Personal Computer News


Was Reviewer On Rocky Ground?

 
Published in Personal Computer News #064

Was Reviewer On Rocky Ground?

Thank you for the kind review of Peter Shaw's and my book (Issue 62), but I would like to correct you on a number of points. For instance, the book contains enough information for the beginner to creater a complete adventure game, and all the sections are covered in sufficient detail.

Second, I do not know who "PCN's cultural correspondent" is but I would like to point out that the Scylla is not a rock, but (and I quote from "All About Monsters"), 'a six-headed serpent which, in Greek mythology, lived in a cave on the coast of Sicily and which snatched and devoured passing sailors'.

I believe that this would quite validly count as a monster: perhaps the reviewer is the one which a 'need for good research'.

J. Mortleman
London E18

But we said there was enough information to allow you to create adventures of your own. As regards Scylla, dictionaries variously describe it/her as a six-headed monster, a sea nymph, a sea monster and the daughter of the king of Megara. PCN's geography correspondent (the culture correspondent has been taken suddenly ill) describes it as an extrant rock off the straits of Messina, and it seems that the rock, though correct, is a later innovation (Chambers 20th Century - see Charybdis).

J. Mortleman