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"India's mutiny." I suspect this is the Connaught Rangers, but would be very interested in other thoughts here. 1) the regiment was called "The Devil's Own," 2) Daly was executed on Nov 2 1920, which is close enough, 3) it fits with the Vicar's gold square rimmed glasses "in the old way" which I think were talking about the 1920s era of square gold rimmed glasses, rather than the 1960s/70s. I think. "dicotyledons" or dicots. like 200,000 plant species. Examples: castor beans, mescal beans, cannabis sativa, poppies (at the time of publication), jimsonweed, etc. but its all Sherlock so who knows what it means. No one is even considering the Great Detective and his companion as a player, which honestly seems really drat weird. maybe the truly mundane dont play into it? Albino Raven is new. I think the only person missing a familiar right now is Larry, so either its his, or ANOTHER player...
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Oct 20, 2023 04:32
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fosborb posted:"India's mutiny." I suspect this is the Connaught Rangers, but would be very interested in other thoughts here. I think the consensus is that the events of the book take place over October, 1887, which had a full moon on Halloween and was within about a year of the Jack the Ripper murders. The "Mutiny" being referred to would probably be Indian Rebellion of 1857, or the "Indian Mutiny" as it was referred to in the press at the time. A good while before the book, but then Mrs. Enderby DOES look pretty old, so it fits that she's an aged widow of some British army chap who got got in that war. This means that the Vicar's glasses aren't just out of fashion, they're out of fashion for the 1880s.
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Oct 20, 2023 13:17
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Oct 20th I think this is the first time snuff hasn't just omitted a key fact but outright lied. Lucky the dog. Just a stray, nobody, don't worry about him. Not a player. Also I think greymalk tried subtly revealing her opener persuasion. quote:“I couldn’t guess. This is your first, of course.” Frankenstein's monster appears to be the movie type, fire bad, doggy good. Adam spoke so eloquently.
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Oct 20, 2023 17:55
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October 20thquote:"I hunted rats and ate out of dustbins and saw my kittens killed and was hung by my tail and abused by wicked urchins," Graymalk said suddenly, "before the mistress found me. She was an orphan who'd lived on the streets. Her life had been even worse." Yeah, cat's out of the bag, Greymalk pretty much outright reveals her affiliation. She's an Opener in direct opposition to Snuff, and we finally start to understand what that means. It means Opening the Way for Them; the Great Old Ones, the sort that Vicar Roberts secretly worships. It's interesting that there's something of a radical political sentiment to it, Greymalk voices her ideological reason for being of this side as basically, in both senses of the term, "immanentizing the Eschaton." Snuff is sympathetic, but skeptical. Still, there's work to be done that profits both of them. While Greymalk sneaks into the Great Detective's new abode, Nightwind pays Snuff a visit to discuss matters. He seems to know QUITE a bit about the Vicar's affairs, his Familiar (the albino raven, Tekela) and confirmation that he's the one who killed the policeman and dumped him near Jack's house, a human sacrifice to empower him and make up for starting the Game late. Not much new info on the Good Doctor though, Bubo is tight-lipped to a fault. You really get a feel for Nightwind's character, in that he seems to love gossip more than most of the other Familiars, likes being an info broker. He has a mean sense of humor too, I think he's quickest to discuss how edible the other Familiars are, or how good they are for stringing tennis rackets or whatever. I suppose he's like Snuff in that he's more physically unassailable than the others, no squirrels or rats or whatever are gonna start poo poo with him, and while Snuff takes advantage of that position to be fair and even handed in his dealings, Nightwind is confident enough in his position to treat this whole Game as, well, a game to amuse himself. Naturally, Snuff distrusts him enough for him to feed the owl his first explicit lie all month. After "Linda" lets Greymalk out the back door (who seems kinda shocked that a rando would remember the local crazy lady's housecat on sight) and confirming it MIGHT meet the requirements for a ritual site,, they pay the Good Doctor a visit. It seems he's finally succeeded on making his Experiment Man. He isn't as articulate as Novel Frankenstein, but more articulate than OG film Frankenstein. I guess he's about at Bride of Frankenstein levels. He gets a little bit Lenny from Of Mice and Men with Greymalk, but he seems a gentle soul, and the Good Doctor seems patient with him to a degree that's kinda uncharacteristic of his usual portrayal. Maybe it's Gene Wilder YOUNG Frankenstein. Asterite34 fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Oct 20, 2023 |
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Oct 20, 2023 18:26
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Missed a few days but now I'm all caught up (to the 21st, thanks GMT+12), and it's getting harder to stick to one chapter a day. Everything is kicking off! This is the first Zelazny I've ever read, and I can't help thinking, "Oh, so THIS is who Gaiman was trying to be for the first decade or two of his career." Graveyard Book was mentioned earlier (which feels like it owes as much to this as it does to the Jungle Book), but it also feels like Sandman is just Goth Zelazny too.
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Oct 20, 2023 20:07
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cptn_dr posted:Missed a few days but now I'm all caught up (to the 21st, thanks GMT+12), and it's getting harder to stick to one chapter a day. Everything is kicking off! Yup. I mean, imitate the greats. Gaiman has said Book 10 of Sandman was directly inspired by Zelazny's funeral. If you branch out into other Zelazny be ready for a lot of variation; Zelazny experimented a lot with authorial tone and narrative voice so his books can be very different from each other.
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Oct 20, 2023 20:14
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Oh yeah, that's not a criticism at all. I'm mostly just excited that I get to read a bunch of Zelazny for the first time in the months ahead.
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Oct 20, 2023 20:17
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My first Zelazny was Lord of Light, because Tim fallout said it was his favorite book in one of his youtube shorts this year. It was weird. The structure confused me, and I'm not sure its style was anything like this book.
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Oct 20, 2023 21:25
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Krinkle posted:My first Zelazny was Lord of Light, because Tim fallout said it was his favorite book in one of his youtube shorts this year. It was weird. The structure confused me, and I'm not sure its style was anything like this book. Creatures of Light and Darkness is Weirdest Zelazny. It was originally an experiment that he never intended to publish, and it needed Samuel R F*cking Delany to make that happen. The Agnostic's Prayer posted:Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen.
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Oct 20, 2023 21:47
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Krinkle posted:My first Zelazny was Lord of Light, because Tim fallout said it was his favorite book in one of his youtube shorts this year. It was weird. The It isn't. Lord of Light is a brilliant book and it won Zelazny his Hugo award but the conceit is essentially "what if the Bhagavad Gita and the Tripitakas were a SF novel" and so it's written in a deliberately elevated style to partially mimic the feel of religious texts. On the overall scale of zelazny works its more approachable and its probably the best hybrid between "weird zelazny" and "fun action zelazny". Creatures of Light and Darkness was his first novel and every *chapter* in that book is written in a different genre -- one chapter is a prayer, one is a play, etc. Extraordinarily experimental but more a disassociative fountain than a conventional novel. Isle of the Dead is my favorite overall zelazny novel; if there's one Zelazny novel that most represents his overall oeuvre, it's Isle of the Dead. (A Rose for Ecclesiastes is the same but for short stories). The Amber series was zelaznys attempt to write action epic fantasy / SF because he needed money. They're fun and fast paced and have all the structure of a pot of spaghetti; they're basically improv and you can see the plot taking shape under his pen as he writes. Fun tho. My Name is Legion is probably his most straightforward "this is a SF thriller with a normal human protagonist" work if you want an easy entry point. NitLO is his last major work and has the feel to me of a retirement project, like if old man Rodin sat down and sculpted some toys for his grandchildren. They'd be goddam masterpieces, right? Come to think of it I wish Miyazaki would adapt this
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Oct 20, 2023 21:48
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:It isn't. No. Who knows what he would do to it. “Howl’s Moving Castle” was beautiful and totally went off the rails from the book, losing its charm. Edit: meh, deleting the rest of the rant about what Ghibli did to Howl’s moving castle. I moved onto Diana Wynne Jones after going through my Gaiman catalogue. But I’m making an argument for a question nobody asked. Bored fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Oct 21, 2023 |
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Oct 21, 2023 16:16
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October 21st Snuff goes to check on Quicklime's progress on tracking down the Count's extra crypts, and finds him at Rastov's place as he pounds vodka and contemplates his Abdul Alhazred commemorative plate. It seems that the clever snake has learned something of the power of alcohol from his Master, and has taught that power to Needle. After a bit of fermented windfall fruit, the bat sang like a canary and revealed the Count has two extra hideouts. I like Quicklime, he's very much the archetype of the sullen, cautious "agent in enemy territory," he suits his Master well. He chats with Snuff as they travel to check Needle's info, discussing current events. It seems that with sufficient magic mojo, it is possible to mystically divine the allegiances of the Players, so the secrets are gonna start coming out soon, and with them probably some violence. Snuff generally thinks such tactics are wasteful, for one very important reason: At the end of the Game, the losing team always gets super hosed up and dies from the mystical backlash of their failed ritual. For the perceptive among you, you might notice the implication that anyone claiming to have participated in a previous Game must, necessarily, be a Closer. And both Snuff and Quicklime have previously implied they're veterans at this... Yes, Snuff and Quicklime both reveal they're Closers! We finally have an unambiguous ally in this. Which might be necessary going forward, because we have our first casualty of the Game: Rand Brittain posted:Ultimately I think it's okay for some of the players to just be "a Witch" or "a Druid" instead of some major named character, because, let's face it: not all of these guys are going to make it to the Big Event and some of them need to be obviously expendable because you can't just introduce Count Dracula and then have him die unceremoniously a third of the way through the book. Close! The Count unceremoniously died two thirds of the way through the book! They find his shriveled staked skeleton in one of his "secret" extra crypts, with no idea who did it. I guess he was too scary for his own good and fell prey to Tall Poppy Syndrome, someone didn't want to have to deal with him later as an opponent. Nobody's too sorry to see him go, honestly. A quick talk with Greymalk later shows she's been investigating other Players' hideouts lately too. Seems Vicar Roberts has his young stepdaughter chained up in his church somewhere, a future virgin sacrifice for the big event on Halloween. Everyone's looking for the big ritual site, but the Count's extra residences have thrown the pattern all out of whack and nobody knows what the gently caress. Better go check in on the caravan by Talbot's place to clear their heads a bit. Linda Enderby is already there, having already paid Rastov a visit to chat and discuss Pushkin. She's playing the violin well. Wildly, crazily well. quote:Abruptly, he halted and took a step, as if suddenly moving out of a dream. He bowed then and returned the instrument to its owner, his movements in that moment entirely masculine. I thought of all the controlled thinking, the masterfully developed deductions, which had served to bring him here, and then this, this momentary slipping into the wildness he must keep carefully restrained, and then seeing him come out of it, smiling, becoming the woman again. I saw in this the action of an enormous will, and suddenly I knew him much better than as the pursuing figure of many faces. Suddenly I knew that he had to be learning, as we were learning other aspects, of the scope of our enterprise, that he could well be right behind us at the end, that he was almost, in some way, a player, more a force, really, in the Game, and I respected him as I have few beings of the many I have known.
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Oct 22, 2023 02:59
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I'm thinking about the 90s where people would talk shade but be politically correct while doing it and say that someone is of the homosexual persuasion. And if we discount the verb form of like "convincing someone to do something else" then this is roughly 100% of the usage of the word persuasion of that time. I've never heard someone say they were of the irish persuasion. Or of the persuasion that likes polka music. 100% of the time it means they're gay. And all these characters are out here pussy footing around trying to suss out everyone else's persuasion. But they can't just say it because it's dangerous for them to come out and be an opener in a world of closers. Is this all homosexual subtext?
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Oct 22, 2023 04:02
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Also when the count got staked and Snuff said that was distasteful for someone of his persuasion i thought he meant why is this closer leaving his coffin open. Bad form, vlad. Not on brand. It took me all day to realize he probably meant of the vampire persuasion (vampires are the gayest monster so same question as above?)
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Oct 22, 2023 04:05
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One small note worth pointing out is that "Sherlock Holmes" as such would still have been under copyright when this book was written.
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Oct 22, 2023 04:08
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:One small note worth pointing out is that "Sherlock Holmes" as such would still have been under copyright when this book was written. It’s the “Great Detective” and his chubby companion. I don’t think he’s named. And now I know why.
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Oct 22, 2023 04:45
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cptn_dr posted:Missed a few days but now I'm all caught up (to the 21st, thanks GMT+12), and it's getting harder to stick to one chapter a day. Everything is kicking off! If you have the time the Amber series is very good as is Roadmarks.
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Oct 22, 2023 05:49
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Asterite34 posted:Close! The Count unceremoniously died two thirds of the way through the book! by length, we end this chapter at precisely half way through the book, by my kindle anyway wild that the last third of days is as long as the first two thirds. the effect this has on the pace of the book is fascinating
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Oct 22, 2023 05:55
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fosborb posted:by length, we end this chapter at precisely half way through the book, by my kindle anyway Right? It ticks along fast early on, giving you these little vignettes of A Day In The Life Of A Very Good (Spooky) Dog, but as soon as the death of the moon goes down and the Game starts in earnest, it starts feeling like a novel in earnest. Supposedly this is from Zelazny writing this as a short story that he discovered was actually a novel partway through. However it came to be, it really works.
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Oct 22, 2023 08:18
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Imagine being Jack The Ripper and ripping a huge fart in public, but you cant use the pun because you'd be arrested for the murders. Only one you can tell are the victims just before you kill them, but that requires timing your fart just right before the kill, then going "I guess thats why they call me Jack The Ripper" and then going in for the kill as the victim is putting two-and-two together. Its a lot of work for such a miniscule pay-off.
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Oct 22, 2023 10:27
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October 22ndquote:"A chihuahua?" The thing in the circle suggested. "Just for laughs?" Welcome to the worst chapter of the book, the one that even diehard fans tend to kinda skim a bit on re-reads. Not for any problematic or offensive reasons, it's just... well you'll see. Snuff and Greymalk are collaborating on their mutual goal: finding the central ritual site for the Grand Finale. The addition of the Count's extra crypts seems to shift the pattern to... some random unremarkable field, so something's off. They go up to the big hill with the old stones on top (which Snuff has taken to referring to as Dog's Nest) to reconnoiter. Something that came up last chapter was Snuff's ruminations on own philosophical reasons for being a Closer. He acknowledges that the world as it is largely does suck out loud, but at least it sucks in a comprehensible way. Mortals make their own good and evil, and lie in the bed they made for themselves. It's far from perfect, but Snuff really can't see how the situation would be improved by giving over the world the Elder Gods. It's not even that they're evil, it's just that they so utterly transcend everything that they have no ability or inclination to understand or care about mundane people or things. If a world ruled by humans doesn't care about starving alley cats, what's a world ruled by Great Old Ones gonna care about? Honestly, even Greymalk doesn't seem to hold the Elders in much reverence despite being an Opener, she makes fun of their goofy unpronounceable names. This was a dumb thing to do at a time when the barriers between worlds is weakened, as she narrowly avoids getting struck by a lightning bolt of divine retribution. This coincides with the old standing stones reacting and forming a portal to...sigh. The Dreamlands. What follows is Zelazny getting really drat self-indulgent and going on for like four solid pages of Greymalk narrating them flying over the geography of Lovecraft's Dreamlands in rambling Dunsanian stream of consciousness. It's not even that it's hard to read, Zelazny has enough poetical chops to not be terrible about it, but it just drags on taking up a large page count in a pretty slim volume about poo poo that is totally irrelevant to anything. But yeah, they come in for a landing at the rose-crystal Palace of the Seventy Delights. More specifically, by the jewel-encrusted garbage cans in the back alley of the rose-crystal Palace of the Seventy Delights, where we meet what I think is some totemic Ur-Cat, the Primal Cat, Old Deuteronomy himself. He's the one who summoned them, piggybacking on the smiting wrath of the Elder Ones. Well, he summoned Greymalk, but she vouches for Snuff and assures the High Purring One that he's cool. It seems He has some small but useful wisdom to impart on one of his subjects, as a Cat may know things that Gods think too small to be worth their notice. It's neat that even this guy, who lives in the loving Dreamlands a stone's throw from Unknown Kadath and the Plateau of Leng and poo poo, still has virtually no respect for the Great Old Ones. He treats them the same way that I imagine most cats think of most humans; big, clumsy stupid things that they have to maneuver around. The High Purring One recognizes Snuff's services to Cat-kind, and offers him an answer to any question. Snuff is pragmatic, and asks what Tomorrow holds for him. quote:"Blood," he said. "Seas and messes of it all around you. And you will lose a friend. Go now through the gate." Well... that's reassuring. Snuff and Greymalk head back to the normal world, with the King of Cats giving Snuff a parting call of Carpe Baculum ("seize the stick" in Latin, also a baculum is the penis bone in most mammals) because I guess the Most Cat That Ever Catted couldn't resist a last-minute dog joke. So yeah, this chapter did kinda blow, but it had some nice bits. We saw where Greymalk goes when catnapping. Snuff's dognapping dreamscape is described as similar but a bit more prosaic in its landscape; a big primeval forest and the old wolf Growler, the Ur-Dog, who tells him to be ever-watchful. Tomorrow is gonna be interesting.
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Oct 22, 2023 22:27
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I learned the word baculum in a logic 101 vocab quiz. ad baculum is appeal to violence. I can't believe this whole time it was actually appeal to the stick. Teddy roosevelt rear end fallacy.
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Oct 23, 2023 01:12
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I liked the chapter. I think having a bunch of short chapters and then blowing out into an insane lovecraftian rant was a fun diversion.
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Oct 23, 2023 01:44
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I think he chose to write a book from the perspective of a dog, but is deeply, deeply a cat person, and this was his breaking point
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Oct 23, 2023 02:03
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Its certainly more interesting than another chapter of snuff dragging a body around.
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Oct 23, 2023 02:10
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Spazzle posted:Its certainly more interesting than another chapter of snuff dragging a body around. I'm doing this with another group of people and lol yeah it was several days of yep, dragging the body again today wooo
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Oct 23, 2023 05:16
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I got very excited when I got to this chapter because I have a very big soft spot in my heart for Lovecraft’s The Silver Key and The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (probably because I had my mind warped by Tolkien at an early age). I originally thought it was going to be an Ulthar reference but I absolutely love the idea of cats canonically giving so few fucks about the Elder Gods that they’re willing to just go around them whatever their loyalties are ‘supposed’ to be.
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Oct 23, 2023 16:44
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Oct 23rd was rastov even a friend? "friend" as in closer? I think someone else must have died off screen and I won't find out who until tomorrow or later.
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Oct 23, 2023 19:17
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Krinkle posted:Oct 23rd was rastov even a friend? "friend" as in closer? I think someone else must have died off screen and I won't find out who until tomorrow or later. I was thinking the same thing; while Quicklime may qualify as an ally, friend implies a certain level of warmth. Perhaps Talbot runs into trouble when reporting the body to the constabulary and finds himself locked up?
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Oct 23, 2023 19:50
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Krinkle posted:Oct 23rd was rastov even a friend? "friend" as in closer? I think someone else must have died off screen and I won't find out who until tomorrow or later. I think it's supposed to be Quicklime, but you may be right.
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Oct 24, 2023 00:31
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October 23rd Snuff and Talbot investigate the areas that, by all arcane logic, should be the possible ritual sites, but they're all just unremarkable empty fields and poo poo. At this rate the only explanation is another unaccounted-for Player, which has never happened this late into the Game before. There's some talk about divinations, such as might be used to locate the missing Player, and how they relate to Talbot's subconscious knack for statistical analysis and anticipating things by intuition. And his intuition is telling him a Player died today. They run into Quicklime, who reports that Rastov finally went and hanged himself. Or at least that's what someone wanted it to look like. Checking his house, the hiding place where he kept his mystical Alhazred Icon, an important artifact of power in the Game, is missing. Someone might have overpowered him while he was hung over, took the Icon, and made it look like a suicide. Quicklime is beside himself, he actually liked his Master. He had, as Quicklime puts it, "that human notion - compassion," which is probably what drove him into the bottle so much. The snake's officially retiring from the Game, there's nothing left for him here. Snuff meets up with Greymalk. They have some business to get done before evening, when their mutual Masters are going to head into London for a mundane shopping excursion. Talbot's heard about the Vicar's stepdaughter Lynette and wants to know where he's keeping her so he can try some sort of rescue attempt. Greymalk isn't unsympathetic to the idea, but also wants to check out what cool artifacts he's got. He already had the Magic Bowl, and he might have claimed the Magic Icon off Rastov and the Magic Ring off the Count. These are doodads that lend their power to whichever side of the Game holds them, but he could be stupid enough to use them for... extracurricular mischief. Checking out the vicarage we finally meet Tekela, the Vicar's albino raven familiar. She seems... kinda like a mean blunt church-lady, idk. She'll gossip about seeing the Experiment Man wandering around, but isn't much for chit-chat, mostly just keeps watch on things for her Master. Hoping to avert her gaze, the gang tries some breaking and entering. Good thing Snuff learned a trick or two from Larry about opening doors with paws. A quick search locates Lynette, chained to her bed sufficiently well that they're not gonna break her out in a hurry. And hurry they must, Tekela saw them rummaging around and flew off and got the Vicar. Greymalk acts as distraction while Snuff does an action movie dive throughthe window, but... well, there's only so much a housecat can do against a grown-rear end man intent on murder. Snuff heads back in to see the psycho holding her in the air by her back legs and whacking her with a riding crop like he's beating the dust out of a rug. As is right and just, this earns him a nearly-ripped-off ear from Snuff as they make a break for it, and he's lucky he didn't get his throat torn out for the trouble. At this point they're quite alright with an evening away from all that bullshit accompanying their Masters into London, but it seems the Vicar is, surprise surprise, the vindictive sort. He went to the trouble of taving Tekela tail them like a surveillance drone and actually hiring some vivisectionists to dognap Snuff off the street and render him down into dog-tallow candles. Snuff's the most formidable of the Familiars, but he's still just a dog, he's kinda hosed up against people well-versed in dealing with unwilling vivisection subjects. Seriously this is the grossest description in the book, this is the sort of thing H G Wells was inspired by when he did Island of Dr Moreau. But thankfully, Snuff's bloody dismantling is interrupted by Jack bashing down the door, Greymalk at his feet. He's come for his dog, and some cockney Three Stooges motherfuckers aren't about to get in his way. The narrative has done a thorough job up to this point of distancing the bloody reputation and activities of "Jack the Ripper" from the courteous, refined gentleman Snuff sees. But now? Now it's time for Jack...to let 'er Rip 
Asterite34 fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Oct 24, 2023 |
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Oct 24, 2023 00:47
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Spazzle posted:I liked the chapter. I think having a bunch of short chapters and then blowing out into an insane lovecraftian rant was a fun diversion. DreamingofRoses posted:I got very excited when I got to this chapter because I have a very big soft spot in my heart for Lovecraft’s The Silver Key and The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (probably because I had my mind warped by Tolkien at an early age). I originally thought it was going to be an Ulthar reference but I absolutely love the idea of cats canonically giving so few fucks about the Elder Gods that they’re willing to just go around them whatever their loyalties are ‘supposed’ to be. Seconding both of these, October 22nd is easily one of my favorite chapters, maybe just second-favorite right after October 31st. I would happily read a novel-length Dreamlands Travelogue where Zelazny just erupts Dreamlands lore onto the page, it's the best kind of sword-and-sorcery weirdness and I love it. As a PSA, for anyone who finds that chapter's vibe of "cozy horror full of Dreamlands references and unsettling lore" appealing, or even just enjoys this book, and wants a game that does a remarkable job of capturing that energy, I can strongly recommend Cultist Simulator and its cozier follow-up game Book of Hours. Book of Hours is probably my GOTY in a year where Baldur's Gate 3 came out, for what it's worth. Asterite34 posted:October 23rdChecking out the vicarage we finally meet Tekela, the Vicar's albino raven familiar. Oh. My god. I've read this book maybe eight times, but always by audio, and every time I wonder why the Vicar named his white raven familiar "Tequila." But no, apparently it's another Lovecraft reference. "A Lovecraft Wiki posted:Tekeli-li Goddamnit Zelazny, I love you.
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Oct 24, 2023 02:48
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Something new Zelazny readers should know: the man loves puns and rhyming schemes, and by god he's showing it on October 24. "The pair on the stair were in the air," "a corked bottle of port and spirits," this man cannot be stopped. Lord of Light is where his truly infamous rhyming pun ends up, but he's got some good ones in here too. One thing I do wonder about is the "Hickory-dickory-dock" that ends the chapter. I feel like I'm missing something pretty basic here about why he finishes the chapter with that particular fragment of nursery rhyme.
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Oct 25, 2023 02:15
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October 24th Larry's brought up to speed on the Lynette situation, and the decision is made: the best time to try a rescue would be on Halloween itself when she's brought out to be sacrificed, when she'll be most easily extracted and the Vicar won't have time to grab some other poor sod to sacrifice. Oh, also, all loving hell breaks loose as all the various caged Things in Jack's house are freed all at once, likely due to whatever outside malefic influence is making the lightning go bugfuck nuts outside. The slithering things formerly confined to the Mirror are making a mess, and while Jack is busy stuffing them all into a port bottle, the Thing in the Steamer Trunk and the Thing in the Wardrobe start coming down from the attic. We get an illustration of them, and I must amend my previous assessment that the Wardrobe Thing looks like a traditional demon. In reality, he looks like some terrifying Muppet  Snuff manages to take down the Trunk Thing with a bite to the throat, but the Wardrobe Thing is a bit trickier now that it has room to move. There's some back and forth, dodge and parry, it's actually a pretty well-written fight scene, Zelazny knows his martial arts. Snuff holds his own long enough for Jack to finish up bottling the slithering guys and he quickly stabs the other ones to death. Poor Basement Thing, dude's been trying to seduce his way out of the circle for three weeks, begging and threatening and talking a big game about how hosed everyone is once he gets out, and he gets one line before Jack guts it like a salmon in one upstroke. Snuff is pissed that he had to put up with these jackass demons all this time, and they all died before they could serve their purpose. They were gonna get released to basically cover Jack's retreat if everything went south and they had to leave in a hurry, which seems... a touch irresponsible to the local community, but whatever, it's moot now. Jill and Greymalk show up to see what all the fuss is about. They've been scrying the place from afar and were rather concerned that Jack's house had seemingly disappeared from reality for an hour or so. The theory is that the Vicar is still pissed about Snuff biting his ear and harnessed the newfound arcane power of his various magic trinkets to cast some general purpose "everyone go nutso" seal-breaking spell on the house to gently caress with him. Jack is not amused. He's even less amused about what to do with these monster bodies, who don't have the common decency to just evaporate or dissolve or something to help maintain the Masquerade. Thankfully Snuff has the idea to haul them over to Owen's place, stuff them into his various wicker baskets he has lying around the grounds, and just torch them. Ah, gotta love a nice autumn bonfire~
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Oct 25, 2023 02:15
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Snuff's monster burning plan here is so weird. I've always wondered how the trees don't catch on fire. Aside from that, why bother hauling the baskets, full of heavy monster bodies, into the trees? Just set them on fire in the baskets. Or even not in the baskets. Kestral posted:One thing I do wonder about is the "Hickory-dickory-dock" that ends the chapter. I feel like I'm missing something pretty basic here about why he finishes the chapter with that particular fragment of nursery rhyme. You and me both.
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Oct 25, 2023 03:50
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"The clock struck one" — which is to say, Snuff lost the ability to speak. At least, that's how I'd read it. (Re: the Hickory dickory dock reference)
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Oct 25, 2023 04:03
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Asterite34 posted:October 24th yay! I can post my 1st try with ai, now.     [i]The bunny ear is what happens when I tell bing create that the deerhound has one torn ear. I just very much enjoyed how dramatic these were.[i]
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Oct 25, 2023 04:29
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I haven't read the chapter for the day, but HOLY poo poo the illustration for October 25th
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Oct 25, 2023 06:21
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fosborb posted:I haven't read the chapter for the day, but HOLY poo poo the illustration for October 25th Again a Lovecraft reference. I can't identify the "n'gah-kthun" bit, but the other one is a reference to a little ditty from The Horror at Red Hook. quote:[…] for only the other day an officer overheard a swarthy squinting hag teaching a small child some whispered patois in the shadow of an areaway. He listened, and thought it very strange when he heard her repeat over and over again,
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Oct 25, 2023 19:43
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Zopotantor posted:Again a Lovecraft reference. I can't identify the "n'gah-kthun" bit, but the other one is a reference to a little ditty from The Horror at Red Hook. wait... does that mean the Touch of Satan, that lovely 1970s supernatural horror flick that was on MST3K, had a deep-cut Lovecraft reference?
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Oct 25, 2023 21:59
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