Miévillians discussion

Here's a thread for your final thoughts; the last bunch of chapters, and the book as a whole.

Right, here are the references I managed to catch: Kidnapped and Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, Robinson Crusoe (a very funny reference! -mentioned in an earlier thread) by Daniel Defoe, not sure what else,but here is the list of the most important influences as supplied by CM himself:

Joan Aiken, John Antrobus, the Awdrys Sr. & Jr., Catherine Besterman, Lucy Lane Clifford, F. Tennyson Jesse, Erich Kästner, Ursula le Guin, John Lester, Penelope Lively, Herman Melville (doh!), Spike Milligan, Charles Platt, & the Strugatsky Brothers.

Did you guys manage to spot any of those? ETA(besides of course, the oh so obvious Moby Dick by Herman Melville - thanks for waking me up, Derek)

Yeah, I got a few Melville references :-)

Still trying to get around to starting Roadside Picnic. Perhaps I'll manage to find something before I forget Railsea!

Derek wrote: "Yeah, I got a few Melville references :-)

"
Does facepalm on self... I need more sleep. My back's been out since I broke my leg and it keeps me awake at night. I'm not kidding!
I've really been so forgetful and dozy lately.. :P

My major thought on finishing was about how much I misremembered, only a year after I first read it. I distinctly remember those &s being used inside words. Now that I own an epub, I am able to say with certainly that he only ever used ampersands as conjunctions (maybe they edited all the others out in the e-book — yeah, that's probably it…). Maybe some day he'll write about an ex-con trying to stay on the straight & narrow, & replace all the 'or's with '|'s.

I'd forgotten that Naphi really didn't lose an arm to her philosophy (I do wonder how she pulled off the deception: while it's clear that all crew are hired on on a per-cruise basis, many of them have been with her practically forever. Somebody should have wondered when she got the wound!) It came as such a surprise to me, when I came across it in the second reading, that it was almost painful not to go back to an earlier thread to shout out the spoiler!

On Naphi's arm, it did seem a little too surprising, but I really enjoyed the turn of events since it freed up the crew's philosophy - they could finally go exploring. I think throughout the book, we get glimpses into characters who are almost but not quite ready to go off on their own ...

Allen wrote: "On Naphi's arm, it did seem a little too surprising, but I really enjoyed the turn of events since it freed up the crew's philosophy - they could finally go exploring. I think throughout the book, ..."

I enjoyed the arm twist. No doubt I'm missing an allusion there, but I suspect CM was twisting someone's arm there. Geddit? *cough* :P

Oh, and I forgot to mention the allusion to The Swiss Family Robinson.

..and the CM "quotes" thread as discussed in an earlier thread, which is here: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...