Showing posts with label the worm ouroboros. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the worm ouroboros. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 14, 2024
Addendum
You could really play up the framing device, just bore everybody for no reason. Cast your one big name as the guy who looks at Mercury and give him at least 10 minutes each episode. Better yet, start the actual story in the last episode of the first season as a cliffhanger, then act surprised when there's no season two.
Monday, May 13, 2024
Streaming Pitch
If nobody's going to watch anyway, you might as well adapt The Worm Ouroboros. And don't try to pretend people are going to watch your streaming show. We all know.
Tuesday, March 30, 2021
Social Revolution
It's well past time to rescind the copyright on all fantasy and scifi works before 2001 so somebody can make a sick unlicensed crossover gacha game.
Sunday, March 21, 2021
Sunday, March 7, 2021
Friday, March 5, 2021
Some Notes on The Worm Ouroboros
Spoilers!
I have the impression this is one of those influential books that people know about but don't actually read. So I read it. It's hot stuff.
Some fantasy stories try to emulate logic-free fairy tales while others depict worlds unlike our own with a rationalesque style as if they were histories or biographies. This is the sort of story which gestures at the first style while standing on the second. Names like Demonland and Brandoch Daha prepare readers for the strange curses and ancient mores which do indeed follow, but at the same time the politics and generalship that drive the plot are earthly and reasonable. Much like the discussion of elven trade routes in The Hobbit that leads to the wine barrel escape, The Worm Ouroboros turns the mundane matter into adventure and uses the fantastical as decoration rather than as the foundation.
This book sure loves messenger speeches.
The only thing that contributes more to creating the fantasy world of this story than the dialogue is the letters. Every single one of those is great.
It ended weakly. The Ouroboros imagery was tied to Witchland, and associating it with Demonland or all Mercury at the end is unsatisfying. Some sort of return to the framing story might have helped as well.
I have the impression this is one of those influential books that people know about but don't actually read. So I read it. It's hot stuff.
Some fantasy stories try to emulate logic-free fairy tales while others depict worlds unlike our own with a rationalesque style as if they were histories or biographies. This is the sort of story which gestures at the first style while standing on the second. Names like Demonland and Brandoch Daha prepare readers for the strange curses and ancient mores which do indeed follow, but at the same time the politics and generalship that drive the plot are earthly and reasonable. Much like the discussion of elven trade routes in The Hobbit that leads to the wine barrel escape, The Worm Ouroboros turns the mundane matter into adventure and uses the fantastical as decoration rather than as the foundation.
This book sure loves messenger speeches.
The only thing that contributes more to creating the fantasy world of this story than the dialogue is the letters. Every single one of those is great.
It ended weakly. The Ouroboros imagery was tied to Witchland, and associating it with Demonland or all Mercury at the end is unsatisfying. Some sort of return to the framing story might have helped as well.
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