I just finished the novel today, so take this with a grain of salt. 1. I'd say chapter 7. 2. Team Jeggare, for his academia-leanings. Radovan needs to realize the joy of Pathfinder-ing! 3. I really enjoy the idea of the dog, it allows so many fun story options in my mind. Azra was a really interesting character that I would like to see more of. I feel like you wrote a really deep character but only gave us a tiny taste of her life.
Very engaging read! I really enjoyed the web fiction and reading Prince of Wolves. I'm looking forward to picking up the Hells Pawns stories later, and the Tian Xia novel when it comes out. I'm currently in Beijing, and find my acquisition of Mandarin to be really similar to how Radovan picked up the language of Ustalav. It was nice to see that portrayed so seriously (although a little fast, its taken me about 6 months just to understand the flow of the language.) I really love how I can get this in pdf, but is there any way to buy it from Amazon? I have a TON of store credit with that retailer. Mr Gross - I really look forward to more from you and your peers from Pathfinder Tales!
As a former comic-shop employee I love threads like this! Here is my go-to list: -Northlanders (vikings!)
I left out all the capes books, since its too hard to remember what is good and what I like out of nostalgia.
I'd like to comment on the use of "Tian Xia" as the name for Asia in Golarion. I am currently living in Beijing, CHN as a teacher, and I have seen a decent amount of Chinese culture firsthand. I would like to talk about the idea of China as the center of the world. Their name for China means "middle kingdom" in two senses: that of being between the heavens and earth, and as the center of the civilized world. China didn't go to other nations to negotiate, other nations came to China. There is a cultural and historical belief that China is at the center of everything. Mosaic mentioned the film "Hero" earlier, and it makes a good point, that several kingdoms of China have used a sort of "manifest destiny" in the form of "Tian Xia", the concept of a united China fulfilling its destiny of being the greatest kingdom in the world. Therefore, I can absolutely see a fantasy parallel already. The people/country of Tian-Xia might have different names for other countries and peoples that suggest to the outsiders that they are a singular people with different minority groups living with in it. Even if they are totally separate kingdoms (maybe Tian-Shu calls itself Tibet and doesn't acknowledge Tian-Xia as it's capital for example), this will give an obvious idea of Tian-Xia being all of Asia to the outsider. This misconception could be spread back to the Inner Seas where they would quickly become the foreign names for these countries and peoples.
Pendagast wrote:
Sorry to interject. I don't have anything to add about this, but I do know that you are wrong here. The word "history" comes from the Greek word "historia", meaning "inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation". I would say that this meaning gives it a much more significant meaning. Few English words derive their meaning from other english words. A similar misconception comes about the word woman, which many people argue is a lesser form of the word man, but actually just comes from Old English to mean female human. |