02-23-2009, 04:40 PM | #31 | |
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I also found an echo of 3 in when he was recovering at the end. I really did thing for a moment that it was either going to be a dying hallucination, or that he was in a mental hospital. Or, of course, possibly both. I definitely intend to try your other books on the strength of this one. |
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02-23-2009, 05:41 PM | #32 |
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I too enjoyed the book.
I was initially struck by the similarities with The Stone Arrow. A single survivor living in the wild taking on the village... A completely different time, place and storyline but other then that there were some similarities. I was raised in a pacifist religion so I found the religious commune credible. The contrast between the group that embraced religion after the devastation and the other group that used religious ceremony and rituals to perform the atrocities was interesting. Both forms of control (IMHO). I liked the characters. The hero wasn't a superman/Rambo character and despite the planning and traps things go wrong. |
02-23-2009, 06:52 PM | #33 | |
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I don't think most people in countries like USA and England have any clue what real evil is. Kosovo, Rwanda, Columbia, they are just pics on the Tv. We are so used to the niceties of civilized life, being able to call a cop if we need help, go into a doctors office if we are ill. No one is going to saw off our heads in front of a camera while we are living to prove a religious point. No one is going to come thru and massacre our menfolk, murder our babies, and rape the remaining females, ages nothwithstanding. Not very nice pictures, true, but realistic in parts of the world. And I guess thats what struck me about this book. Realistic picture of what could be. Thank you, Mr. Herley. I won't be reading it again, but I won't forget it. |
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02-23-2009, 10:22 PM | #34 | |
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Xenophon |
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02-23-2009, 10:55 PM | #35 | |
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02-24-2009, 03:26 AM | #36 | |
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Thanks Richard, for clarifications. I enjoyed this book very much, and it was a fast read, but I did feel like something was missing in the descriptions of the people involved - regarding both their physical and emotional lives. It has been mentioned by others - and I too sometimes had questions about the characters - and wished for a bit more elaboration on the background stories of both the good guy / bad guys - and the neutrals. Your explanations here makes for a real AHA-experience Even though stories of survivors of doomsday is probably not that original, I haven't personally read many of them. And I was intrigued by the way the book made me think "out of the box" by putting me into this age of near future. I especially liked the descriptions of how the wildlife was claiming nature back. The transition of the vegetation and animals into more of a stone age condition "came to life" in a convincing way, and the story brought me into the right state of mind really fast. All in all, a very good read. |
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02-24-2009, 04:06 AM | #37 |
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I gave up after 2 chapters.
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02-24-2009, 06:23 AM | #38 |
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02-24-2009, 12:36 PM | #39 |
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02-24-2009, 12:53 PM | #40 |
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02-24-2009, 02:04 PM | #41 |
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Thanks, everyone, for taking the time to comment and for your kind words. To answer a few points arising:
Sparrow - thanks for finding those typos. I proof my texts about a hundred times, but some always seem to get through. radius and lilac_jive - "puissance" was a term introduced by Bex to impress his followers with the strength of his, and their, magic powers. It's a common enough word in old literature about knights and jousting and whatnot. DixieGal - I hope you like The Tide Mill. Barcey - yes, there was even a little in-joke: the voles. When Tagart is waiting for deer, he sees a vole being taken by a pike; but Suter's vole is cannier than that. Xenophon - too late, the book's already in the wild! Blackvoid - fair enough. That's the nice thing about "pay-if-you-like-it". |
02-24-2009, 03:26 PM | #42 | |
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02-24-2009, 04:57 PM | #43 |
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02-24-2009, 08:52 PM | #44 | |
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Feeling guilty because now that it's read I'm missing it. That tells me I loved reading it. Only a few books have made me feel that way. |
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02-25-2009, 09:10 AM | #45 | |
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On hardbacks sold at full cover price, the author typically grosses 10%, so he might get £1.49 from a £17.99 sale; and again, much less on "price received" deals with discounters, book clubs, and so on. Of course, better selling authors and their agents can negotiate better deals than this, and 15% royalty is common higher up the food-chain. Even so, many, many books have to sell before the author can contemplate writing as a profession. By the time a £1 payment reaches me from PayPal, I get 76p, which is about half a hardback royalty and 3.6x a paperback royalty; but then the majority of downloaders (something like 98%) do not pay. What the proportion of non-paying, satisfied readers is I don't know. However there is an inbuilt expectation that stuff from the internet should be free; and with books this sense of entitlement is further reinforced by the fact that readers pay nothing to borrow from the public library. My take on the economics of modern authorship is here: http://www.richardherley.com/FTCebooks.html That is one of the nicest things I have ever been told by a reader -- |
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