{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2598",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 2598,
    "subject": "Phillip Pullman [Digest urth.v030.n091]",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2001-04-23T16:10:13+00:00",
    "last": "2001-04-23T23:10:13+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0333@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "John Bishop",
        "address": "jbishop at zko.dec.com"
      },
      "date": "2001-04-23T16:10:13+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re: Phillip Pullman [Digest urth.v030.n091]",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I'll chime in to agree with the Pullman consensus: the\nthird book fails to close the arc started in the first\ntwo, and drops the ball thematically and practically.\n\n(*mild spoiler*) A reviewer elsewhere [on the Bujold\nlist] spoke of \"boinking to save the universe\".  I therefore\nre-read that section closely, and it's not certain they did\n\"boink\", but it's likely--and it just doesn't make sense,\ngiven what went before, or how things were shown to work in\nthe multiverse he proposed.\n(*end spoiler*)\n\nI liked _Golden_Compass_ enough to buy one of Pullman's\nother novels, _Ruby_in_the_Smoke_, which turns out to have\nall the same virtues and flaws as the \"His Dark Materials\"\ntriology in one volume: really good characters, a wonderfully\ndetailed portrayal of an imagined world (in this case 1878\nLondon), an interesting situation--and a total collapse \ninto nonsense at the end, when the author can't seem to\nfigure out how to end the story without breaking his own\nrules.\n\n(*Serious spoiler for _Ruby_in_the_Smoke_)\nThe villian is Mrs Holland (a nasty old lady who runs a\nlodging house in Wapping and a gang on the side, and who\nI hoped would continue because she was such a wonderful,\nclever, perceptive villian) confronts the heroine at the\nclimax of the book.  When all is almost in her grasp, she\nsuddenly _goes_mad_ and _kills_herself_ in a couple of\nparagraphs!  This absurd action is completely unforshadowed,\nno matter how convenient for the heroine it is.\n(*end spoiler)\n\nThere were other things to boggle at, but that one truly\nshocked me--how could an author so competent would let that\ntext even get written, let alone printed escapes me.\n\nWhat a shame.\n\n\t-John Bishop"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0335@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "William Ansley",
        "address": "wansley at warwick.net"
      },
      "date": "2001-04-23T23:10:13+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Phillip Pullman [Digest urth.v030.n091]",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0030-0333@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "At 4:10 PM -0400 4/23/01, John Bishop wrote:\nI liked _Golden_Compass_ enough to buy one of Pullman's\nother novels, _Ruby_in_the_Smoke_, which turns out to have\nall the same virtues and flaws as the \"His Dark Materials\"\ntriology in one volume: really good characters, a wonderfully\ndetailed portrayal of an imagined world (in this case 1878\nLondon), an interesting situation--and a total collapse\ninto nonsense at the end, when the author can't seem to\nfigure out how to end the story without breaking his own\nrules."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Thank you, John!\n\nThis is so much better put than my messages. That's exactly how I \nfelt; the last book collapsed into nonsense and he broke his own \nrules.\n\nI wish I hadn't brought up the anti-religious aspect of the books at \nall now. It really was a side issue.\n\nWilliam Ansley"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}