|
Deptfordx posted:Well as i recall, there's no explicitly sexual content. There's some massive homoeroticism, but completely missable when read by the average teenage boy of the 80's that was the target market. Farting, though, and a zoat.
|
#
?
May 7, 2022 20:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 11:37 |
|
|
Isle of the Dead/Eye of Cat by Roger Zelazny - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00K7S0J24/
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2022 21:28
|
|
|
Deptfordx posted:Well as i recall, there's no explicitly sexual content. There's some massive homoeroticism, but completely missable when read by the average teenage boy of the 80's that was the target market. Also, it is now available on Kindle. I read it recently, and enjoyed it as someone who's never read any 40k stuff except the first few books of the Horus Herasy. No audio book though. Hobnob fucked around with this message at 21:47 on May 7, 2022 |
|
#
?
May 7, 2022 21:43
|
|
|
Cheers to the people in this thread who recommended The Library at Mount Char. Fuckin' excellent book.
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2022 23:16
|
|
|
Just got to The Droplet in "The Dark Forest" and boy, does the author really want to drive the point home. This is one of the longest chapters I've ever read.
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2022 23:16
|
|
|
No Pants posted:Thanks for this post. When anti-sex-scene stuff comes up in fantasy and science fiction discussions, arguments for universally giving them the fade to black treatment give off a weird vibe, like a lot of readers have really internalized the concept of genre. yeah it's definitely a skill, and it's possible to be better or worse at writing sex scenes just like it's possible to be better or worse at writing fight scenes, but in general any scene in a book is there for a reason. It's not necessarily a strong reason but like it is a vehicle for conveying story. There's nothing wrong with fading to black, and I feel a little bad that I'm going off on the subject when this was spun off of someone who doesn't want to read sex scenes. Cause that's absolutely fine. It's just a type of scene is all-- a tool for the kit, imo. like i am in absolutely no way trying to mount a defense of sex scenes as pieces of writing, I just don't think there's anything uniquely bad about them as a class of scenes. You get the gross male-gaze creepazoid sex scenes but those are rarely things isolated to the sex scene. And if someone like GRRM's sex scenes feel like they were written with one hand on the keyboard, well, I have some bad news for you about his feast scenes.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 01:36
|
|
|
Sailor Viy posted:Cheers to the people in this thread who recommended The Library at Mount Char. Fuckin' excellent book. I just finished it last night. I loved it.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 02:14
|
|
|
ClydeFrog posted:stuff vvv Yeah, I feel the same sometimes! I wish clean reads lists were more popular (and maybe had a less judgy name). No Pants fucked around with this message at 03:32 on May 8, 2022 |
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 03:12
|
|
|
Some people don't like them. I don't like to read long scenes of people suffering under torture so sometimes I'll ask for recommendations without them. Sex seems to be difficult to write well, but I dunno, I don't have any fondness for it irl so maybe it's that awkward and weird in reality too:
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 03:15
|
|
|
Making my way quickly through China Mieville's Three Moments of an Explosion. I was watching Northernlion one day and he pointed out how sketch comedy shows, even the great ones, have a lot of hits but also a lot of misses; the great Monty Python sketches stick out, but no one talks about the ones that suck. And even your favorite comedy sketch show has a bigger miss rate than you might admit or recall. A lot of these sci-fi/weird fiction books are like that. Maybe there's a good concept, but without a resolution it's just a gaze into someone's messed up imagination. This one has a lot of great hits - The Dowager of Bees is a great story about underground card players who often have something strange pop up in the middle of a game; The Rope is the World, which is an extremely pessimistic (and let's face it, realist) tale about how a space elevator would work; and especially Rules which hit me upside the head. But the bad misses are there as well. It's so frustrating than a short story with a creepy concept that just stops suddenly. Nothing wrong with leaving the reader wanting more, but at the end of many of them I fully expected to turn the page and keep reading. There's also some odd shot-by-shot descriptions of movie trailers that sound like an edgy 14-year-old wrote them. Also, China loves the phrase "skew-whiff". I want to talk about Rules, and spoilers for a story that's 1.5 pages long: I've rarely read a story that hit me that hard. Thinking about how there's a first time something happens, no matter how commonplace we consider it, and then the last time something will ever happen is incredible. It's interspersed with rules for a game that's so convoluted, but so matter-of-fact-ly written that it's apparent that children play it. Not only that, they fully understand it. Like there's a first time that game will be played and a last time, and it's as far from now as it is from the airplane-game event at the end of Rules. There's that famous tumblr post about "there's a time your parent picked you up, put you down, and never picked you back up again" and drat, this story was a better worded version of that profound shower thought.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 03:38
|
|
|
LifeLynx posted:Also, China loves the phrase "skew-whiff". Does he also over-use the word "bathos" in that book?
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 07:18
|
|
|
I love those cringy old sex scenes. They're just hilarious. Stuff like Glass House by Stross, any China Miéville sex scenes. When it's done well I feel like the authors looked at the genre as a whole and all the bad sex scenes that had come before it and said, "How can I make this worse?" I just wrote a story that is a pastiche of 80s-00s SF cringe sex scenes in a post-singularity setting called Liminal Coition that involves Dyson sphere computational megastructures, ancestor simulation, and an intergalactic hook up service like Grinder for post-civilization super AIs with cross species kinks. I feel there is an untapped market for this kind of thing. There is not.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 14:38
|
|
|
I mean I'd read it if you drop a link where to get it!
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 15:15
|
|
|
BananaNutkins posted:I just wrote a story that is a pastiche of 80s-00s SF cringe sex scenes in a post-singularity setting called Liminal Coition that involves Dyson sphere computational megastructures, ancestor simulation, and an intergalactic hook up service like Grinder for post-civilization super AIs with cross species kinks. I feel there is an untapped market for this kind of thing. There is not. Post it.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 15:22
|
|
|
withak posted:Post it. If the mods are cool with it, gladly. I appreciate any feedback. It's like, five thousand words though. Liminal Coition
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 17:02
|
|
|
I enjoyed that a loving lot. The twist was predictable but well executed
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 18:31
|
|
|
The Fifth Season (Broken Earth #1) by NK Jemisin - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00H25FCSQ/ Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1) by Ann Leckie - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BAXFDLM/ The Once and Future Witches by Alix E Harrow - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085C71YG5/
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 19:00
|
|
|
BananaNutkins posted:If the mods are cool with it, gladly. I appreciate any feedback. It's like, five thousand words though. This is good.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 19:12
|
|
|
BananaNutkins posted:If the mods are cool with it, gladly. I appreciate any feedback. It's like, five thousand words though.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 20:06
|
|
|
withak posted:This is good. Harold Fjord posted:I enjoyed that a loving lot. Thanks for giving it a shot! I don't know what to do with it--it's been to every pro rate magazine and got form rejected from all of them. Probably it will sit in my drawer until I have five or six more stories in the same vein and then I'll do a collection on Amazon (that no one will read). My last Amazon release has been up for a year with 0 reads--not even for free, lol.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 20:22
|
|
|
Tim Powers readers, thoughts on Expiration Date and Earthquake Weather? I've only just discovered that Last Call is part of a (loosely connected?) trilogy, and while I'm excited by that, the fact that I've only heard vague mentions of Earthquake Weather and have never heard of Expiration Date at all doesn't seem to bode well. Expiration Date also seems to have a child protagonist, and while the brief kids' POVs in Last Call were fine, I'm not sure I trust it not to get grating in the way that most writers' interpretation of children tends to be.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 20:46
|
|
|
Everything Powers wrote after 1989 is bad, except for Declare which is his best work.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 20:56
|
|
|
Did someone really make the argument that there is no market for sex scenes? Erotic literature is huge, and putting a few sex scenes in your fantasy novel or whatever just seems to broaden the mainstream appeal if anything. I will agree it is pretty hit-and-miss stuff though.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 21:37
|
|
|
pseudorandom name posted:Everything Powers wrote after 1989 is bad, except for Declare which is his best work. 1992. Last Call is pretty drat good, I think. (And I like The Anubis Gates better than Declare, but that's another kettle of fish.) That said, I found Expiration Date pretty blah, and I haven't been tempted to crack Earthquake Weather. Even if you liked Last Call, I don't think you're missing anything by skipping them; I didn't notice any particular connections between Last Call and Expiration Date.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 21:44
|
|
|
I enjoyed Expiration Date well enough, but Earthquake Weather is pretty much meh. Neither comes close to Last Call.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 21:50
|
|
|
thotsky posted:Did someone really make the argument that there is no market for sex scenes? Erotic literature is huge, and putting a few sex scenes in your fantasy novel or whatever just seems to broaden the mainstream appeal if anything.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 22:44
|
|
|
Dune with no sex.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 22:57
|
|
|
I think it's more "that's not a thing that will help sell this sci fi novel" moreso than "no one likes sex scenes, please ignore the success of 30 shades of grey". Sci Fi and fantasy is normally sold on the plot or action or world building, not the sex.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 22:58
|
|
|
Urban Fantasy and anything else with vampires disagrees.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 23:01
|
|
|
Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I think it's more "that's not a thing that will help sell this sci fi novel" moreso than "no one likes sex scenes, please ignore the success of 30 shades of grey". Normally? You mean in the particular areas of sci Fi and fantasy that you like?
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 23:03
|
|
|
thotsky posted:Urban Fantasy and anything else with vampires disagrees. There’s also a growing trend of scifi monsterfucker books, explicitely sold as monsterfucking books Unfortunately most of them are trash and way too many lean on the noble savage trope, because apparently a lot of these romance writers think switching out a black or native American dude for a blue-skinned lizardman makes those old racist tropes totally acceptable now Dammit I just want more stuff like The Shape of Water without it being super gross 
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 23:28
|
|
|
My sex opinion: it can be a cool and worthy part of a novel, but only if it's worked into the plot as part of a relationship growing or drama point or basically SOMETHING that isn't fan service. Like, if you're writing porn write porn, but please don't wedge porn into my starship adventure novel because you were horny one night and wanted them to gently caress.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 23:35
|
|
|
BananaNutkins posted:Thanks for giving it a shot! I don't know what to do with it--it's been to every pro rate magazine and got form rejected from all of them. Probably it will sit in my drawer until I have five or six more stories in the same vein and then I'll do a collection on Amazon (that no one will read). My last Amazon release has been up for a year with 0 reads--not even for free, lol. The self-publishing thread claims that short story collections all do terrible (unless you are an established author or doing smut) but might have some suggestions if you want to rework stories a bit so they are more connected. Or at least some suggestions for covers and blurbs (both of which are very important) Stuporstar posted:There’s also a growing trend of scifi monsterfucker books, explicitely sold as monsterfucking books
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2022 23:41
|
|
|
Tars Tarkas posted:I find it sort of hilarious that they are all over the bestseller charts even with Amazon trying to wall off the smut, but it makes finding things I like a lot harder. I don't expect Amazon to do anything Hell, I’d even read some of them if every one I ever clicked on didn’t start with the description: “Privileged Aryan Princess Nelly McGee thought she’d never find a man trapped in her father’s space cotton plantation, but then savage blue lizardman Krzzzonk abducts her and she must overcome her natural loathing…” Ffffffuuuuuuuck Offfffffffff
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2022 00:04
|
|
|
I mean, if you were granted the magic power to view any number of real-life sexual encounters, I'd imagine the hit rate for finding them hot would be well under 50%, so it's no surprise that a lot of people find most fictional sex scenes unappealing either.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2022 00:35
|
|
|
BananaNutkins posted:If the mods are cool with it, gladly. I appreciate any feedback. It's like, five thousand words though. Thank you for linking this. If you have anything else I'm interested in reading them, where's your Amazon collection you mentioned?
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2022 01:12
|
|
|
Sibling of TB posted:Thank you for linking this. If you have anything else I'm interested in reading them, where's your Amazon collection you mentioned? Jack Martingale is a pseudonym I use to write satire. I've only got a single story on Amazon at the moment. I would give it away free (I did through KDP) but .99 cents is the lowest they allow. I just saw that it's eligible for a free promotion, so I set it up, but it doesn't go into effect tomorrow. You can get it here for free on Google drive right now: Assault on Ball's Deep Here's the pitch, just so you know what you're getting into: Jack Martingale posted:As the Gender Wars approach a bloody climax, the battered Brotherhood army spends itself in one final thrust to breach the Matriarchy’s heavily-defended capital city. It is a costly diversion, a desperate gambit to insert an elite team of soldiers behind enemy lines. Their objective: Ball’s Deep, a cryogenic sperm storage facility with enough frozen seed to make heterosexual intercourse unnecessary for the next thousand years. Resistance will be stiff, but Sergeant Milkstone and his Bros have a secret weapon—MTX, a weaponized form of testosterone that can turn anyone into an ultra-masculine super soldier. But when Milkstone develops a battlefield crush on Coach, his hardass superior officer, he begins to question if he wants to live in the world that will be created if the mission succeeds. Grab your piece. Size up. Get ready to ASSAULT ON BALLS DEEP! Or for free on Amazon starting tomorrow. Assault on Ball's Deep I just saw someone HAS apparently at least clicked it and read the first page, before summarily giving it a 1-star review. I don't blame them. This is the kind of story that's either going to be all or nothing. An assistant editor at Escapepod told me he really liked it and wanted to buy it, but it wouldn't work for their magazine. I figured if he liked it, maybe it was worth putting on AmazonIt wasn't. MartingaleJack fucked around with this message at 01:45 on May 9, 2022 |
|
#
?
May 9, 2022 01:42
|
|
|
I can start listing the dozen paranormal romance books that go on sale every day that I see cause they get lumped into fantasy/sci fi. They're all instantly recognizable by their covers.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2022 01:52
|
|
|
BananaNutkins posted:If the mods are cool with it, gladly. I appreciate any feedback. It's like, five thousand words though. BananaNutkins posted:Thanks for giving it a shot! I don't know what to do with it--it's been to every pro rate magazine and got form rejected from all of them. Probably it will sit in my drawer until I have five or six more stories in the same vein and then I'll do a collection on Amazon (that no one will read). My last Amazon release has been up for a year with 0 reads--not even for free, lol. This was great. Would buy a related short story collection. pradmer posted:I can start listing the dozen paranormal romance books that go on sale every day that I see cause they get lumped into fantasy/sci fi. They're all instantly recognizable by their covers. Noooooo  I don't want the great books in your awesome sale roundup posts to get cluttered with Zodiac Academy XXXVI the companion novel to the companion novel to the reverse harem shifter series.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2022 03:16
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 11:37 |
|
|
On the second page owns. Edit: 5 stars. Remulak fucked around with this message at 04:35 on May 9, 2022 |
|
#
?
May 9, 2022 03:31
|
|