I love your stuff so much, thank you!!! I started Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell this week on your suggestion and I’m already 75% of the way through it!!! It speaks to my soul almost as much as your games do!!!
Came here via the advent calendar, freely admit to not having listened before, but though I wasn’t surprised to see you two mention JS+MN and Piranesi At All, I was delighted!
I often group weather factory's writing with Clarke's and Gaiman's, so it was funny to hear both of their names in the first couple of minutes! Brilliant episode as always
Was finally able to collect all of the Christmas gifts from Book of Hours. Thank you for all your work! JS and MN is one of my favourite books. Speaking of elaborate magic systems, what is your view on Lev Grossman's "The magicians" and Ben Aaronovitch's "Rivers of London" series?
The sudden popularity of seemingly arbitrary things is at least partly a matter of feedback. Once something becomes popular, its popularity gives it ever-increasing publicity and sometimes induces people to look into it merely to find out what everyone else is interested in or to be able to discuss it. There are countless fantasy works for children that are at least as good, or better, than "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone". Its very mediocrity is part of why it gained such traction - it used simple vocabulary and sentence structures, contained only rudimentary worldbuiliding, and told a very familiar story - which meant it wasn't very demanding of its readers, which meant that a very wide range of the population could manage it. Something richer and more complex would have put off people who were totally unfamiliar with fantasy and had limited reading abilities. Explosive fads are only possible when they can easily spread from person to person, which makes appealing to the LCD critically important. JS&MR wasn't nearly as wildly popular as HP, it became known mostly among readers of fantasy, as opposed to the general populace.
Ooh, secret game three mention. Also cool fact about the Deus Ex voice actor being a QA guy. Reminds me of the Senua's Sacrifice main actress who was a video editor who originally stood in for the mocap role and got the full role. Even won a Bafta.
