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I just finished the second book, "A Succession of Bad Days." I really like the ending. I really, really like the ending and the point it drives home. I felt like it could have gotten there faster and my eyes glazed over during the canal building. Usually I like hard science sections, but there was nothing in that section for me to grab hold of and provide context. Maybe canals are just too far outside my experience in a way that needing air to breathe on Mars isn't. I really, really like the introduction of the legal policy of "Justice adds no harm to the wronged." The way it's applied is magnificent. I wish we had something like that.
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Jul 16, 2022 02:07
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 05:14 |
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I'm reading Safely you Deliver, and I can't figure out who Zora is referring to when she says "Constant." As in, Death and Constant Strange Mayhem. It can't be Dove or Edgar, because there are more than a few sentences about Dove, and Edgar, and Constant. It can't be Chloris, Zora's nickname for Chloris is Death. I'm fairly certain there have been at least one instance of both Constant and Blossom as well as Constant and Grue showing up in the same sentence, so it's probably not either of them, but that doesn't leave any options I can think of. Anyone know who Constant is? LLSix fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Jul 22, 2022 |
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Jul 22, 2022 19:33
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I finished Safely you Deliver. The feels are real. I think it was my least favorite of the three so far because the edges are showing in some places. For example, can someone break down the argument about how to pay the wizard team for me? My understanding is that the wizard-team is doing so much work, that any reasonable payment schedule for them would end up with them personally owning way too much wealth. As a result the various accountants are trying to find some way to not do that. The "solution" they appear to have settled on is to use various accounting tricks to avoid paying them what they're worth for the past five years, something one of the previously introduced accountants asserted should end with those responsible for not paying them correctly being executed (admittedly it was one of their family members, Zora's relative I think?). Instead of, you know, just telling the students they've served their 5 years in 50 and that they're officially on vacation. Then, when the wizard-team offers to voluntarily cap their income and give everything else back to the Commonweal for free, the clerks get snippy about letting them have a place to live where they can work and research without bothering other people. I don't see how that's remotely just. I accept that it's good for the Commonweal as a whole, and I agree that allowing anyone to accumulate disproportionate wealth is going to lead to long term problems. Especially since Independents live long enough that any wealth they have is best considered as intergenerational wealth. The whole sequence lends credence to Mulch's belief that he's a servant/slave of the Commonweal instead of an equal citizen. If I understand that scene correctly, I think I would have preferred if they'd just admitted that in this case the Commonweal value of not letting Sorcerers rule trumps paying them fairly for their labor. When two values come into conflict one has to trump the other, and that's okay. LLSix fucked around with this message at 04:55 on Jul 25, 2022 |
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Jul 25, 2022 03:24
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Sailor Viy posted:I'm about 1/4 of the way through book 2. At first I really didn't like it compared to the first book. It's not that I'm categorically opposed to the shift from Wizard Warfare to Wizard Animal Crossing, but the bigger change is that Saunders' style has gone from terse-to-the-point-of-obscurity to telling the reader every goddamn thing in as much detail as possible. And he's picked up this weird tic where he has to report every single character's reaction to everything in long lists: "Zora smirked. Kynefrid looked awkward. Dove smiled a little bit. Chloris frowned." Like they're a bunch of anime characters. Yeah. The shift between the first two books is pretty jarring. Every book changes viewpoint character, so there's a significant shift between each book. The shift between the first and second is the roughest.
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Dec 9, 2022 01:36
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grassy gnoll posted:Decided to reread March North to kill time at work, which'll be my first time since completing the rest of the series. What? I genuinely have no idea what you mean by this. Maybe it's just too early here for my brain to be working.
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Dec 15, 2022 14:47
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eke out posted:iirc creek gender is complicated in a much more fundamental way than just preferences for which genitalia you like and how many partners. i think there's references to like being attracted to what we would think of as particular personality types (e.g.: dove's absolutely insane heroism) in ways they would consider gender ulmont posted:Yeah they talk about a two-axis: This scene, or rather, set of scenes, didn't come across to me as an alternative to gender. A frequent refrain in the books is that "nothing ever happens in the Creeks" always followed up by some variation on "the Creeks work hard to make sure nothing ever happens." In this context, this makes me think more that the Creeks have a robust sex-ed/relationship course included in their basic schooling. If you're the kind of person who goes for "bad boys" or as the Creeks say a preference for "hopeful and exciting" relationships, that seems like a useful thing to know about yourself. Especially if, as seems to be the case, you've been taught how to safely find those kinds of partners. Gender is an orthogonal issue I think; so someone could be hopeful exciting hetero or hopeful exciting bi or hopeful exciting homo or rather, somewhere along all three axis. (Sorry if I didn't get the gender terms completely polite - I did my best  )
LLSix fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Dec 15, 2022 |
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Dec 15, 2022 22:59
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That section of the book is confusing because it contains experts speculating about a new-to-them-phenomena on insufficient data. If I remember right, they revise their estimates of how long it would have taken down later in the book (on the theory that people are more afraid than they assumed during this discussion). OTOH, from the Commonwealth's perspective, it still looks like Reems has been slowly losing a war (and in the process running through an awful lot of pre-eminent sorcerers) for a long time. Especially when you consider that all the wizard fights we see last somewhere between a few seconds and a few days at most.
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Dec 30, 2022 16:54
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Sailor Viy posted:2. Why don't wizards just fly everywhere instead of walking, rowing canoes, etc? The apprentices can levitate kegs of beer carefully enough that they don't get fizzy, so flying oneself should be easy. I guess it would be impolite to do it in civilised areas, but it would have saved them a lot of time when they were travelling through that swamp. In the case of the swamps there's a specific answer to why they don't fly - it's the same reason they don't just use illusionary boats. They're trying to keep magic use to a minimum on that trip; I don't remember the exact specifics as to why. More generally, just because apprentices wizard don't fly, doesn't mean Independents more generally don't. You may have noticed that all the adult Independents get around faster than baseline humans should be able to. I don't think any of the narrators in the Commonweal books ever lie, so they're not the traditional sort of unreliable narrator, but the viewpoint character for each book does heavily slant the reader's perspective. On a somewhat related note; the fifth book offers the clearest description of what it means to be carried around by the Line. It turns out the Commonweal military don't do a whole lot of marching with their feet. Or maybe it's the fourth book that I'm thinking of? One of the later ones anyways. LLSix fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Dec 30, 2022 |
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Dec 30, 2022 22:39
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Almost none of that map matches my mental map. I'd have to go back and check the books to be sure which of us is wrong though and 
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Jan 17, 2023 00:56
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Slyphic posted:Graydon has problems with Amazon et al. Insurmountable ethical and legal ones. I believe those are explained on his blog, though they might be in the comments, so good luck finding them or just believe this rando. That's fair. Amazon is an especially terrible company.
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Jan 24, 2023 02:32
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habeasdorkus posted:Two: Shortly before the big battle, Chert says they'd been thinking about how they'd report to the First Commonweal and its Line. The way it sounds, Chert doesn't believe the Second Commonweal abides by the Peace and says "Too much economy gone to militant purposes." Am I reading that right? And is the Second Commonweal's economy really that stressed by raising 7000 or so soldiers out of a population of 600k in the Creeks? Where are you getting 7000 soldiers from? We're told the size of a battalion and brigade several times, and I thought I remember a single brigade being more than that.
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Apr 1, 2023 16:30
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The question of how much of a strain is it really to raise and support the Second Commonweal Line is an interesting one. A file is 8 people, many sources including the same chapter as the following citation. From book 5, A Mist of Grit and Splinters, Chapter D-Day Minus 1321 "An old line platoon is eight files; five platoons and four files color party is a company; Five companies and eight files of Colour Party is a battalion. It's meant to stay over a thousand and twenty-four effective" 8*8*5+4*8=352 in a company 352*5 +8*8 = 1824 in a battalion (3 battalions to a brigade) From book 5, A Mist of Grit and Splinters, Chapter D-Day Minus 1321 "Wapentake platoons are ten files; five platoons and five files is a company. Five Companies and 24 files is a battalion. ... We don't count the full-captain, the part-captains, the sergeant-major or the signaller." 8*10*5 +5*8 = 440 in a company 440*5 + 24*8 = 2392 +8 officers = 2400 From book 4, Under 1 banner, "The line wants two artillery battalions for the First Valley. ... those will be the only full-time formations in the whole of the Folded Hills. Eleven thousand unproductive adults is pressing hard on what the Folded Hills can feed." 11k / 2 = 5500 per artillery battalion (elsewhere Twiggy notes that an artillery battalion is twice the size of a heavy line battalion) Accepting the previously offered standing military size of 3 battalions and 2/5ths of an artillery battalion gives 2400*3 + 2/5*5500 = 9,400. Pretty close  But remember that military units are not just an upfront cost. They must also still be fed, trained, and supplied. So really it's 9,400 + 5,472(low number for Chert's brigade using only 3 "regular" battalions and no heavies or artillery) = ~15k brains-on-focuses soldiers out of a population of 1 million. A civilian to soldiers ratio of 67 : 1 is on the low side, historically speaking. Low in this context means that there's very few civilians compared to soldiers. Depending on how efficient the broader society is, there may or may not still be some slack (i.e. capacity to expand the civilian economy), but probably not much slack. To make matters worse, the soldier numbers we are using are just the numbers for the people in the actual battalions who do the actual fighting. They do not include all of the other people who must make boot clasps, uniforms, drive wagons pulled by brass bulls or other logistics and support activities needed to allow those fighters to not starve and get where they're going. There's a funny bit of military jargon for this ratio: the tooth to tail ratio. Traditionally this ratio varies between 2 & 12 additional people removed from the civilian workforce for every soldier. If we include the minimum logistical tail numbers of 2 support/transport/producers per soldier we get a civilian to soldiers ratio of 22:1. The winning side of the American civil war did so with a 20:1 ratio, and more than 100% losses (peak strength of 0.7 million but over 0.8 million casualties over the course of the war) via the magic of replacing the dead with new recruits. Since the North won their war, that's probably not the lower bound for utmost effort, but the Second Commonweal needs to be growing their civilian population and economy at the same time in order to establish new production line and raw material sources before everything that was built by the first Commonweal wears out so it's definitely nudging the line. Being forced to divert maximum resources to the military is a loss condition since it means a permanent loss in productive capacity that in turn means not being able to sustain the military at the minimum levels for safety. These kinds of numbers are heavily dependent on local conditions and social structures, but there are several passages in the books about how just making all the e.g. brass bulls or boot cleats needed is going to be the labor of years and they do drill in on exact numbers. So overall I think that raising and maintaining the described force structure is both realisticly near the sustainable limits of the second Commonweal and well supported in the book as written. LLSix fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Apr 2, 2023 |
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Apr 1, 2023 22:18
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habeasdorkus posted:Well, this answers some questions about his personal politics. And they're very similar to the Commonweal's core beliefs. Neither of your counter-examples meet the "everyone or no one" standard. I think Graydon is aware that his ideals are not easy to live up to and require conscious, sustained effort. He certainly makes that point about the Creeks' extreme efforts to ensure nothing ever happens there frequently enough. Although from the books I wouldn't be surprised if Saunders would find it difficult to argue against an extremely hard-line anti-immigrant stance as long as it disallowed all immigration equally (as opposed to on a racial or other inequitable basis). The Commonweal is generally not eager to accept immigrants except in extremis, and even then requires them to submit to the Shape of Peace... which killed two of the three cousin sorcerors who petitioned to join the Second Commonwealth (source: book 4). LLSix fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Jun 4, 2023 |
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Jun 4, 2023 18:25
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Demon_Corsair posted:I can't tell if I don't understand the scale of everything in these books or if the author doesn't understand metric. I don't think Creeks are 15 feet tall. They are taller than modern humans. Lots of passages describe Creeks viewing adults from other kin-types as being basically the size of young teenagers. So probably somewhere in the 8-10 foot rangeish? And sufficiently muscular that they look a bit squat. Most of the buildings we do get solid dimensions for are built on a heroic scale, but are also described as being magnificently large, so that seems deliberate rather than a misunderstanding.
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Jul 4, 2023 21:52
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head58 posted:Hello Graydons - I have a friend going through a rough patch and looking for “getting swept away” in a story. I kind of want to recommend A Succession of Bad Days, but do you think skipping the first book would be too detrimental? I know the kind of stuff she likes and I think the style would put her off. Plus she could do with more optimism and love than horrible carnage and demon things right now. That should be fine. The books are largely standalone anyways - everything you need to know is covered again if it becomes relevant. It might even work better if you don't realize Dove is a badass until Edgar discovers that.
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Aug 24, 2023 17:09
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habeasdorkus posted:Welp, Graydon has taken the position on Covid that no one should ever be going outside without a respirator until Covid has been extirpated entirely, so... maybe he'll have more time to write since he clearly won't be getting out much? 
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Dec 4, 2023 17:46
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I was gripped by an awful urge to remix some of the Commonweal Independents as Grimdark Sorcerers. It just wouldn't leave me alone, so, well, here it is. Can you tell which Independent was the inspiration? Magic will give you just as many mutually contradictory laws as you are witless enough to seek. For this reason and many others, young wizards are trained by one of the Mighty. An aspiring sorcerer's teacher does not define everything about them, but they do shape them. Often in ways they don't realize until long after. This tale focuses on an apprentice of which of the Mighty? The Endless The Endless's students never forget the first time they saw it. Him. It. No matter how hard or how often they try. Most believe the Endless got his cognomen because of the endless armies of the dead he commands, and find comfort in this misapprehension. The Healer She once extracted a man's brain and regrew him a body from his brain alone - that being easier than curing him of the parasitic magic that had infested him. In another time and place she'd have been feared as a wicked queen who's beauty lured men and women to their deaths. In this time, those she taught have saved the world twice over and not nearly enough. Though she freely teaches all who come to her, only her apprentice knows her secrets. The Liar The merely mortal can be mistaken for thinking the Liar is the most plain and honest man they've ever seen. He works hard to keep it that way. But even under the influence of his silver tongue the concept of "good" shies from his presence. Among the least successful of his lies was persuading metal to melt and a field of flowers to feast on the armies of his enemies. The Greatest The Greatest is unmatched in power even among the mighty. Were any two of them sane, they would not contest her will. It is often said that the only equal to her might is her ruthlessness. It is the salvation of the world that her ruthlessness is applied first and most fully to herself. It is the damnation of the world that she did not stop there. The Valorous The dearest ambition of the Valorous is to punch dragons. Preferably plural. Thanks to his efforts; the young now believe dragons to be nothing more than myths. Lacking dragons, he has a tendency to get bored. A terrible, terrible tendency. LLSix fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Dec 13, 2023 |
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Dec 13, 2023 04:10
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fritz posted:Wake, Grue, Rust, Halt, Block ? You got them all right! Phobeste posted:The thing that’s great about the commonweal is that it doesn’t need remixing to make the independents grimdark because the books say “what does it look like for these dark legends out of time to work for a society” Yeah, that's fair.
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Dec 14, 2023 14:50
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Bishop Beo posted:Just finished up the second book. Boy howdy I'm glad I'm not the only one that finds the prose to be sort of impenetrable at times. You got it correctly. Also, Halt is one.
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Dec 22, 2023 03:36
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