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comment by bhrgunatha
bhrgunatha  ·  1435 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Sci-Fi club no. 43: The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate Discussion

I really enjoyed the story, in particular its construction. I kept saying "oh neat" to myself... well I'm easily amused and not at all sophisticated in literature.

I remember watching someone draw an incredibly accurate doodle of Gary Numan in a hat (back before we realised Gary Numan is older than Gary Oldman) by just using a few deft lines that didn't even join up.

This story reminded me of seeing that as it covers a lot of ground in a few short pages, sneakily avoiding the usual time travel problems like not meeting yourself or sleeping with your grandma. I also liked the idea of using different stories to give the perspectives of different characters to explore the story.

I don't know if there's really a moral - but being framed the way it is, I did feel it was a call for virtue - feel free to pick your favourite synonym here. I did also feel like it was a study on the Serenity Prayer.

Bless physics so I can never be tempted to see the future or past, but it did make me think quite a lot about whether I'd want to revisit the past to see what was hidden to me at the time.





Dala  ·  1433 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I don't know if there's really a moral - but being framed the way it is, I did feel it was a call for virtue - feel free to pick your favourite synonym here. I did also feel like it was a study on the Serenity Prayer.

...never thought of it quite this way, but I would definitely agree with the idea of the story being a study on the Serenity Prayer.