, bigger lies get more water. Equivocations produce an unbearable urge to clarify. Enough that you know what you need to know for the rest of the story, but not enough that you're inclined to nitpick. I thought that was a very good example of how to do worldbuilding, without too much or too little worldbuilding.
However, it seemed to miss out a lot of obvious questions like, imagine how much criminal trials would change if you can just ask if someone's guilty? And you have to have mats and towels everywhere. How much politics would change if you know everyone is going to keep their oaths to the letter and not fudge. How much advertising, medical research, teaching, would all change if no-one could equivocate. The novel The Truth Machine, dealt with a lot of those questions, not perfectly, but more than most other books I've read. I think it's fine that TWTFOYFN deals with family life not public life, but it seemed like a hole to me -- I'd have been happier if there was some throw-away line justifying my head-canon, either that things massively changed, but without going into detail, or that it could be fudged in some way that made it unhelpful for premeditated lies.
I liked the family life story, it was engaging and a bit moving, many of the little details added up well.
I felt it fell a little flat that the family story was resolved without the water being massively influential, it felt like each was a background to the other, but they didn't have to be in the same story. Or did I miss something?
The Water That Falls on You From Nowhere is one of the hugo nominated short stories. It's about the family problems of a man, his other half, and his chinese-american family, in a world where water falls on you from nowhere whenever you lie.
What I liked about it is that it embraced a bold premise that most authors wouldn't have thought of, that this water suddenly appeared. And it didn't waste a lot of time making up implausible excuses for where it came from, but dwelled on the characters interactions in this world.
I liked that it touched briefly on the limits of the water -- it can be cold and intense enough to be dangerous, but not usually; evasions and near-lies come close to triggering it, bigger lies get more water. Equivocations produce an unbearable urge to clarify. Enough that you know what you need to know for the rest of the story, but not enough that you're inclined to nitpick. I thought that was a very good example of how to do worldbuilding, without too much or too little worldbuilding.
However, it seemed to miss out a lot of obvious questions like, imagine how much criminal trials would change if you can just ask if someone's guilty? And you have to have mats and towels everywhere. How much politics would change if you know everyone is going to keep their oaths to the letter and not fudge. How much advertising, medical research, teaching, would all change if no-one could equivocate. The novel The Truth Machine, dealt with a lot of those questions, not perfectly, but more than most other books I've read. I think it's fine that TWTFOYFN deals with family life not public life, but it seemed like a hole to me -- I'd have been happier if there was some throw-away line justifying my head-canon, either that things massively changed, but without going into detail, or that it could be fudged in some way that made it unhelpful for premeditated lies.
I liked the family life story, it was engaging and a bit moving, many of the little details added up well.
I felt it fell a little flat that the family story was resolved without the water being massively influential, it felt like each was a background to the other, but they didn't have to be in the same story. Or did I miss something?