Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Path: csiph.com!optima2.xanadu-bbs.net!xanadu-bbs.net!news.glorb.com!peer03.iad.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!border1.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!kithrup.com!djheydt From: djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) Subject: Re: Two Book Recommendations Message-ID: Date: Sun, 23 Aug 2015 00:46:59 GMT References: <1sn5pe732ddib.wf2hwr4m6ji2.dlg@40tude.net> Organization: Kithrup Enterprises, Ld. X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test77 (Sep 1, 2010) Lines: 76 X-Received-Bytes: 4385 X-Received-Body-CRC: 1848269134 Xref: csiph.com rec.arts.sf.written:420847 In article , Magewolf wrote: >On 8/22/2015 5:10 PM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote: >> In article , Magewolf wrote: >>> On 8/21/2015 4:20 PM, David DeLaney wrote: >>>> On 2015-08-21, Magewolf wrote: >>>>> On 8/19/2015 12:48 AM, Brian M. Scott wrote: >>>>>> A little while back Graydon Saunders dropped in and >>>>>> mentioned a couple of books that he???s self-published. I???ve >>>>>> now read them, and I can wholeheartedly recommend them. >>>>> >>>>> After all the praise here I went ahead and bought The March North. I >>>>> have only had a chance to read the first few pages but it reminds me a >>>>> bit of The Black Company so far. >>>> >>>> I have read The March North over the past couple of days, and give it about >>>> seven stars out of five. Military epic fantasy, with power level turned up >>>> past eleven, because, really, when one of the qualifications for becoming >>>> a top-rank sorcerer is _successfully_ completing the ritual that makes you >>>> immortal (well, unaging and rather hard to damage or sicken), over the >>>> centuries top-rank sorcerers tend to accumulate, IF there's a social >contract >>>> that's magically enforceable in place that stops them killing each other off >>>> and/or becoming the next Dark Lord and enslaving some tens or hundreds of >>>> miles around them. >>>> And one of the obvious uses for top-rank sorcerers is in the >military, of >>>> course. (Several of the obvious uses are, actually.) >>>> >>>> Oh, and for those of you who are amused by the descriptions here of FOOF, >>>> about the third-worst-possible oxidizer for rockets ever dreamed up, and >>>> the pipeline.corante.com blog? Take a look at chapter 17... >>>> >>>> Reminiscent of the Black Company, yes, but curiously easier to absorb the >>>> background slow-reveals and worldbuilding info on, and I found the >characters >>>> easier to understand. More human, ironically enough. Good show! >>>> >>>> Dave, not only are there easter eggs, but they're EXPLOSIVE ones >>>> >>>> ps: will start book 2 pretty soon >>>> >>> >>> >>> I have often thought that a good knowledge of chemistry and any kind of >>> transformation magic or alchemy would be way more powerful then anything >>> that actually shows up in most fantasy stories. I mean if you could make >>> Chlorine trifluoride and set up tanks of it ready to break at will all >>> around what kind of army would you have to worry about? >> >> That sounds like the sort of thing that would've been done in the >> Bad Old Days, which covers not only the past times of vicious >> sorcerous wars, but all the other realms outside and around the >> Commonweal. Both popular feeling and the laws of the Commonweal >> are passionately against doing that kind of thing. >> >> Instead, magical alchemy is used for separating component >> elements out of plain old dirt, and using them to construct >> unbelievably beautiful buildings. >> > >I think it would not take much interaction with Chlorine trifluoride or >the equivalent to be passionately against it. The hard part would be >surviving to have any opinion at all. Well, some of the Independents apparently did. If you read the books, do not take the Independents at face value. One of them looks like a sweet young thing, another like a leathery old mountain man, one like a nice old granny who is always knitting. You begin to notice that maybe they're not what they seem when you see the critters they're riding. -- Dorothy J. Heydt Vallejo, California djheydt at gmail dot com Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the gmail edress. Kithrup's all spammy and hotmail's been hacked.