Gaiman’s latest, a book of short stories called "Trigger Warning" which also came out this week contains a story using for its title a portion of the same kublai khan line as this lovely game! Coincidence? I think not! Well, actually, probably. But what fun is that?
I haven’t read the story yet (it’s called "Down to a Sunless Sea" so not quite the identical portion of the line)as I’m saving the book for when I finish the ones I’m reading now, but I couldn’t help leafing through it and noticing that. I have described Fl before as a bit like if gaiman wrote videogames, so the convergence made me smile.
Is Neil Gaiman the one that wrote American Gods? I mean, he writes graphic and prose novels?
Correct.
Hah, right-o. Cause I have one friend who reads a lot of comics who talked a bit about Neil Gaiman and another friend who was telling me about American Gods and I never got around to finding out if it was the same guy ;p
That’s him - American Gods, Anansi Boys, Neverwhere, Sandman… I think he did actually do a videogame recently? I think a friend Kickstarted it. Certainly, he’s in the same sort of contemporary gothic vein, pun unintenional, as the Neathyverse. Whether he’s aware of SS or not, Coleridge is rich historical fuel for writers since - Douglas Adams made marvellous use of him too, for instance.
Now that I think about it, his Neverwhere was an unLondon much more tethered to its original than Fallen London, which I mean makes sense - a mirror instead of this translocation. But that’s in the line of what I expected coming into the Neath, and I was pleasantly surprised by how different everything was. So many delicious stories about London![li]
Is there a reading list for Sunless Sea? FL is already impressively literary, but since the writing staff was larger for this project it’d be fun to know the influences.
Re: Coleridge, you really have to read his “sublime” anecdote.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36773/36773-h/36773-h.htm#page36
TBH, I used to think Fallen London was a Gaiman creation, before I learned otherwise. He has the same sort of dark yet whimsical, British style as FBG.
There’s also literally Un Lun Dun, if you’re talking about unLondons, which is Mieville’s take on it (for a younger audience, however).
Anywhoozit, I recently read a review that compared the humor to Pratchett’s, which I found interesting mostly as an example of how “British humor” is viewed as A Thing.
I’m on the wait list for Un Lun Dun at the library. After reading Kraken, I think I would like/possibly prefer to see mieville writing for a younger audience. I don’t mind running to a dictionary every few pages if the atmosphere of the book(/game) is one of mystery because it feels like part of the solving, but when the atmosphere is otherwise action-y I find it takes me out of things a bit.
[quote=Fretling]There’s also literally Un Lun Dun, if you’re talking about unLondons, which is Mieville’s take on it (for a younger audience, however).
Anywhoozit, I recently read a review that compared the humor to Pratchett’s, which I found interesting mostly as an example of how "British humor" is viewed as A Thing.[/quote]
I was, of course! Something I’ve been wondering about - I wouldn’t have expected London to have lots of spiders, but it keeps cropping up - Webminster Abbey and those Black Windows were somehow more terrifying than sorrow spiders. People also mention The Scar all the time, which, yes, but Mieville tends to take the ‘stories ending badly’ thing too far, except in Un Lun Dun. It being geared for YA doesn’t make it any less inventive than his other stuff, and you won’t want to stab the book afterwards.[li]
If we’re talking about comparisons, though, "A Face Like Glass" (which Alexis mentioned on Steam) is set in a gigantic underground cave with magic Wines and scholars of the Cartography, who have all gone mad by trying to map the city and shifting script of the tunnels, so much so that they only say things like, "…batwise scutterblack so we hadn’t time to wind up properly with elbow-mandator before we could gauge the reverberation and earth-hiccups–" and measure things by ‘singing three degrees of silver’. They imitate bats and squeak all the time, and someone makes deadly exploding cheeses.
(no I haven’t been suffering from waiting on the launch and rereading everything that reminds me of fl, why would you ask ;-.-)[/li][li]
edited by fortluna on 2/6/2015
I LOVE Frances Hardinge! Yeah, there was in the back of my mind that YA doesn’t mean it’s less worth reading. Have you read “Cuckoo Song”? Freaky stuff.
[color=#009900][True story: Frances and I were in the same tabletop gaming group(s), long ago and far away. I wrote FL before I’d read any of her fiction, but I think we probably share an influence or two. She is a much better writer, though, no lie.][/color]
[color=#009900]Influences from 2013: [/color]http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1nknpk/im_alexis_kennedy_founder_chief_narrative_officer/ccjgv21
[color=#009900]Honestly, Gaiman is low on the list, but he casts a very long shadow.[/color]
oh my god
Is it…the disregard for the Laws of Physics and Nature, or the fondness for whimsical saints and gods? Fly by Night is one of my favorite book, one I’d definitely Take To A Deserted Island, but I’d bring Fallen London too if only I had the foresight to…print out FL somehow, or if I had an internet connection, which means that I wouldn’t be left there anyway…so this isn’t a workable conceit. But I’ve used quotes from FL and Fly by Night to practice calligraphy, and they’re all delightful, whether rendered on the page, on screen, or in shoddily bleeding letters.
How was Cuckoo Song? I haven’t gotten my hands on it yet, and I want to read it so much.
[li]