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About halfway done with Nona and ugh yeah I can tell this wasn’t supposed to be a standalone book. Anything involving the school is tedious and uninteresting, too much time is spent on relatively unimportant details, and having the story happen around Nona rather than her being involved kinda sucks. Nona herself is more interesting for what she is more than for who she is, and that’s kinda disappointing. When the book is fresh like Gideon or batshit like Harrow it’s fascinating, but those moments are few and far between. Maybe I just don’t resonate with the core gimmick. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Nov 19, 2022 |
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Nov 19, 2022 03:48
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Pollyanna posted:About halfway done with Nona and ugh yeah I can tell this wasn’t supposed to be a standalone book. Anything involving the school is tedious and uninteresting, too much time is spent on relatively unimportant details, and having the story happen around Nona rather than her being involved kinda sucks. Nona herself is more interesting for what she is more than for who she is, and that’s kinda disappointing. i enjoyed it ok the first time through and a lot more the second, because a lot of extremely relevant detail just reads as noise when you're reading it because that's what it is to Nona who just cares about dogs and her friends
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Nov 19, 2022 04:12
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One of Muir's real strengths is writing from a specific point of view. Her protagonists are constantly missing poo poo for reasons that make perfect sense for them.
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Nov 19, 2022 07:34
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Next person who has a chance needs to ask Muir if Joe Biden is canonicaly a zombie
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Nov 19, 2022 10:53
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I think it's more likely to be Xi or Putin, tbh.
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Nov 19, 2022 11:37
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sebmojo posted:i enjoyed it ok the first time through and a lot more the second, because a lot of extremely relevant detail just reads as noise when you're reading it because that's what it is to Nona who just cares about dogs and her friends That’s the problem - I care about what Nona sees as noise, and what Nona cares about doesn’t interest me. I’ve skipped entire paragraphs of the Cool Kids Club because I wanted to get to the parts that I’m curious about. (I don’t mind the details and thoughts about established characters, that’s fine and I’ll never complain about Nona being impossibly gay over them.) We’re past the school now, so maybe it’ll focus from here on out.
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Nov 19, 2022 15:41
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I read through the series first before listening to the audiobooks with my girlfriend and Nona really benefits from Mo Quirk doing different voices for all the characters.
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Nov 19, 2022 17:08
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Nona is great because it forces the reader to stop and consider what this insane maximalist scifi horror plot is doing to normal people. And then it still ultimately delivers more of that maximalist plot
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Nov 19, 2022 20:28
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Finished Nona. I didn’t like it quite as much as Gideon or Harrow, but it’s still good - just not the kind of story I was looking forward to. Alecto, though - Alecto I am very down for. I think I’ve somehow completely missed how Alecto got summoned into Harrow’s body, and at what point in the timeline. I predicted Nona to be some sort of artificial/super duper perfect Lyctor project, and it doesn’t seem to have panned out that way, but BOE still talks about her like she’s a test subject, so I’m a bit confused.
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Nov 20, 2022 03:32
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Pollyanna posted:I think I’ve somehow completely missed how Alecto got summoned into Harrow’s body, and at what point in the timeline. I predicted Nona to be some sort of artificial/super duper perfect Lyctor project, and it doesn’t seem to have panned out that way, but BOE still talks about her like she’s a test subject, so I’m a bit confused. I might be wrong about any or all of this, but these were my impressions: 1. Alecto has been haunting Harrow since Harrow broke into the tomb when she was a child: quote:She hadn’t come on purpose; the scrap of black-eyed meat had asked for it—the chain of a kiss: the ice that burnt the flesh of the mouth that had stuck to the mouth that was frozen. The exact mechanics of how this works, I don’t really know, but that’s the point where it happened. 2. For BOE, Nona was kind of a happy accident — they found themselves suddenly in possession of what they believed to be simply a Lyctor who had been gravely injured. (Rather than Nona’s actual, very complicated situation.) If they could rehabilitate her to “working condition”, BOE might actually be able to use her to fight back against other Lyctors, where previously all they could do was run away. So, that was my understanding of the test subject situation; BOE didn’t have anything to do with why Nona is the way she is, but they were happy to gamble on maybe shaping her into a weapon to use against John’s empire. Again, could be wrong. These were just the vibes I got 
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Nov 20, 2022 04:14
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shelley posted:I might be wrong about any or all of this, but these were my impressions: Yep I think that's it
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Nov 20, 2022 04:34
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Alright yeah, so then a lot of stuff just completely went over my head. I recall that Harrow was haunted/possessed by the Body and the Body was Alecto, but I guess I missed the part where Alecto woke up instead of Harrow. Hard for the narrative to go where it went otherwise, I suppose. Speaking of things that go over my head: I actually had wildly different mental images of some of the characters than the rest of the world does, mostly because descriptions of skin color and hair length didn’t stick. Nona the Ninth spoilers: - Judith and Marta are of African descent and look like someone whose name I don’t recall; Marta is younger looking than Judith, who is more severe in the face. - Coronabeth is white with a South Beach tan and a curvy hourglass build, Ianthe looks like her commonly held fan depiction so the same but pale and utterly withered, Naberius looks like Navarre from Shin Megami Tensei IV. - Isaac and Jeannemary are teenagers so they look like people I knew in high school and college; Isaac is South Asian and Jeannemary is white. - Abigail looks like an NPC townslady from a generic JRPG or maybe Fullmetal Alchemist with glasses, and I have absolutely no clear mental image of Magnus. - Palamedes looks like some stereotypical anime scientist guy with slicked back white hair, glasses, and a lab coat, while Camilla looks like Resident Evil-era Milla Jovovich with straight black hair. - Dulcinea looks like a sickly, tired cross between Julie Andrews and Jamie Lee Curtis in their mid-to-late 20s with very short slightly wavy mid-tone brown hair; Protesilaus looks like Hugo from Street Fighter III in some sorta Napoleon-looking getup. -Silas looks like D. B. Woodside, Colum looks like some elderly black actor I’ve seen on TV but never got the name of (I guess maybe like Carl Weathers with white hair and clean shaven). - Jod looks like MIB-era Tommy Lee Jones. - Augustine looks like Spy Kids-era Antonio Banderas. - Mercymorn looks like Cara Gee as Camina Drummer from The Expanse. - Gideon Prime looks like Stylo-era Bruce Willis. - Cytherea (including her stint as Dulcinea) I cannot for the life of me describe for some reason but the quoted fanart is close enough. - Commander Wake looks like Gideon, but with long voluminous hair, resting bitch face, and nowhere near as much beef. - Nona does not look like Harrow at all, because I did not realize she was supposed to be Harrow until near the end of Nona the Ninth; she looks like some teen actress you woulda seen on Disney Channel and otherwise as she does on the cover. - We Suffer looks like Lynn Thigpen (Chief from the Carmen Sandiego game show) with short-medium white hair. - Pash looks like literally any trans woman you find on Twitter. - The Angel looks like some elderly professor I would have had in college. - Noodle is a whippet. - Alecto as the Body looked like a young pale Winona Ryder with long wavy dark hair, then with the revelation that she was based off of loving Hollywood Hair Barbie I have no idea who she resembles now. - Crux looks like an incredibly old, bald Starcraft marine. - Aiglemene looks like the Field Master from Monster Hunter World. I knew Gideon and Harrow prior to reading the books through fanart so they look like what fans have settled on: big thick brown lady with red douchebag hair and shades, little skinny brown lady with short-medium black hair and weird facepaint. No celebrities I can compare them to, though Harrow reminds me of someone I knew growing up so I can’t pass up the opportunity to mentally insert her and laugh my rear end off.
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Nov 20, 2022 23:48
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Pollyanna posted:
I accept these
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Nov 20, 2022 23:55
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Pollyanna posted:I’ve skipped entire paragraphs of the Cool Kids Club because I wanted to get to the parts that I’m curious about. Pollyanna posted:Alright yeah, so then a lot of stuff just completely went over my head. I can’t imagine these things are in any way connected.
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Nov 21, 2022 00:22
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Yeah, I know, I need to go back and reread.  Blame the ADHD.But also the ladies on the covers don’t look like the same person in the slightest, so…I guess I got thrown off?
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Nov 21, 2022 00:25
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GoodluckJonathan posted:Next person who has a chance needs to ask Muir if Joe Biden is canonicaly a zombie wait hang on I never did quite understand what they were saying with the zombie stuff but if you're implying what I think you're implying I guess it's time to move up the timetable on my reread
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Nov 21, 2022 01:11
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Yeah that was fairly clear
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Nov 21, 2022 01:25
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Pollyanna posted:Alright yeah, so then a lot of stuff just completely went over my head. I recall that Harrow was haunted/possessed by the Body and the Body was Alecto, but I guess I missed the part where Alecto woke up instead of Harrow. Hard for the narrative to go where it went otherwise, I suppose. "I realised with exhausted indignation that, at the end of everything—after all I had been through—after the last word, the last strike, the last drop of blood in the water—your bullshit dead girlfriend had come to claim you."
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Nov 21, 2022 02:06
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Pollyanna posted:Alright yeah, so then a lot of stuff just completely went over my head. I recall that Harrow was haunted/possessed by the Body and the Body was Alecto, but I guess I missed the part where Alecto woke up instead of Harrow. Hard for the narrative to go where it went otherwise, I suppose. My head went in a very different direction with these characters. Jod looks like Jeff Bridges. Jod needs to be somebody who 90% of the time comes off like The Dude and 10% comes off as Jack Forrester from Jagged Edge Augustine looks like Tom Hiddleston, charming but with an edge of cruelty running through it. Mercymorn is maybe Jennifer Garner from Butter Gideon Prime is Wes Chathem from The Expanse. When Jod needs somebody loving dead and not getting back up again, he is that guy (except that he often isn't). Cytherea... I dunno, Bo Derek for some reason? Commander Wake is Linda Hamilton with red hair.
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Nov 21, 2022 07:16
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I don't think that the zombie world leader was meant to be any particular real person. Jod's story seems to take place a good way into the future since they've been working for years on interstellar spaceships and cryogenics.
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Nov 21, 2022 07:57
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Sailor Viy posted:I don't think that the zombie world leader was meant to be any particular real person. Jod's story seems to take place a good way into the future since they've been working for years on interstellar spaceships and cryogenics. It's within our current timeline enough that Jod knows the internet in its current incarnation, several niche memes, and speaks the lingo.
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Nov 21, 2022 11:29
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Goffer posted:It's within our current timeline enough that Jod knows the internet in its current incarnation, several niche memes, and speaks the lingo. Doesn't mean a thing, how many folks on this dead forum are stuck in 20 year old memes ?
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Nov 21, 2022 11:55
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Nona spoilers: yeah I think the most you can assume about the zombie is an important world leader with access to nuclear weapons who I assume speaks English. Unless the zombie was mute the whole time and I forgot.
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Nov 21, 2022 12:54
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Everyone posted:My head went in a very different direction with these characters. Fascinating. These are all good picks, but imagining Jeff Bridges and Tom Hiddleston making out throws me for a loop  Harrow whole-book spoilers: Jod is TLJ because his introduction at the end of Gideon reminded me of this. Augustine is Antonio Banderas because A-name, slicked back hair, and smarmy. Mercymorn is Cara Gee because high-strung and neurotic like Drummer. Gideon Prime is Old Bruce Willis because he’s described as having tight skin pulled taught over a skull and to me, so does Old Bruce Willis Dunno Bo Derek, but sure! I lied - I don’t see Linda Hamilton. I got the impression that Gideon got her looks from her mom, since Harrow bleeds after looking at her portrait when meeting the BOE gang on the shuttle. (Gideon may have gotten her sense of humor and build from her biological father.)
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Nov 21, 2022 15:26
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really my only headcanon casting that I stand by is John is Taika Waititi
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Nov 21, 2022 18:06
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Mercury Hat posted:Nona spoilers: yeah I think the most you can assume about the zombie is an important world leader with access to nuclear weapons who I assume speaks English. Unless the zombie was mute the whole time and I forgot. More Nona: Jod mentions the zombie couldn't speak on its own and that if it did have to make any public statements, Jod had to devote his personal attention to reciting the lines through it like a puppet, so English is pretty likely. Jod could be fluent in multiple languages and just isn't telling us which, of course, but just reciting the lines of a language you're not familiar with would sound very off. Still, it having to be a nuclear power does narrow the selection pool down a fair bit.
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Nov 21, 2022 18:09
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disposablewords posted:More Nona: Jod mentions the zombie couldn't speak on its own and that if it did have to make any public statements, Jod had to devote his personal attention to reciting the lines through it like a puppet, so English is pretty likely. Jod could be fluent in multiple languages and just isn't telling us which, of course, but just reciting the lines of a language you're not familiar with would sound very off. Still, it having to be a nuclear power does narrow the selection pool down a fair bit. My thought process was "Is this the US president? No, I think this is the Australian prime minister. What does Australia have nukes?" and then I paused to Google and apparently found precisely the wrong answer to that question because I stuck with that belief until this discussion. Of course, if we assume the Shenzen Five Eyes factory is an accurate description of geopolitics and not a mistake on Muir's part, then Australia could reasonably have nukes.
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Nov 21, 2022 18:54
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Bayham Badger posted:really my only headcanon casting that I stand by is John is Taika Waititi IIRC Tamsyn has said that's how she imagines him, so this is the canon answer.
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Nov 21, 2022 20:34
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jesus loving christ ive been confusing taika waititi with jason mantzoukas.
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Nov 21, 2022 21:27
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Pollyanna posted:jesus loving christ ive been confusing taika waititi with jason mantzoukas. omg jason mantzoukas as john tho
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Nov 21, 2022 21:36
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Reclaimer posted:omg jason mantzoukas as john tho Yeah! Who needs a Māori actor as an explicitly Māori character, he's vaguely ethnic that's fine. Edit: Sorry, that was needlessly rude. But there's so few Māori SFF characters, would it kill people to imagine characters as anything other than American or British for a change? cptn_dr fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Nov 21, 2022 |
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Nov 21, 2022 22:00
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I am extremely, embarassingly unaware of NZ, Aussie & Māori actors (as well as many cultural traditions) which is why I've avoided diving too deeply into the "dream casting" the characters. My mental image of Gideon Nav is heavily influenced by Samoan actor Frankie Adams, and (HtN spoiler)I think of Temuera Morrison as Gideon Prime, except much more lithe and sinewy. Though I also particularly liked Moira Quirk's accent for OG Gideon, which was sort of Northern Irish by my hearing.
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Nov 21, 2022 23:55
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sebmojo posted:Yeah that was fairly clear oh wait I got mixed up which zombie section we were talking about thanks, Tamsyn
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Nov 21, 2022 23:58
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cptn_dr posted:I think it's more likely to be Xi or Putin, tbh. I was thinking of the three, Biden is the only one who could pass as such.
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Nov 22, 2022 00:56
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My first thought was Biden, but I just didn't think that the US was enough of an autocratic nightmare for things to go the way they did. But yeah actually I don't know why I was that charitable, I'm back on team You Wouldn't Reanimate The President .
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Nov 22, 2022 01:03
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Pollyanna posted:Fascinating. These are all good picks, but imagining Jeff Bridges and Tom Hiddleston making out throws me for a loop I mean, there was a reason Harrow was freaking out when it started Pollyanna posted:Mercymorn is Cara Gee because high-strung and neurotic like Drummer. I've been bouncing off of Seasons 4-6 of The Expanse but up to Season 3, I cannot imagine words less descriptive of Camina Drummer than "high-strung" and "neurotic."
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Nov 22, 2022 01:59
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Everyone posted:I mean, there was a reason Harrow was freaking out when it started When Drummer snaps it's generally a well-placed, highly directed detonation. Viciously efficient. more like "steely-eyed missile woman"
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Nov 22, 2022 02:09
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I hope the upcoming videogame starring Cara Gee as Camina Drummer is good instead of bad.
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Nov 22, 2022 02:55
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I must remember a different Drummer then.
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Nov 22, 2022 04:35
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If I was going to cast Cara Gee as anyone in TLT it would probably be Harrow. Drummer is a very differtent character, but I can see her doing Harrow.
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Nov 23, 2022 06:10
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