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Post by bandit on Oct 18, 2013 15:16:55 GMT -5
I'm pretty sure they can. This summer I saw a bunch of big bullfrog tadpoles in a creek near my home, and they seemed to be doing fine. I don't know about in rivers, but I was thinking more of a domestic environment. To have tadpoles as pets (in fishbowls) they need to be in clean, dechlorinated water. Although maybe the murkiness means they are producing ink... |
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Post by Dante on Oct 18, 2013 15:33:42 GMT -5
I'm pretty sure they can. This summer I saw a bunch of big bullfrog tadpoles in a creek near my home, and they seemed to be doing fine. I don't know about in rivers, but I was thinking more of a domestic environment. To have tadpoles as pets (in fishbowls) they need to be in clean, dechlorinated water. Although maybe the murkiness means they are producing ink... I think it's reasonably evident that they only look like tadpoles, and are related to them only at some remove, if at all.
But what else do they look like that we can actually see in the books? Incidentally, I caved and ordered ?2 from Amazon. I should have the book itself in the next few days. |
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Post by bandit on Oct 18, 2013 16:34:08 GMT -5
Dante, I know you want us to figure out what else the tadpoles could be on our own, but I'm drawing a blank. The only thing I can think of that would make sense is baby Bombinating Beasts, but that's a bit of a stretch. |
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Post by Teleram on Oct 18, 2013 18:39:21 GMT -5
I'm probably getting the copy of the book later today. Can't wait!
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Post by Dante on Oct 19, 2013 2:41:10 GMT -5
Dante, I know you want us to figure out what else the tadpoles could be on our own, but I'm drawing a blank. The only thing I can think of that would make sense is baby Bombinating Beasts, but that's a bit of a stretch. Certainly, I'm dubious about the Bombinating Beast ever having really existed. But that doesn't mean that something with similar features can't be found - or created, for that matter. But there's a question which applies to both the text and the illustrations, and that is that maybe there's something that we all assumed was the Bombinating Beast, but was actually anticipating something else that we didn't know about at the time. My copy of ?2 should be arriving soon, too. I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures in situ, and the endpapers for myself. |
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Post by Hermes on Oct 23, 2013 12:07:09 GMT -5
Got it!
More shortly.
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Post by Dante on Oct 23, 2013 12:20:09 GMT -5
Congratulations, Hermes! Honestly, that took far too long for some of us. I only got my copy in the last few days.
Edit: Oh yeah, and by the way, there's no need for spoiler tags any more, I think. I think the book's been out long enough, even if it's taken long enough to acquire sometimes.
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Post by Hermes on Oct 23, 2013 16:24:29 GMT -5
The new size is a bit odd, I find - because the pagination was worked out to fit the old size, there is rather a lot of white space. i also wonder if it may have been used as an excuse to increase the price (though I got it at a discount).
A few thoughts on rereading the opening chapters.
L seems to have taken note of Hectors' advice that Kit should not perform her mission on her own. Meanwhile, why is she not able to 'get to the library' any more?
There seems to be more to Lost than meets the eye. I do wonder if .... well, we will see.
It appears that L and Theodora have been in Stain'd for several weeks. One wonders what they have been doing. The events chronicled in File Under seem to come after this, since L already knows Cleo, though it's possible they cover the time both before and after, I suppose.
The blank pages are very impressive - they recall the black page in TEE, itself inspired by Tristram Shandy.
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Post by Dante on Oct 24, 2013 2:23:33 GMT -5
The new size is a bit odd, I find - because the pagination was worked out to fit the old size, there is rather a lot of white space. i also wonder if it may have been used as an excuse to increase the price (though I got it at a discount). Yes, this is the sort of price hardbacks used to cost - well, I suppose it strictly speaking is a hardback, but paper-over-board is an odd hybrid form. I fully believe Egmont when they say that the format of ?1 didn't stand out enough against all the other large-format books coming out, but an opportunity to increase the price will doubtless not have hurt their ambitions. Especially since an increased price will be less off-putting on the second installment of a series than on the first, I would have thought. By this point they're already hooked. If Kit was working at the Fourier Branch, presumably her own chaperone did as well. All of those suspicious interlibrary loan requests will perhaps not have gone unmissed by Kit's chaperone's overseeing eye, in much the same way as Qwerty almost certainly understands exactly what Lemony was using the requests for. So my suspicion is that Kit has been forbidden from accessing the interlibrary request service by an unsympathetic chaperone. V.F.D. is not sympathetic to whatever she and Lemony are up to. Yes, I've been wondering, too. |
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Post by B. on Oct 24, 2013 3:05:23 GMT -5
The new size is a bit odd, I find - because the pagination was worked out to fit the old size, there is rather a lot of white space. i also wonder if it may have been used as an excuse to increase the price (though I got it at a discount). Yes, this is the sort of price hardbacks used to cost - well, I suppose it strictly speaking is a hardback, but paper-over-board is an odd hybrid form. I fully believe Egmont when they say that the format of ?1 didn't stand out enough against all the other large-format books coming out, but an opportunity to increase the price will doubtless not have hurt their ambitions. Especially since an increased price will be less off-putting on the second installment of a series than on the first, I would have thought. By this point they're already hooked. I got a copy on Tuesday, and I don't really mind the increased size. I think I actually prefer it to the original first hardback- WCTBATH has a horrible sticky feel and WDYSHL feels all smooth. Also it actually has a border round the text, which is a little more comfortable on the eye. I guess WDYSHL did look like a noir novel though, being so small and compact that you could tuck it into the pocket of a jacket or something. I think it would be really cool if they changed up the sizes for all the hardbacks in the series, so the result would be a higglety pigglety collection of books on the shelf. I also wonder what the paperback of WDYSHL will look like. I've been taking this one slow reading-wise, so I'm only half way through. The actual mystery isn't really what's keeping me hooked, more like young Lemony's interactions and way of going about things. I don't know if this has been mentioned before (probably, though I haven't read all the stuff in spoiler tags yet) but there's a clear love triangle emerging between Moxie-Lemony-Ellington. With Lemony being focussed on Ellington and Moxie being jealous of her. But it's subtle which is good. Nice that handler made a male-female-female love triangle for once instead of the exhausted "male-female-male." "...and in a few days a sprinkler system will be installed so we don't have to worry about fire." Spoken by Dashiell Qwerty, these words are probably what stand out the most to me so far, because the foreshadowing is ominous. Handler's done it before, by sticking a throwaway line in an early book that comes back to have so much meaning after reading later volumes ("I didn't realise this was a sad occasion" stands out to me the most, but I'm sure there are more examples." |
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Post by Charlie on Oct 24, 2013 5:05:33 GMT -5
So, I think I posted in this thread before, but it seems I've not yet, which confuses me to no end. I absolutely love it and read it immediately after I got it. It was so beautiful. I especially like Ellington as the second Cleo which I was not expecting at all! Also, Nurse Dander being good with a knife is like the scariest thing ever. Besides Flammarion's hypodermic needles *shudder*. Also, my theory on the "tadpoles" is that they are some sort of amphibian, and that the plank is for when they sprout legs, and want to climb out. These amphibians likely eat seawwhheed (hence the green slime). Also, whether it's the adult tadpoles, or some other method, I believe that Hangfire is trying to ruin the town/ Ink Inc. by killing off the octopi. Hence the endpapers.
Also, regarding the VFD police at the end, what does this mean? Is this the first incarnation of VillainousFD perhaps? This could give an explanation as to why they are arresting her, and why the younger VFDers refuse to follow orders from more senior ones. VillainousFD could have taken charge of the Museum of Items, much like they took charge of the giant eagles, and the Carmelita.
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Post by Hermes on Oct 24, 2013 9:43:51 GMT -5
V.F.D. is not sympathetic to whatever she and Lemony are up to. Though Qwerty, apparently, is. I have some ideas, which I'll come to later, about what this reveals about the situation in VFD. I don't know if this has been mentioned before (probably, though I haven't read all the stuff in spoiler tags yet) but there's a clear love triangle emerging between Moxie-Lemony-Ellington. With Lemony being focussed on Ellington and Moxie being jealous of her. But it's subtle which is good. Nice that handler made a male-female-female love triangle for once instead of the exhausted "male-female-male." Nicely observed. But I think we have had a kind of F-M-F love triangle before, with Esme-Olaf-Lulu. Will the series end with Moxie being thrown into a pit of lions? I have finished my first reading, and while the work is fascinating in many ways I do also find it rather confusing. Lemony's deductions seem to me to go beyond the evidence more than once. And (spoiler for Bee's sake, even if it's not required) I find it puzzling that the villains are holding on to Ellington in the belief that she is Cleo, when they also have the real Cleo confined somewhere else. These problems seem to me more problematic here, in a series which is actually meant as a mystery which we are invited to solve, than they did in ASOUE, which was a work about the mysteriousness of life, but not a mystery in the same way. |
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Post by Dante on Oct 24, 2013 11:18:27 GMT -5
I have finished my first reading, and while the work is fascinating in many ways I do also find it rather confusing. Lemony's deductions seem to me to go beyond the evidence more than once. And (spoiler for Bee's sake, even if it's not required) I find it puzzling that the villains are holding on to Ellington in the belief that she is Cleo, when they also have the real Cleo confined somewhere else. In just this instance, it would be perverse not to follow your own use of spoiler tags. I hope Bee and others in general either don't mind or are being careful, though. There are a couple of possibilities. One is that the villains don't communicate with one another very well. Nurse Dander may have been too busy with Ellington to be properly filled in on the real Cleo's capture, or whenever she and Flammarion have spoken then they've found themselves talking at cross-purposes about Cleo being in their clutches. It's plausible enough to me. We don't really know much about the villains' communication or how they organise themselves.
The other possibility is that Hangfire is fully aware that he has two Cleo Knights on his books and has a very good idea of who one of them really is, but doesn't want to break her cover or risk her coming to any harm, or indeed risk her being brought any nearer to him, so he's permitting Dander to labour on under an illusion. This has a lot going for it.
Or both. |
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Post by B. on Oct 24, 2013 11:28:27 GMT -5
Nicely observed. But I think we have had a kind of F-M-F love triangle before, with Esme-Olaf-Lulu. Will the series end with Moxie being thrown into a pit of lions? I have finished my first reading, and while the work is fascinating in many ways I do also find it rather confusing. Lemony's deductions seem to me to go beyond the evidence more than once. And (spoiler for Bee's sake, even if it's not required) not only did you say nicely observed you also spoiler tagged something for me four for you hermes im being so careful i didnt even read hermes's spoiler tag when i quoted him i dont know what you're concerned about, but if it is that Ellington's hair has seemingly changed colour and her dress sense hasnt got any better, then i share those concerns, hermes |
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Post by Dante on Oct 24, 2013 15:09:09 GMT -5
I'm quite interested in what the reading experience is like for a person who saw the reel of all the chapter illustrations on Egmont's ATWQ site before they read the chapters concerned. How much can you pick up from that? This is related to the question of how much the illustrations tell a story - I get the feeling that, for ASoUE, many or even most of the chapter illustrations would leave you completely clueless. Seth is a little more literal.
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