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tildes
Nov 16, 2018

muscles like this! posted:

Also the Baru fanart being posted made me realize that apparently I had interpreted a description differently than everybody else. Namely Baru's "half mask" which I imagined being like a half mask horizontally, not vertically.

I think half mask covering the top half of the face more Phantom of the Opera style makes more sense to me as well. I can see how for fan art it’s probably better to not have the person’s face totally covered though.

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General Battuta
Feb 7, 2011

This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.
I just — and I swear this is the only remotely sour thing I'm going to say, dude basically pays for my advances — I just can't get over the paladin named Kaladin

Teddybear
May 16, 2009

Look! A teddybear doll!
It's soooo cute!


General Battuta posted:

I just — and I swear this is the only remotely sour thing I'm going to say, dude basically pays for my advances — I just can't get over the paladin named Kaladin

When the party focuses on a random NPC in the bar and you gotta pull a name out of your rear end real quick...

Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


I read The Way of Kings years ago and enjoyed it. But after I read the second book I kind of figured the whole arc was going to be Mistborn writ large, and I didn’t feel inspired to pick up the third. People say the fourth really drags, and since I’ve forgotten everything that’s going on with the characters I don’t think I could pick up the series again.

My favourite Sanderson is his novella The Emperors Soul.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

General Battuta posted:

I just — and I swear this is the only remotely sour thing I'm going to say, dude basically pays for my advances — I just can't get over the paladin named Kaladin

I've seen worse

"Yes, it's me, your pal, Pallegina, the Paladin"

muscles like this!
Jan 17, 2005


Ccs posted:

I read The Way of Kings years ago and enjoyed it. But after I read the second book I kind of figured the whole arc was going to be Mistborn writ large, and I didn’t feel inspired to pick up the third. People say the fourth really drags, and since I’ve forgotten everything that’s going on with the characters I don’t think I could pick up the series again.

My favourite Sanderson is his novella The Emperors Soul.

I think the series definitely suffers from having a bunch of lead/POV characters when it would have been better if it just focused on someone like Kaladin. The series would also have a lot of problems solved if characters would just sit down and talk to each other instead of everyone running around hiding things.

Stupid_Sexy_Flander
Mar 14, 2007

Is a man not entitled to the haw of his maw?
Grimey Drawer
That kinda thinking would have killed off Supernatural in the 3rd season. People? TALKING? Sharing secrets and ideas? PFFT LOOKS LIKE ~SOMEONE~ NEVER HEARD OF INTRIGUE!

Yea that bugs me to. It's just a lazy way to move a plot along.

tiniestacorn
Oct 3, 2015


That's my camerata you're talking about :colbert:

Leng
May 13, 2006

One song / Glory
One song before I go / Glory
One song to leave behind


No other road
No other way
No day but today

Ccs posted:

People say the fourth really drags, and since I’ve forgotten everything that’s going on with the characters I don’t think I could pick up the series again.

My favourite Sanderson is his novella The Emperors Soul.

Everybody loves the Emperor's Soul!

Rhythm of War has been divisive for the fanbase generally.

Most in the Sanderson thread (myself included) thought it was weaker than the other entries, mainly because a giant chunk of the book (Venli's flashbacks) felt like it was retreading old territory. There were still plenty of jaw droppers for Cosmere fans–I spent most of the book going holy crap, HOLY CRAP, HOLY loving poo poo at every Cosmere reveal–but just judging the novels on the writing, for me, the best character moments were all in the first part of the story. There was no equivalent emotional payoff to the climax in Way of Kings, or Words of Radiance or Oathbringer (well okay there is one moment that is clearly meant to be but it was anti-climactic for me because it was so heavily foreshadowed in the previous books that when I read it, I was borderline like :rolleyes: FINALLY WE CAN MOVE ON).

If you go to Reddit or the 17th Shard/Shardcast though, you'll get loads of people who loved Rhythm of War, including the Venli flashbacks, and thought it was the best written book in the series. :shrug:

General Battuta posted:

I just–and I swear this is the only remotely sour thing I'm going to say, dude basically pays for my advances–I just can't get over the paladin named Kaladin

Kaladin's original name was Merin :v:

Pennsylvanian posted:

Kept hearing about Brandon Sanderson for years, so I picked up Way of Kings because it was a series-starter and on the top of the list when I searched for him. I really liked it. It's the first fantasy book I've finished in about ten years.

Come join us in the Sanderson thread! Mordiceius has been posting his first-time Sanderson reactions while reading Mistborn and we've all been :allears:.

quantumfoam
Dec 25, 2003

Stumbled across 2 more interesting interviews in SFL Archives 1993. One was with William Gibson during a Virtual Light book press tour (the interviewer had clearly read VL before-hand and was able to ask Gibson some unique questions), and the other interview was with the mailing-list moderator Saul Jaffe of the SFL Archives aka SF-LOVERS.

re-requoted from issue #10 of STRANGE NEW WORLDS
----------------
KAY: Why SF-Lover? How did the discussion list originate?
SAUL: Originally Roger Duffy from MIT started the science fiction mailing
list. The list was unmoderated and all the messages were transmitted to
everyone on the list. Around 1980, the E-mail traffic became too large. It
was around the time of the _Empire Strikes Back_. Roger started the digest
format where select messages were batched and then sent to all the list
recipients. In 1982, a friend brought the list to Rutgers and I took over
as moderator in October, 1983.
KAY: Ten years!
SAUL: Yes, I'm having t-shirts printed to celebrate our ten year
anniversary.
KAY: How many subscribers do you have?
SAUL: I really can't tell you. It's hard to get an accurate count; futile,
really, because some of the addresses are redistribution lists that send
SF-Lovers to other users. I would guess we have roughly 1500 addresses and,
of those, twenty to thirty are redistribution lists. SF-Lovers could have
as many as 200,000 readers. No one can really tell.
KAY: How many countries are represented?
SAUL: I'm not sure now. I usually try to get a figure when I attend
Worldcon. Last year, we had subscribers in twenty-five countries. I know of
some in Europe, Canada, South America, New Zealand, Australia, and,
recently, Japan.
KAY: You said the SF list needed a moderator because of the vast amount of
postings. How do you decide what makes the list and what to discard?
SAUL: It was difficult to decide in the beginning. Sometimes it's just
what posting says it the best. Sometimes there are over 100 replies to one
message, so why post several of the same answers? The traffic also varies
when a big movie, like _Jurassic Park_, comes out. I try to avoid
repetition.
KAY: Your list has several addresses that encompass writers, television,
movies, and miscellaneous. What address gets the most postings?
SAUL: SF-Writers gets the most posting and it's obvious why. Each year,
only one or two SF movies come out. Television isn't much better. But there
are thirty to forty SF books coming out each month and it generates a lot
of postings. I still try to cater to different interests, however.
KAY: Sometimes within one digest there is already an established
discussion. How does that happen?
SAUL: There are three ways that can happen. One, you're just seeing
replies to postings in past digests. Another is that in addition to sending
their replies to SF-Lovers, the writer sends a carbon copy of their message
to other individual users. So, by the time I'm reading the postings, I have
a discussion going. Also, some of the material might come from the Usenet
newsgroups. A lot of the newsgroups were established in the early 1980s in
an attempt to deal with all the heavy E-mail traffic. The newsgroups are
electronic bulletin boards covering common topics that are usually batched
and distributed via Unix machines instead of a university or government
mainframe. The members include a lot of PC owners. It's developed into what
I call a 'controlled anarchy.' What I mean, is that, let's say Quantum Leap
is developing a lost of postings on one bulletin board and someone suggests
creating a newsgroup just for _Quantum Leap_. Everyone can e-vote and a
new newsgroup may be formed.
KAY: How much time do you spend each day working on the list?
SAUL: Only two to three hours a day. I know it doesn't sound like much
time, but it's gotten easier over the years. I've established a pattern
where I can tell if I can use a posting in two to three seconds.
---
(the interview goes on for another page or so)
----------------


Pratchett chat: the first Pratchett book I read was Faust Eric, then Color of Magic & Light Fantastic. Pratchett was a bullet-proof must-read author for me until The Last Continent came out. Last Continent remains the only Pratchett book I've given up on. CMOT Dibbler was one of my favorite Discworld side characters, was disappointed when CMOT Dibbler got vanished in favor of Moist von Lipwig

algebra testes
Mar 5, 2011


Lipstick Apathy

Don't forget the warrior named warreder.

I love the POE series

Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

General Battuta posted:

I just — and I swear this is the only remotely sour thing I'm going to say, dude basically pays for my advances — I just can't get over the paladin named Kaladin

Eragon the dragon always killed me.

buffalo all day
Mar 13, 2019

Pennsylvanian posted:

-As is usually the case with fantasy, the humor is mostly a miss (for me). I'm not really fond of humor being limited to clever wordplay, which is how most humor seems to be handled in fantasy. Sometimes when I saw characters in this book throwing clever phrase-turns or puns at each other, I just kept thinking of them getting owned by some middle school bully who calls them a bunch of dumb nerds.


this is a case of your brain working as intended

i remember enjoying way of kings well enough, then when i read the second book a couple years later I finished it but had mixed feelings, then i got about fifty pages into the third book two years after that, had no idea what was going on, and haven't come back since. there's no way I'm re-reading any of this

mewse
May 2, 2006

Pennsylvanian posted:

Kept hearing about Brandon Sanderson for years, so I picked up Way of Kings because it was a series-starter and on the top of the list when I searched for him. I really liked it. It's the first fantasy book I've finished in about ten years. A few thoughts:

-Kaladin's arc is the real story here.

Yeah, way of kings was Kaladin's book. Book 2 is Shallan and book 3 is Dalinar.

quote:

-I'd say the story's pacing was inconsistent up until maybe the last 2/3rd of the book.

Internet nerds have created a term for that - the Sanderlanche. He's gotten better in recent years.

quote:

-As is usually the case with fantasy, the humor is mostly a miss (for me). I'm not really fond of humor being limited to clever wordplay, which is how most humor seems to be handled in fantasy.

This is why a lot of people don't like Shallan's character because she's constantly described as extremely clever and she exhibits it through "witty" banter

quote:

-The only sections I outright didn't like were Szeth's, mainly because of how Brandon wrote his fight scenes. There were all this unnecessary "he lashed to the ceiling" and then "grabbed the blade with both hands," and then "lashed one leg up on the ceiling and another onto the end table," lines that dragged out the fight and just made it feel like I someone transcribed a Pong match. It got a little ridiculous to read, and felt absent of pathos. As absurd as the shardbearer fights could get with everyone "spinning" into groups of Parshendi, Brandon at least tied the fight scenes to Dalenar's inner turmoil when it came to slaughtering Parshendi. The last part of Szeth's story was a really well-handled reveal, though.

The intro to Way of Kings with all the bindings and lashings and gravity manipulation was probably intended to be an exciting intro to the series & magic system but it's sort of an up front "in these books everything works like a video game" kind of thing. It's easy to see where that criticism comes from.

Leng posted:

Come join us in the Sanderson thread!

Please do, everyone there is usually extremely careful with spoilers.

Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


mewse posted:


This is why a lot of people don't like Shallan's character because she's constantly described as extremely clever and she exhibits it through "witty" banter


It’s really, really hard to write quick-witted comeback jokes in a fantasy setting. Most humor depends on a shared reference pool; common dialect not just of word but gesture and inflection; cultural context. That’s hard to reproduce outside our world.

That's why most fantasy that's actually funny is not because what the characters are saying to each other is funny, but that their interactions are funny, because they're ridiculous in certain ways. Pratchett and Abercrombie are masters of this. The situations they construct are funny when they want them to be.

Epic fantasy tends to be too self serious with its characters and wants them to be either heroic or tragically flawed, and won't cast them in the ridiculous light. So the avenue for comedy narrows considerably.

egg tats
Apr 3, 2010

mewse posted:

This is why a lot of people don't like Shallan's character because she's constantly described as extremely clever and she exhibits it through "witty" banter

yeah I think "shallans not funny" and "the prologue is Bad To Read" are the universal complaints about way of kings. a lot of people have read the next book as kind of a retcon, where it seems more like all the people telling Shallan she was so witty were only doing it because she was a lighteyes who clearly thought she was witty. say what you will for Brandon Sanderson, but at least he's always trying to improve, and the humour in the later books is sometimes actually funny.

PeterWeller
Apr 21, 2003

I told you that story so I could tell you this one.


There's a grand history of this in D&D, like Melf, the magic elf, and the Dragonlance god of lawful good and paladins, Paladine.

shirunei
Sep 7, 2018

I tried to run away. To take the easy way out. I'll live through the suffering. When I die, I want to feel like I did my best.

buffalo all day posted:

this is a case of your brain working as intended

i remember enjoying way of kings well enough, then when i read the second book a couple years later I finished it but had mixed feelings, then i got about fifty pages into the third book two years after that, had no idea what was going on, and haven't come back since. there's no way I'm re-reading any of this

Yeah it seems like these books are great if you are really into the whole Sanderson universe. You get all these cool epiphanies and tangential lore but someone who's trying to read it like the Wheel of Time might be a little lost. I tapped out mid way through book 4 for much the same reason as you in three. Maybe when it's a complete series it will be something to work on but I'll pass until then.

a foolish pianist
May 6, 2007

(bi)cyclic mutation

The Sanderson Stormlight books are fun, but they're also super weird, in that the characters are in a solidly medieval world (where actual magic exists, and spirits and poo poo), but they're also pretty much fairly progressive early 21st-century Americans in terms of their worldviews and psychology. The contrast is jarring.

Kchama
Jul 25, 2007

Ccs posted:

It’s really, really hard to write quick-witted comeback jokes in a fantasy setting. Most humor depends on a shared reference pool; common dialect not just of word but gesture and inflection; cultural context. That’s hard to reproduce outside our world.

That's why most fantasy that's actually funny is not because what the characters are saying to each other is funny, but that their interactions are funny, because they're ridiculous in certain ways. Pratchett and Abercrombie are masters of this. The situations they construct are funny when they want them to be.

Epic fantasy tends to be too self serious with its characters and wants them to be either heroic or tragically flawed, and won't cast them in the ridiculous light. So the avenue for comedy narrows considerably.

I agree with this entirely. Hell, my favorite character in all of fiction is very heroic and tragically flawed both as his entire plot is that he's a heroic figure who was secretly captured and mind-controlled with a geas that requires him to have some malicious reason for everything he does to drive him to hurt others, but the story has no issue putting him into situations where he suffers comic and pratfalls when he manages to elude his geas for a bit to do or say something truly kind, which becomes a lot more tragic when the geas is revealed to the reader.

Also I've been writing my first book series and I am terrified of anything to do with humor as I feel that any kind of joke I'd put into prose would be extremely unfunny, because what works for joking around in real life is very different from prose in a story.

CaptCommy
Aug 13, 2012

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a goat.

shirunei posted:

Yeah it seems like these books are great if you are really into the whole Sanderson universe. You get all these cool epiphanies and tangential lore but someone who's trying to read it like the Wheel of Time might be a little lost. I tapped out mid way through book 4 for much the same reason as you in three. Maybe when it's a complete series it will be something to work on but I'll pass until then.

This was my problem as well, I just don't care about the Cosmere stuff. I read Mistborn years ago, thought it was fine, but haven't touched anything else besides Stormlight. And after finishing Book 3 I just couldn't bring myself to pick up 4.

FewtureMD
Dec 19, 2010

I am very powerful, of course.


Kchama posted:

I agree with this entirely. Hell, my favorite character in all of fiction is very heroic and tragically flawed both as his entire plot is that he's a heroic figure who was secretly captured and mind-controlled with a geas that requires him to have some malicious reason for everything he does to drive him to hurt others, but the story has no issue putting him into situations where he suffers comic and pratfalls when he manages to elude his geas for a bit to do or say something truly kind, which becomes a lot more tragic when the geas is revealed to the reader.


What character is this? Because that plot sounds legitimately fascinating to read.

eke out
Feb 24, 2013



egg tats posted:

yeah I think "shallans not funny" and "the prologue is Bad To Read" are the universal complaints about way of kings. a lot of people have read the next book as kind of a retcon, where it seems more like all the people telling Shallan she was so witty were only doing it because she was a lighteyes who clearly thought she was witty. say what you will for Brandon Sanderson, but at least he's always trying to improve, and the humour in the later books is sometimes actually funny.

yeah, this basically -- she's part of a courtly aristocratic tradition that values that kind of 'clever' wordplay among young noble women, but it fails to make it clear to the reader that we should see her as a try-hard teen performing 'cleverness' to desperately attempt to distinguish herself, rather than a funny character that the author thinks is funny.

Sanderson tries to have it both ways initially, and later backs off and has lots of other people be like "seriously, can you please stop doing that all the time, it's not fun or cool." Which was definitely the right decision, but the first book understandably puts people off

Pennsylvanian
May 23, 2010

Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky Independent Presidential Regiment
Western Liberal Democracy or Death!

eke out posted:

yeah, this basically -- she's part of a courtly aristocratic tradition that values that kind of 'clever' wordplay among young noble women, but it fails to make it clear to the reader that we should see her as a try-hard teen performing 'cleverness' to desperately attempt to distinguish herself, rather than a funny character that the author thinks is funny.

Sanderson tries to have it both ways initially, and later backs off and has lots of other people be like "seriously, can you please stop doing that all the time, it's not fun or cool." Which was definitely the right decision, but the first book understandably puts people off

I do understand that when the book compliments her wittiness, it's often portrayed as "She's witty, but it's also likely that people are just patronizing the light-eyed girl." It makes sense when Kabsal kisses up to her as he's trying to get close to her, but Jasnah also outright berates her for it on a few occasions. On the other hand, I think you nailed my overall feelings in that Brandon is trying to have it both ways. He's far from the only author to congratulate themselves by applauding their characters' "witty" banter, especially in fantasy.

eke out
Feb 24, 2013



Pennsylvanian posted:

I do understand that when the book compliments her wittiness, it's often portrayed as "She's witty, but it's also likely that people are just patronizing the light-eyed girl." It makes sense when Kabsal kisses up to her as he's trying to get close to her, but Jasnah also outright berates her for it on a few occasions. On the other hand, I think you nailed my overall feelings in that Brandon is trying to have it both ways. He's far from the only author to congratulate themselves by applauding their characters' "witty" banter, especially in fantasy.

yeah, as egg tats mentioned, sanderson's attitude is more workman than artist and i mean that in a good way, he tries really hard to shore up his weaknesses. his writing has gotten significantly better over time and it shows in the big stormlight books that're all published at least a few years apart

anyways, there's a thread for his books and we're always interested in hearing from newer readers (just avoid spoiler'd text very aggressively lol)

Pennsylvanian
May 23, 2010

Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky Independent Presidential Regiment
Western Liberal Democracy or Death!
I posted my edited thoughts over there, with more spoiler tags. Hopefully I put the tags in the right spot.

Also, it technically wasn't the first fantasy book I finished in the last decade. Just last year, I beta-read an incredibly interesting fantasy story that was kind of a like a horror story/political thriller. It had some obviously rough spots, but I hope the guy finishes it. It's like nothing I've ever read before.

Pennsylvanian fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Feb 3, 2021

Stupid_Sexy_Flander
Mar 14, 2007

Is a man not entitled to the haw of his maw?
Grimey Drawer
Can you share the author? Sounds neat and kinda up my alley and I'd like to keep an eye out for it.

PupsOfWar
Dec 6, 2013

i didn't make it that far into way of kings

my big takeaway was that kaladin has a knife sheath attached to his spear when fighting in the feudal mud village army at the beginning, which gave me a lot of inspiration re: attaching things to other things

like i usually need to have the 10mm wrench out at the same time as the 3/8 so those are attached together
i will usually need a trowel if I'm gonna use a shovel so I've attached those bad boys
and i probably won't want to use the chainsaw without a beer so you know what, chainsaws got a koozie on it now

FPyat
Jan 17, 2020
Partway through 2010 by Arthur C. Clarke, I'm noticing that it shares elements (primarily the doomed Chinese expedition) with Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds. I wonder if there was an intentional tribute.

Collateral
Feb 17, 2010

a foolish pianist posted:

The Sanderson Stormlight books are fun, but they're also super weird, in that the characters are in a solidly medieval world (where actual magic exists, and spirits and poo poo), but they're also pretty much fairly progressive early 21st-century Americans in terms of their worldviews and psychology. The contrast is jarring.

I have the opposite view when it comes to modern fantasy, though if they were all that way with no range of social views, then yes, that would be insufferable.

Now historical fiction that has its cypher with modern sensibilities, then that can be hard to swallow, but if the author goes for fidelity you get instances like Maturin (of Patrick O'Brien) commenting that he is ok with the pederast because he was a gentle sort.

Also historical accuracy can be coda for racism or fascist love letters, wrapped up as "That was what it was really like!"

Flashman is the opposite in some ways, a nasty character who has genuine insight into the events he experienced suffered rogered ran away from, because the author had more than a century of analysis of those events. GMF was also an unapologetic imperialist.

I'm named after the most famous paladin, and the middle of my surname is truth :v:

Cicero
Dec 17, 2003

Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

a foolish pianist posted:

The Sanderson Stormlight books are fun, but they're also super weird, in that the characters are in a solidly medieval world (where actual magic exists, and spirits and poo poo), but they're also pretty much fairly progressive early 21st-century Americans in terms of their worldviews and psychology. The contrast is jarring.
I feel like fantasy authors have to toe the line here, where if their supposed-to-be-likable characters hold abhorrent views that were common in older times, readers will hate them and the book. But if they're too progressive/modern, it comes across as oddly out of place.

But I don't quite get the complaint for Stormlight, as at least the Alethi and related cultures have fairly strict gender roles, what with safe hands and even food being explicitly gendered, and the church has a fair amount of power -- less than they used to, but they're still quite important.

It's also probably worth noting that some modern attitudes are old as well. For example, transgender acceptance is considered modern/progressive, but you can find instances where crossing gender lines in much older cultures was accepted as normal. Similarly, gay sex was accepted on some level as normal in ancient Greece (as long as it's with a youth!).

Pennsylvanian
May 23, 2010

Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky Independent Presidential Regiment
Western Liberal Democracy or Death!

Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:

Can you share the author? Sounds neat and kinda up my alley and I'd like to keep an eye out for it.

He's never published anything, and I only know his first name/handle. He's one of those types of people that works a lot of hard jobs and from what he's said, he used any of his free time to practice writing. I met him when I posted a "looking for players" thread on Reddit and thought he had some really cool characters, who all turned to out to be from this writing project of his. He says he's still working on it, but he can't give it much time since he's an essential worker and has been doing extra shifts since last March. He still tries to make it to our sessions. Maybe I'll tell him that I'll level him up for every chapter he finishes polishing.

Basically, the story is about a woman knight who is called into a different kingdom to investigate a mass murder. As she does, the story goes from a murder mystery, to something like Assault on Precinct 13, to something like The Descent (So, the climax isn't the high-action sequence, but a tense cave-crawl instead, which is kind of unique for fantasy). The mystery is exacerbated by post-war political tensions as she can't figure out who to trust.

Pennsylvanian fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Feb 3, 2021

90s Cringe Rock
Nov 29, 2006
:gay:
That sounds rad and I hope you highlight it when it comes out.

Pennsylvanian
May 23, 2010

Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky Independent Presidential Regiment
Western Liberal Democracy or Death!
Yeah, he said last month that his New Year's Resolution is to get it out in public in some form or another (he's been working on it for a while- he showed me an early draft from like ten years ago that he completely abandoned in favor of a re-write and it shows massive improvement). Last I talked to him, he was tweaking the B-plot to read a bit better, and that he wants to get more people critiquing it soon. He's nervous about throwing it all out at once, so he's been been toying with the idea of turning it into some kind of Early Access-style webnovel where people can give him feedback as he works on it and some of his short stories, one of which was an interesting take on They Are Made of Meat. I'm trying to be as gently encouraging as I can be.

Kchama
Jul 25, 2007

FewtureMD posted:

What character is this? Because that plot sounds legitimately fascinating to read.

Ingram Plisken from Original Generations on the PS2. He's actual the protagonist of the previous game in the franchise. It's a visual novel + a strategy game. The aliens who wish to make humanity into their janissaries kidnapped a bunch of humans and mind-controlled them into acting as the 'alien invaders' and also geas'd Ingram into being the 'true leader' of the fake alien invasion. So he was tasked with preparing an army of humans with advanced technology to be integrated into the fake aliens. But he twists his orders to make them too strong to be taken by force by focusing all of their anger and rage on himself, through manipulating them emotionally by making himself seem suspicious and cruel so that when he reveals himself they'll be even more enraged that they saw the signs but still trusted him because of his cause. And this was buoyed by the moments of true kindness that he managed to let slip out, which attracted people to him as a leader and a close friend, so they'd feel even more betrayed and fight even harder to get defeat the 'aliens' to get to him.

But despite his 'resting evil face' and cold-hearted pragmatism liked to present, the story had no problem putting him into comic situations, like when he was asked to taste-test someone's awful-tasting health drinks. He had heard the rumors but still guzzled it down and told her it tasted great. And then collapsed from the awful taste the moment she was out the door and is unavailable the next time they deploy.


He's just a well-balanced character with a lot of good scenes and is able to help bring out character growth the entire time he's around.

I admittedly was a bit reluctant to actually give more details because it was from a game but whatever, he's someone I'm very fond of and am not actually reluctant to say that.

StrixNebulosa
Feb 14, 2012

You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

https://twitter.com/orbitbooks/status/1357041744358039553

Walh Hara
May 11, 2012

a foolish pianist posted:

The Sanderson Stormlight books are fun, but they're also super weird, in that the characters are in a solidly medieval world (where actual magic exists, and spirits and poo poo), but they're also pretty much fairly progressive early 21st-century Americans in terms of their worldviews and psychology. The contrast is jarring.

Hmm, kinda agreeing with Cicero here: which worldviews are too modern/progressive for a medieval world? On one hand there's the problem where some of the viewpoints which we think are modern aren't. On the other hand it's also the case that when considering the viewpoints of old cultures we tend to only consider the viewpoints of (a very small subgroup of) the ruling class. Plenty of failed rebellions for things we consider progressive now.

pradmer
Mar 31, 2009

Follow me for more books on special!
Further sale within an ongoing sale. These Terry Pratchett novels are now even cheaper for some reason - $1.99 each
The Light Fantastic (Discworld #2) - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000W914OU/
Equal Rites (Discworld #3) - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000W9393Y/

Continuing the cheaper sale theme
Ashes of the Sun (Burningblade and Silvereye #1) by Django Wexler - $2.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZZ25BCX/

Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City (Siege #1) by KJ Parker - $2.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078W5M7DB/

Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation by Ken Liu - $2.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07C75GLGK/

A Scifi comic by NK Jemisin. Issues 1-7 - $0.99 each
Far Sector #1 - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YXDF93H

Pennsylvanian
May 23, 2010

Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky Independent Presidential Regiment
Western Liberal Democracy or Death!

Walh Hara posted:

Hmm, kinda agreeing with Cicero here: which worldviews are too modern/progressive for a medieval world? On one hand there's the problem where some of the viewpoints which we think are modern aren't. On the other hand it's also the case that when considering the viewpoints of old cultures we tend to only consider the viewpoints of (a very small subgroup of) the ruling class. Plenty of failed rebellions for things we consider progressive now.

That, or a fantasy world won't have certain religions or cultures from our world that would block "progressive" or radical views. Imagine what Europe or the Americas would look like without Christianity, or what the Middle East would look like with Judaism or Islam fostering certain ideologies. Hell, the only real book of guidance that I've heard more than one person talk about is the titular Way of Kings, and the one guy who regularly talks about it is treated like an insane weirdo for thinking it's good.

And I've only read one book in the series, but it doesn't seem all that progressive or modern. Slavery and caste systems exist, and despite there being supposed restrictions on what even the higher castes can do, they rarely seem stifled by said laws. There are also sexist aspects of the society where women aren't allowed to do some things, and men won't allow themselves to do certain things. So what may seem progressive just comes from the fact that it's a fantasy universe, but it's still a very backwards (from our view) society.

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Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


I’m not seeing those Pratchett sales, they’ve gone back up to $8.

I grabbed Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City. Hopefully it’s one of the better Parker’s!

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