Commonweal Thread: Goddammit, Sorry Graydon(s)

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Commonweal Thread: Goddammit, Sorry Graydon(s)

Slyphic: Oct 12, 2021; All we do is walk around believing birds!

Much as I love the books, and I do, emphatically, I participated in the now deleted group enough that I can't remember what actually happened in the books, is implied in the books that I figured out on my own, that Graydon either confirmed, denied, or otherwise elided, and it's frustrating because I'm 100% certain I will gently caress up and blurt out something from the group eventually.

Harrumph.

This walking on egg shells stance is absurd. Are any other series treated this way?

# ¿ Aug 3, 2022 18:41

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 07:09

Slyphic: Oct 12, 2021; All we do is walk around believing birds!

Danhenge posted:

Seems simple enough to edit your posts on request if you accidentally post something that's not in the books.

Edit: Also if you can name another author with a clearly parallel situation I'd be interested to hear about it.

I find the prospect of having to retroactively redact spoilers sufficiently annoying to dissuade me from posting.

My wife has joined a few semi-open mystery pre-reader groups which are mildly analogous but always sufficiently standalone or simple that it's easy to just not blurt the short bullet point list of whodunit and the big duh-duh-DUN sentences.

ulmont posted:

This is one of the benefits of the e-book versions - you can search for quotes and items. Hell, if you have print copies and want me to periodically search for things, PM me.

...really though the group is dead so why worry now?

Finding things isn't my concern, it's the stuff I can't find because it's not in the text, and I can't remember if I figured it out myself, or Graydon spelled it out.

I'm not worried about offending Graydon and making him take his ball home, there's not much degree past scorched earth. But the OP says what it says.

I want to reread AMoGaS and discuss it freely like the google group used to allow.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2022 23:54

Slyphic: Oct 12, 2021; All we do is walk around believing birds!

habeasdorkus posted:

I really feel sometimes like I'm wandering about the internet going "Frodo lives!" with my evangelism for these books, and they don't make themselves the easiest to read.

Third. I've used the 'Frodo Lives' comparison even.

Kestral posted:

Same, I recommend them highly to anyone I think would appreciate them, only gotten one bite so far. The March North has such a strong hook, too, but I'm terrible at getting people to jump on my recommendations, so I suspect I haven't hit on the right way to sell it. Has anyone here had a good hit rate for recommending this series? If so, how'd you present it?

I've recommended the series all over the place online, and more than a few times IRL often enough I've got a literal copypaste pitch saved in a text file. It seems to work well. At least 4 people have subsequently asked me questions mid-read of the March North citing it:

quote:

The March North and the other books of the Commonweal by Graydon Saunders. Ostensibly fantasy, but with better consequence and causation and depth of thought than most 'hard' scifi. It's dense like molasses, and as calorically rich with ideas.

Imagine magic exists. Extrapolate. Keep extrapolating for 200,000 years. Open on the only non-hellish nightmare of a society left on a planet where wizards understand physics and chemistry. Where 'fireball' and 'magic missile' and 'sleep' have gone extinct for 'convert cerebral fluid to dioxygen-difluoride' and 'relativistic osmium rod' and 'death of the concept of violence'. Where a significant effort is required to exterminate hundreds of millennia of crossbreeding of organisms designed to destroy your enemies food production enough to stave off starvation. It's also about french revolutionary egalitarianism, and a wizard school for adults where you build a house.

Saunders has an utterly unique voice. You could pick him out of a thousand paragraphs 100% of the time.

Slyphic fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Jan 16, 2023

# ¿ Jan 16, 2023 22:18

Slyphic: Oct 12, 2021; All we do is walk around believing birds!

Danhenge posted:

I'll add that to the OP if you don't mind.

By all means.

habeasdorkus posted:

Yeah, I think that'd make sense. Basically get a big list of locations and how they seem to be positioned to each other. I've looked at the map that cultureulterior did years ago plenty of times, and IIRC other than needing to be flipped east/west it's a good starting point.

I made a list of 'geo-facts' in a notebook from March North some point before the pandemic, and I've of course lost it since. But same idea, build the map like a logic grid puzzle for where things must be.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2023 14:53

Slyphic: Oct 12, 2021; All we do is walk around believing birds!

D-Pad posted:

Is there a reason this author hasn't tried to publish an actual book

He is overtly resistant to any suggest he should. He's said he might consider it when the whole series is done.

Graydon is a regular commenter (and guest poster) over on Charles Stross' blog, and I've seen Stross make more than one offer to have his agent call Graydon and offer him a publishing deal with no future book obligations. Graydon continues to delcine. It's kinda comical to watch.

Also, he's gainfully employed as specialist technical writer for megacorps. This is a passion project, not anything like an attempt at a second career. He would never make as much as a published author as he does at his day job.

D-Pad posted:

or through the more popular ebook stores? Seems like he is leaving a lot on the table, I could definitely see this being more popular with a wider reach.

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.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2023 01:28

Slyphic: Oct 12, 2021; All we do is walk around believing birds!

Re: despair, one of my favorite tiny details in the books that you only notice on a re-read.

"The light goes out of the world, dust and worse than dust.

I�ve been here before.

...

Dove�s been here"

Those three words mean a fuckton more after book 2.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2023 17:14

Slyphic: Oct 12, 2021; All we do is walk around believing birds!

Ruud Hoenkloewen posted:

And now I'm ten pages into the third book, and there's a unicorn! Yay!

Chapter 11 is when you actually get a description of it, beyond the single word. I'll see if I can dig up the art of it I saw, you post when you get there.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2023 22:40

Slyphic: Oct 12, 2021; All we do is walk around believing birds!

I read about a quarter of Pamela Dean's Dubious Hills this year. The Graydon influence is very obvious.

It's a pastoral examination of the nature of knowledge and perception and I was just not at all in the mood for that. It felt like it was going to take a fairly heavy cognitive load to follow the story but wasn't engaging me while pelting me with oblique hints at the actual nature of the world. It's been placed in my 2nd try pile for the time being.

I've got a copy of her book The Secret Country which is supposed to be more approachable in my soon-ish to-be-read pile.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2023 15:26

Slyphic: Oct 12, 2021; All we do is walk around believing birds!

ulmont posted:

I dunno exactly where Graydon went after r.a.sf.w

Aside from the comment section of Charlie Stross' blog, he's a daily user of Mastodon. Posts infrequently, mostly re-toots (I've been using Mastodon for a month and still can't seem to get the verbage correct) covid stuff and canadian politics https://canada.masto.host/@graydon

Stross is one of the most active Mastodon users I've found worth following.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2023 05:32

Slyphic: Oct 12, 2021; All we do is walk around believing birds!

habeasdorkus posted:

I wonder how far along Graydon is on Book 6. Does anyone have any word?

He hasn't posted anything to his blog in ages, and is spending a lot of time on Mastodon. Seems very thoroughly distracted.

# ¿ May 30, 2023 15:31

Slyphic: Oct 12, 2021; All we do is walk around believing birds!

@graydon@canada.masto.host

I see him talking with Charlie Stross pretty frequently since I follow both of them.

# ¿ May 30, 2023 21:29

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 07:09

Slyphic: Oct 12, 2021; All we do is walk around believing birds!

Lead out in cuffs posted:

Anyone know how Graydon's going on further books?

Well, he hasn't a single peep about them on any of his social media accounts nor blog since he nuked the mailing list. I think he's still mad about it.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2023 17:32

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Commonweal Thread: Goddammit, Sorry Graydon(s)