the long way to a small angry planet -- 42% review
Monday, April 17th, 2023 19:18![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mutterwingwhirr
man. so i just finished the pirate/negotiation scene. and once again i'm just delighted (and a little flabbergasted) that so much of this book explores things that we explored while we were playing space legs.
curbing that thought for the moment, i do just want to say: it's so fucking delightful to hear that someone has proficiency in a language and then watch as the plot continually creates opportunities for us to see that yes, they are indeed proficient, and look at what they are able to create in spaces where the need arises. i don't think i could do that, really, since all my second languages are rusty and decaying. i've done it once, to sell hair extensions to a family that only spoke spanish. but not since, and not before. it wasn't something i really noted when i moved to arizona, but having moved back home, i realize how many spaces it's easy to see where spanish can bridge the gap more easily than english can. i guess there are a lot more spanish speakers in forward-facing roles here, where in arizona they were less so. or something.
but anyway. space legs. we had the opportunity to negotiate the same kind of "we're holding you at gunpoint because we need something from you" situation. and just like wow, what a game! i loved being in a space where we were allowed to just interact with different aliens where they were simply, like us, people with needs. being able to explore the spaces where our needs could be met by others, and how we could meet theirs... to me that stands out as the highlight of what that game/playtest campaign was for. sorry jack.
i'm really delighted by this book. i truly feel like this is a kind of science fiction that feels so... real? so genuine? in a way that other scifi media fail to grasp. it's not about how wide open space can be, or how exotic the distant horizons can turn out to be so much as it is about negotiating what the spaces around you, whether near or far from home, can look like. this could have easily been a story about armed robbery where all the robbers only spoke... idk greek or something. and then the translator, having studied russian to proficiency, was able to find common throughlines that allowed them to communicate effectively. (i'm not saying greek and russian come from a common ancestor language; this example is based of purely anecdotal data. i've heard of someone who went to greece and was able to scrape by with their russian. i love how languages interact.)
not much more to say here. i feel like one thing that's perhaps more lacking here than in other books is the clear division between events-- there's no downtime between events in a way that feels right for a chapter ending. things just melt together event after event after event. a delightful mix, but tricky to negotiate when you're waiting for the chapter break to like. go pee and grab a snack or whatever.
and, more than anything, i fucking love a story about a good interpreter.
curbing that thought for the moment, i do just want to say: it's so fucking delightful to hear that someone has proficiency in a language and then watch as the plot continually creates opportunities for us to see that yes, they are indeed proficient, and look at what they are able to create in spaces where the need arises. i don't think i could do that, really, since all my second languages are rusty and decaying. i've done it once, to sell hair extensions to a family that only spoke spanish. but not since, and not before. it wasn't something i really noted when i moved to arizona, but having moved back home, i realize how many spaces it's easy to see where spanish can bridge the gap more easily than english can. i guess there are a lot more spanish speakers in forward-facing roles here, where in arizona they were less so. or something.
but anyway. space legs. we had the opportunity to negotiate the same kind of "we're holding you at gunpoint because we need something from you" situation. and just like wow, what a game! i loved being in a space where we were allowed to just interact with different aliens where they were simply, like us, people with needs. being able to explore the spaces where our needs could be met by others, and how we could meet theirs... to me that stands out as the highlight of what that game/playtest campaign was for. sorry jack.
i'm really delighted by this book. i truly feel like this is a kind of science fiction that feels so... real? so genuine? in a way that other scifi media fail to grasp. it's not about how wide open space can be, or how exotic the distant horizons can turn out to be so much as it is about negotiating what the spaces around you, whether near or far from home, can look like. this could have easily been a story about armed robbery where all the robbers only spoke... idk greek or something. and then the translator, having studied russian to proficiency, was able to find common throughlines that allowed them to communicate effectively. (i'm not saying greek and russian come from a common ancestor language; this example is based of purely anecdotal data. i've heard of someone who went to greece and was able to scrape by with their russian. i love how languages interact.)
not much more to say here. i feel like one thing that's perhaps more lacking here than in other books is the clear division between events-- there's no downtime between events in a way that feels right for a chapter ending. things just melt together event after event after event. a delightful mix, but tricky to negotiate when you're waiting for the chapter break to like. go pee and grab a snack or whatever.
and, more than anything, i fucking love a story about a good interpreter.
