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Post by Dante on Oct 15, 2013 7:01:53 GMT -5
This is... worrying, if a number of stores claim that it won't be out for a week. Egmont themselves are talking up the book's release today on their Twitter, so I'm not sure what that's all about. Good luck getting the books at better stores, everyone!
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Post by MisterM on Oct 15, 2013 7:04:31 GMT -5
In waterstones they said they wot have it till tomorrow. Chapter Nine My theory is hangfire is gathering all these people simply because he doesn't know what the Bombinating beast actually is.
That sequence with stewie is so far my favorite moment of the whole book. d i could just praise that sequence forever
a difficult age - lemonys "father" said this in the last book. |
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Post by Dante on Oct 15, 2013 7:07:48 GMT -5
It seems the official advice is going to have to be "check multiple local stores." Should've done that while I was in town, but it wasn't urgent, I guess.
Looking forward to your thoughts, all, on the rest of the book. I think it's considerably better than ?1, and that I thought was better than ASoUE.
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crono288
Catastrophic Captain
Posts: 70
Likes: 45
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Post by crono288 on Oct 15, 2013 7:17:39 GMT -5
As far as illustrations go, it seems only the full-page ones are not on Egmont's site. I could post screencaps of these from the ebook, but would this be an okay thing to do? Just want to double-check since it's a bit different than taking photos, in a way.
The final illustration is especially interesting, as it depicts something not described explicitly in the text which I think will spark a lot of discussion. More on that when it becomes relevant.
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Post by Dante on Oct 15, 2013 7:19:39 GMT -5
If you're really uncomfortable with it, you could PM them to me (and anyone else who asks, but nobody else is likely to be in a situation of "have read the text but can't see the pictures"). I would be grateful, because then I could fully engage with everyone else about the book.
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crono288
Catastrophic Captain
Posts: 70
Likes: 45
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Post by crono288 on Oct 15, 2013 7:28:05 GMT -5
Oh I'm fine with it, I just wouldn't have wanted to violate any board policies! Unfortunately the e-book doesn't have "real" page numbers, but I'm guessing your ARC placed it's non-images in the proper places, at least, Dante. Chapter 4: Chapter 8, first illustration: Chapter 8, second illustration (in the e-book these are presented as being directly adjacent, i.e. a 2-page spread): Chapter 10: Chapter 11: Chapter 12: Chapter 13 (end of book): |
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Post by Dante on Oct 15, 2013 7:32:49 GMT -5
Thank you for those, crono288! They're really good... (Whole-book spoilers.) ...and I see that my guesses in the Secretmail were almost spot-on, too. I see V.F.D. has a new insignia... or maybe an old one? That just leaves the endpapers... actually, someone should definitely upload those for ebook users. I'll do that when I get my copy, if nobody else can before then. |
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Post by MisterM on Oct 15, 2013 7:42:03 GMT -5
I wish i could help you there dante, but im not really good at things like that. Maybe if i find some time  Chapter Nine My theory is hangfire is gathering all these people simply because he doesn't know what the Bombinating beast actually is.
That sequence with stewie is so far my favorite moment of the whole book. d i could just praise that sequence forever
a difficult age - lemonys "father" said this in the last book. |
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Post by Dante on Oct 15, 2013 13:23:44 GMT -5
I've just seen the endpapers. Wow.The Bombinating Beasts - or perhaps it's not the Bombinating Beast after all, but the tadpole creatures? Or is there even a difference between the two? - will have taken over the endpapers entirely by ?4, if not ?3. I hope Egmont includes them in their spines by then! |
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Antenora
Detriment Deleter 
Fiendish Philologist
Put down that harpoon gun, in the name of these wonderful birds!
Posts: 15,891 
Likes: 113
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Post by Antenora on Oct 15, 2013 17:10:41 GMT -5
For reference, here are my pictures of the front and back endpapers.
I too agree that the Beasts, or whatever they are exactly, are slowly taking over.
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Post by bandit on Oct 15, 2013 17:20:04 GMT -5
I love love love the illustration of Schoenberg Cereal. Is that online somewhere? I want to make it my avatar.
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crono288
Catastrophic Captain
Posts: 70
Likes: 45
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Post by crono288 on Oct 15, 2013 21:49:27 GMT -5
Ch.8
Was the red hat being in Ellington's room mentioned in passing in the previous book? I don't have my copy and so wasn't able to do a re-read.
….The Inhumane Society? Really? That is honestly a little too silly for me to take it seriously, I'm afraid to say. Hopefully something will happen to change my mind.
Hrm. Making Ellington seem vulnerable makes me dislike her a little less. A little.
The statue appears again. I wonder how often this gimcrack will change hands, and when (if?) we'll find out its actual importance.
Ah, this tadpole bit is brilliant. Lemony's other daring rescue may come back to bite him as well.
Ch.9
I don't know what story is being described here at all, with the apple and the digging ghost. Anyone?
A mention of the floods here, and they seem to be recent. I'm fairly convinced at this point that they're related to Stain'd getting Drain'd.
It seems like Lemony resents some of his training, but to what extent?
More vulnerability from Ellington, but now I wonder if she isn't just putting on a show. I really cannot make heads or tails of her, which is again, I think, the point.
Was Ink, Inc. not boarded up when Lemony passed it while trailing Nurse Dander, or did he just not notice? Hmm, the small door is specifically mentioned then…but that would have been around the same time that the Officers Mitchum went to check it out, or if anything after. Just an oversight?
Yep, there goes the Beast again, out of Lemony's hands.
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Q.R.V.
Formidable Foreman
Better paranoid than dead.
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Likes: 20
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Post by Q.R.V. on Oct 15, 2013 23:26:53 GMT -5
(Whole book)
I've rounded up the book references:
pg 56 A guy named Johnny takes the wrong train and ends up in Constantinople in 1453 - The Trolley to Yesterday, by John Bellairs
pg 78 A book about a girl named Amanda, who is either a witch or a stepsister or both - The Headless Cupid, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
pg 108 a book I like called Despair. The plot concerns two people who do not look at all alike but nevertheless hatch a nefarious plan - Despair, by Vladimir Nabokov
pg 137 A book about a girl who has adventures with her neighbors. There's one where she goes to the South Seas. - The Pippi Longstocking series, by Astrid Lindgren
pg 170 That one about the big fight over an apple and a pretty woman / The one that ends with a hollow statue and a ghost who likes to bury things - The Iliad, by Homer
pg 209 A book about a girl named Kit who acquires a reputation for witchcraft. It gets her into a lot of trouble, but she does manage to find someone she can trust. His name is Nathaniel, and he names a ship after her. The ship is called The Witch. - The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare
pg 246 than that girl in that book, who goes to live with that family the Reeds, and everyone is cruel to her - Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte
I enjoyed all the indirect references to ASOUE, such as the possibility that a giant bird might carry someone away, leafy vegetables in a refrigerator crisper, and someone being forced to jump out a window. Plus the appearance of Widdershins (will a familiar face like Hector or Widdershins show up in every book?), and the mention of "a friend of mine [who] captured her first bat" - probably Beatrice. And the wordplay - you can drive a dilemma through a wall without affecting it.
Some of the interesting questions that remain:
The biting tadpoles - as was speculated from the image of that eyeball creature in the fishbowl, could these indeed be baby Lachrymose Leeches? Is Hangfire breeding them? What is the green chunk of food, and what is the purpose of the climbing wood?
If I understand the ending properly, Widdershins identifies the moss as caviar. I suppose caviar could sort of look like moss, but I wasn't aware that it sizzled upon contact with water. Presumably it was left on the path when the sea drained, like the seaweed forest, but why hasn't it been harvested and sold? That income could help save the town.
Snicket and his underage friends all seem to be fighting against the VFD administration. Widdershins will lose his submarine to Headquarters for visiting Stain'd-by-the-Sea, and Kit is arrested by the VFD secret police for trying to break into a VFD-run museum (going by the insignia on the hatch). Hardly the golden days that were suggested in ASOUE.
Ch.9
I don't know what story is being described here at all, with the apple and the digging ghost. Anyone?
The Iliad. The apple and pretty woman refers to the Judgement of Paris, in which Paris had to award a golden apple to the most beautiful goddess. The hollow statue is the wooden horse that the Greeks used to trick the Trojans into letting them into the city, and the ghost who likes to bury things is the ghost of Patroclus, who asked Achilles to bury his body. (Although technically Handler's reference is to the entire Trojan myth cycle rather than just the Iliad itself, since the wooden horse and the fall of Troy are actually described in the Aeneid.) |
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Post by Dante on Oct 16, 2013 2:30:35 GMT -5
I've rounded up the book references:
pg 56 A guy named Johnny takes the wrong train and ends up in Constantinople in 1453 - The Trolley to Yesterday, by John Bellairs
pg 78 A book about a girl named Amanda, who is either a witch or a stepsister or both - The Headless Cupid, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
pg 108 a book I like called Despair. The plot concerns two people who do not look at all alike but nevertheless hatch a nefarious plan - Despair, by Vladimir Nabokov
pg 137 A book about a girl who has adventures with her neighbors. There's one where she goes to the South Seas. - The Pippi Longstocking series, by Astrid Lindgren
pg 170 That one about the big fight over an apple and a pretty woman / The one that ends with a hollow statue and a ghost who likes to bury things - The Iliad, by Homer
pg 209 A book about a girl named Kit who acquires a reputation for witchcraft. It gets her into a lot of trouble, but she does manage to find someone she can trust. His name is Nathaniel, and he names a ship after her. The ship is called The Witch. - The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare
pg 246 than that girl in that book, who goes to live with that family the Reeds, and everyone is cruel to her - Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte I picked up on most of those, except Jane Eyre - I remember searching the details but not the conclusion I came to, so I think I mustn't have found anything. This is the book that actually got me to buy The Headless Cupid after Handler's plugged it for years, and I got a Johnny Dixon book (in the same series by John Bellairs), too. The Headless Cupid was pretty good, but not quite what I was expecting. It's not advisable to try and establish a pattern from only two data points - but I've done it anyway, and I do see it as a clear pattern: The main story is concluded in the first twelve chapters, with the thirteenth being an epilogue featuring an ASoUE cameo and more information on the external metaplot. I wouldn't be surprised if ?3 bucked the trend somewhat; ?4 will more or less have to. I have a friend who has a very interesting theory about the climbing wood and indeed about the Bombinating Beast (and Bombinating Bench), but I won't pre-empt it - although perhaps someone else will pick up on it. For my part, though, I don't think the ground-growing fish eggs have been around for that long, or so prevalently. I think that Hangfire is growing it, and if they are fish eggs, I think that they probably hatch into the biting tadpoles. I'm not so worried about them growing into Lachrymose Leeches, though. Rather, something else...
I kind of don't really want to lay down the law on this, because I've had months rather than a day to think about it. But there are a lot of suggestions here that something quite barbaric and frightening is being plotted. The set-up in the Colophon Clinic, the endpapers... I just can't imagine what on Earth Hangfire is doing it for. Kit indicates in TPP that the golden age ended when she was four years old - although I also think that Chapter Thirteen is hinting heavily at a schism between the younger and older generations in V.F.D., inspired by Snicket. There's an ever-useful statement by Kit in TPP to the effect that "the schism worsens with every generation," which is pretty much a catch-all get-out clause for any inconsistencies as to the timing of the schism - there may have been several. Oh, and I just wanted to mention something for everyone to watch out for about Ellington's father. Have you compared Ellington's description of his habits in Chapter Eight to Hangfire's surroundings in Chapter Eleven? |
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Post by MisterM on Oct 16, 2013 2:49:55 GMT -5
Oh, and I just wanted to mention something for everyone to watch out for about Ellington's father. Have you compared Ellington's description of his habits in Chapter Eight to Hangfire's surroundings in Chapter Eleven? I did finish the book but had no enery to make comments - but this is my favourite snicket book ever. It really was incredible. However, at first i did think hangfire was ellington's father. In so much as, when the 'colonel' called for ellington, i initally believed it to be her father, and continued to believe that up until hangfire was revealed. |
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