Mmm
Update re the BBB
page count: 63
page word count: 17.729 (+ 17044 in the footnotes)
topic: still pirates (passports or letters of marque) and etymology of legal terms *_* (Aarrr ...)
Octavia Butler has arrived today. ^_^
Edited to add: On YouTube, there is a short movie based on a scene from "Dawn". It does not have the same effect on me as reading the scene, because the Oankali seems more human-like as in the book, but it is certainly interesting.
I also finished Jack Vance: The languages of Pao.
Story: The short: The peaceful and very submissive people of Pao becomes able to defend itself successfully with the help of new languages.
The long: Basics of the plot are four planets with a very different, specialized population.
Pao is a planet of a slightly peaceful people, not particularly aggressive, not very creative, very often forced to live through raids from outsiders. It is very homogenous with slight variations between the people of its different continents. They are ruled by a sort of emperor, called Panarch, and they depend on the merchants from a planet called Mercantil as far as weapons and machines are concerned.
Breakness is the next important planet. Its center is the Breakness institute which teaches languages and logic and whatever one can learn. The guidelines of Breakness are logic and utilitarism. It's a extremely male dominated society in which imported women have not much other functions as giving birth.
The two other planets are Mercantil, a planet of merchants, as the name indicates (^_~) and Batmarsch, the homeworld of some warrior clans who occasionally raid other planets.
The main characters are Beran, the son of the panarch Aiello, who killed his father out of an impulse I still have not understood ^_^, and Palafox, a man from Breakness, a sort of patriarch with hundreds and hundreds of sons. When Beran, still a child, killed his father Palafox takes him to Breakness. While Beran studies language at the Breakness institute, Palafox gains influence upon the new panarch and starts to remodel the people of breakness by introducing two new languages and specializations: one for technology and one for military. At one point, Beran returns, and after a while, confronts Palafox and the new realities of Pao.
Thoughts: The premise is very interesting: How language reflects and affects a culture. It's one of my favorite topic, because I'm always very fascinated what a language can teach you about the culture of their speaker. This aspect of the story I also felt executed best.
The reading of the story was a bit dragging, because, though not without humor, the style felt somewhat dry to me. However, I can not judge how much is caused by the translation.
Another minor problem I had is a bit more amusing for me, especially after the discussion about male and female literature that went on last week on Ran's board, When I read the story, I thought, yeah, that is what I would consider male writing, it focuses more on big structures than on interactions. (And I don't mean romance.) Very often, I felt that the story only scratched on the surface of things, while I would have liked to see more about how the changes affect people in their lives.
I'm not sure, how much of this impression is due to the age of the story, since it was in 1958. I also have less problems with the view on women after realizing the age, not because I like reading about women being chattel, but because it is at least an explanation for the mindset.
I'm still interested in reading Tales of the Dying Earth, though, and since this is a classic of Sci-Fi, I don't have to buy it, because the local library is very endowed with classics. ^_^
Btw, welcome
the_corbie and
icemannorth ! Make yourself comfortable!
page count: 63
page word count: 17.729 (+ 17044 in the footnotes)
topic: still pirates (passports or letters of marque) and etymology of legal terms *_* (Aarrr ...)
Octavia Butler has arrived today. ^_^
Edited to add: On YouTube, there is a short movie based on a scene from "Dawn". It does not have the same effect on me as reading the scene, because the Oankali seems more human-like as in the book, but it is certainly interesting.
I also finished Jack Vance: The languages of Pao.
Story: The short: The peaceful and very submissive people of Pao becomes able to defend itself successfully with the help of new languages.
The long: Basics of the plot are four planets with a very different, specialized population.
Pao is a planet of a slightly peaceful people, not particularly aggressive, not very creative, very often forced to live through raids from outsiders. It is very homogenous with slight variations between the people of its different continents. They are ruled by a sort of emperor, called Panarch, and they depend on the merchants from a planet called Mercantil as far as weapons and machines are concerned.
Breakness is the next important planet. Its center is the Breakness institute which teaches languages and logic and whatever one can learn. The guidelines of Breakness are logic and utilitarism. It's a extremely male dominated society in which imported women have not much other functions as giving birth.
The two other planets are Mercantil, a planet of merchants, as the name indicates (^_~) and Batmarsch, the homeworld of some warrior clans who occasionally raid other planets.
The main characters are Beran, the son of the panarch Aiello, who killed his father out of an impulse I still have not understood ^_^, and Palafox, a man from Breakness, a sort of patriarch with hundreds and hundreds of sons. When Beran, still a child, killed his father Palafox takes him to Breakness. While Beran studies language at the Breakness institute, Palafox gains influence upon the new panarch and starts to remodel the people of breakness by introducing two new languages and specializations: one for technology and one for military. At one point, Beran returns, and after a while, confronts Palafox and the new realities of Pao.
Thoughts: The premise is very interesting: How language reflects and affects a culture. It's one of my favorite topic, because I'm always very fascinated what a language can teach you about the culture of their speaker. This aspect of the story I also felt executed best.
The reading of the story was a bit dragging, because, though not without humor, the style felt somewhat dry to me. However, I can not judge how much is caused by the translation.
Another minor problem I had is a bit more amusing for me, especially after the discussion about male and female literature that went on last week on Ran's board, When I read the story, I thought, yeah, that is what I would consider male writing, it focuses more on big structures than on interactions. (And I don't mean romance.) Very often, I felt that the story only scratched on the surface of things, while I would have liked to see more about how the changes affect people in their lives.
I'm not sure, how much of this impression is due to the age of the story, since it was in 1958. I also have less problems with the view on women after realizing the age, not because I like reading about women being chattel, but because it is at least an explanation for the mindset.
I'm still interested in reading Tales of the Dying Earth, though, and since this is a classic of Sci-Fi, I don't have to buy it, because the local library is very endowed with classics. ^_^
Btw, welcome
the_corbie and
icemannorth ! Make yourself comfortable!