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Sinatrapod posted:Then god forbid there's a particularly malicious person present who says the word "rishathra" and you have to drop a smoke bomb, throw yourself out the nearest window and fake your own death. You will only be remembered as that pervert that was into Giant-on-Otter-woman ritual sex. If they know what that word means, then they've read him too. Unclean hands! Or, well, paws.
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May 10, 2022 12:36
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General Battuta posted:I wish people talked about sex more in real life, never mind in books. It seems like peoples' idea of how other people are having sex is mostly the highly produced and managed tv/movie version or the highly ritualized and fetishized porn version, instead of the 'hey I'm on a bunch of SSRIs so let's not get our hopes up' or 'one time fleas bit my crotch for an entire six hour car ride and then I ran howling into my house and shoved the showerhead on full blast into my itchy balls and came so hard I fell over and hit my head' tragicomedy of reality. yeah this is what I would have said if I were a smart person who did words in smart ways
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May 10, 2022 12:45
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StrixNebulosa posted:Anyways bonus book rec: the Cassandra Kresnov series by Joel Shepherd. I'm rereading the first book and just really enjoying how our protagonist is both human and not, and I find it fascinating that she has a voracious sex drive, and yet it's not written as spankbait? She really, really likes sex and considers orgasms to be a good time, but she's not constantly looking for it or letting it interrupt her job of being a badass cyborg or whatever. (For the record the sex is written as fade to black) She has the sex drive and organs because her creators wanted to make her as human as possible, as that got them a better tactical cyborg leader who could lead a squad better in war. There's even technobabble about it, it's neat!
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May 10, 2022 12:51
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Any opinions on the new Tchaikovsky yet? I really enjoyed the first book despite (or maybe because of) it being choc full of your standard space opera clichés.
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May 10, 2022 17:37
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Junkenstein posted:Any opinions on the new Tchaikovsky yet? I really enjoyed the first book despite (or maybe because of) it being choc full of your standard space opera clichés. It was reasonably enjoyable, but I didn't like it as much as the first one. Typical middle-book problems, I think. EDIT: LOL I was just checking his twitter and I guess he's already written and delivered book 3, so we won't have to wait too long for it.
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May 10, 2022 18:25
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dear penthouse, the chicken-that-was-not-a-chicken pecked me right square on the dick and you'll never believe what happened next...
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May 10, 2022 19:24
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uber_stoat posted:dear penthouse, the chicken-that-was-not-a-chicken pecked me right square on the dick and you'll never believe what happened next... Your dick led a libertarian revolution?
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May 10, 2022 21:11
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the other Joel Shepard series, the spiral wars, is on like book 12 or some poo poo and the captain finally smashes the marine commander. hooting and hollering for it.
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May 10, 2022 21:19
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General Battuta posted:And, in art, something you'd expect to find depicted the same way as violence. Sometimes graphically and at length, sometimes elided, sometimes offscreen, sometimes not present at all and not part of the book's emotional universe: all depending on the requirements of the story. And yet: I avoid many styles of depiction of violence in the art that I investigate. Particularly the extremely detailed, double-particularly so when in a visual medium. I see no reason not to apply similarly selective approaches to depiction of sex in art. General Battuta posted:I dunno. I understand the aversion to sex in books that aren't sex books but I also feel like...most things in books aren't actually coded expressions of the author's fetishes. Sex scenes aren't written with one hand. They're written the same as every other scene. Fussing over comma placement, struggling to keep the scene in the word budget, getting annoyed with your own lack of focus. They're craft. They may not have a point. They might just be there for the same reason as a fight scene: the energy of the story pointed to this at this moment. Most of the scenes are, in my opinion: bad craft. I have similar opinions about what I see as terrible fight scenes. General Battuta posted:Most violence in books is completely inauthentic and ridiculous but often it works for that book's purposes anyway. I don't think there's any reason sex shouldn't be the same way. It doesn't need to 'justify its existence' or bear load (hurr) in the plot. It's a densely physical act of intimacy, vulnerability, and power exchange. Maybe you just want to see what these characters do together. Or give them a moment of reward in the middle of something horrible. Or have them find something in each other that they didn't expect, whether tender or hateful, which really complicates their relationships. …like you said, craft, scene in word budget, etc. Most sex scenes don’t actually accomplish anything that a fade to black couldn’t, and many are significantly worse-written than one. …I’m sure there’s a way to do a fade to black in a fight scene as well, and I’m pretty sure one or both of Hammett or Chandler has given plenty of examples.
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May 10, 2022 21:43
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I liked the sex scene Abercrombie wrote where there is a misunderstanding about why the tough guy character suddenly stops everything right after a particular act occurs.
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May 10, 2022 22:28
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ulmont posted:…I’m sure there’s a way to do a fade to black in a fight scene as well, and I’m pretty sure one or both of Hammett or Chandler has given plenty of examples.
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May 10, 2022 22:36
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I prefer fight scenes to be as short as possible, because I honestly don’t give a single poo poo about who punches who in what order or whatever, I only care about the aftermath, and this goes equally for visual media It’s the prime reason the Hobbit movies sucked so loving much omg 20 minutes rolling down a river in a barrel while orcs tore down the hill, just kill me rather than force me to sit through that interminable bullshit ever again
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May 10, 2022 22:57
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Patricia A. McKillip died https://twitter.com/locusmag/status/1524133641076547589 Read her poo poo. One of the great prose stylists of fantasy and criminally underappreciated by today's readership. No one was quite like her.
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May 10, 2022 23:09
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Harold Fjord posted:I liked the sex scene Abercrombie wrote where there is a misunderstanding about why the tough guy character suddenly stops everything right after a particular act occurs. Cam you elaborate? Spoiler it if you need to. Haven't read much Abercrombie. Just wondering what the misunderstanding was.
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May 10, 2022 23:39
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Cam you elaborate? Spoiler it if you need to. Haven't read much Abercrombie. Just wondering what the misunderstanding was. Jesus Christ can we stop whining about sex poo poo in bad books and talk about the luminary who just died every loving thing wrong with modern genre readers in this post edit: To be the person I think we should be. The Riddle Master of Hed although not truly representative of her work as a whole is a classic for a reason and a great first novel. While some of McKillip's later work can be hard to start reading, Hed is pleasant the whole way through. It's a really good starting point for getting adjusted to McKillip's concerns and what makes her different from other fantasy writers of her generation with a greater emphasis on humility and empathy than the typical Tolkein style quest narrative she was clearly influenced by. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) fez_machine fucked around with this message at 23:56 on May 10, 2022 |
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May 10, 2022 23:51
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Cam you elaborate? Spoiler it if you need to. Haven't read much Abercrombie. Just wondering what the misunderstanding was. Curious about this too
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May 11, 2022 00:02
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I finished The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi for those of you who also read that, did you like Kiva? I found her insufferable, Cardinia was cool though... I didn't like it as much as Old Man's War's first book
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May 11, 2022 00:02
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GreenBuckanneer posted:I finished The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi My take on Scalzi generally is that when he was first starting out his books were as good as he could write and those first few books (old man's war, the android's dream) are really quite good. But once he got famous he now just writes each book to be Good Enough and then moves on to writing the next thing, because more books == more money even if any one book is only "fine." And I still read his books. Because they're very rarely bad, and pretty consistently fine, usually with even a few flashes of "actually good" scattered throughout. But overall I just don't think he's trying that hard.
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May 11, 2022 00:10
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:My take on Scalzi generally is that when he was first starting out his books were as good as he could write and those first few books (old man's war, the android's dream) are really quite good. But once he got famous he now just writes each book to be Good Enough and then moves on to writing the next thing, because more books == more money even if any one book is only "fine." I've been liking some of the short story audio books, cause they have wil wheaton or Quinto narrating. I'm moving onto Sword of Destiny now, having finished The Last Wish back in March
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May 11, 2022 00:13
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yeah agreed. scalzi doesn't write anything great anymore, but he's good enough that been the phoned in stuff isn't bad. the real problem is I'm just not interested in what he is writing now.
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May 11, 2022 00:19
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I liked the series as a whole, and it goes to some pretty interesting places to the point that I wish there was more exploring it, but it wasn't as good as Scalzi's best stuff. Kiva is fine, but she's nowhere near the most interesting character.
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May 11, 2022 00:26
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His "locked in" series is decent sf "noir" with some disability consciousness. Nothing really objectionable in it, a few good moments.
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May 11, 2022 00:27
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BlankSystemDaemon posted:Yeah, it's fukken good - that's probably why I've mentioned it like 5 times very recently. I read it a few years ago based on recommendations in this thread and enjoyed it a lot; the overall vibe was kind of "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex if every single person in the writing room had just finished a reread of Cyteen", which is to say, extremely my poo poo. Larry Parrish posted:the other Joel Shepard series, the spiral wars, is on like book 12 or some poo poo and the captain finally smashes the marine commander. hooting and hollering for it. Looks like book 8 dropped earlier this year. It looks like a lot of fun but my no-unfinished-series policy prevents me from reading it. fez_machine posted:Patricia A. McKillip died Oh drat.  I haven't read a lot of her stuff, but the Riddle-Master trilogy was a recurring favourite in my family -- even my mom, who hates most fantasy, enjoyed it.
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May 11, 2022 00:32
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In my experience, Scalzi is a pretty breezy read that has interesting concepts and a penchant for things sorta suddenly falling into place. The books tend to be enjoyable and interesting enough to keep you going, and then you start thinking “I’m like two thirds through this shouldn’t we have more plot threads happening?” And then the ending sneaks up on you a bit.
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May 11, 2022 00:44
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ToxicFrog posted:
I loved riddle master.
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May 11, 2022 01:01
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Scalzi I can't take seriously any more after he got mad at a podcast a twitter friend of mine was on. Excerpts of his new book I saw look like he went full phone it in memes, we already have a Wendig, please do better. Old Man's War was a fine Heinlein-alike (the synopses of the sequels I read make it sound like the series eventually fixes what my biggest complaint was, I wished he had kept up this level of quality), Redshirts was okay but didn't go far enough in some places. Too much to read to bother with any more of his stuff at this time.
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May 11, 2022 01:10
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Eric (Discworld #9) by Terry Pratchett - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GU32WNY/
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May 11, 2022 01:22
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GreenBuckanneer posted:I finished The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi The first was ok, bog average space opera for mine and the second was a massive handbrake that only seemed to exist to meet a contractual obligation for three books rather than wrapping it up IMO. didn't read the last and haven't bought a scalzi book since.
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May 11, 2022 02:17
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ulmont posted:And yet: I avoid many styles of depiction of violence in the art that I investigate. Particularly the extremely detailed, double-particularly so when in a visual medium. I see no reason not to apply similarly selective approaches to depiction of sex in art. Having your own taste in what you want to read isn’t the same as “books shouldn’t include sex scenes and they must always justify their presence with XYZ”. You do you but your preferences aren’t universal.
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May 11, 2022 02:22
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I usually don't like sex in regular books, like elit is fine because that's its purpose. Usually in a regular book it's written either cringy or awkward or fulfilled a specific fetish by the author (Terry goodkind comes to mind in the first sword of truth). SO reads smutty things all the time so it's whatever you like is fine I guess
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May 11, 2022 02:26
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Can we compromise and say no sex scenes longer than 4 sentences There's no way any of the good ones take two paragraphs to describe the texture of a nip
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May 11, 2022 02:41
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Tiny Timbs posted:Can we compromise and say no sex scenes longer than 4 sentences "More run-on sentences", got it. (Apparently the record for longest sentence in English is around 14k words; four of those gives you a hefty novella of a sex scene.)
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May 11, 2022 03:12
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Someone judging Thunderdome told me off for using run-on sentences and I've been furious ever since FURIOUS
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May 11, 2022 04:19
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is thunderdome actually good or is it just a bunch of dickwaving
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May 11, 2022 04:32
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moonmazed posted:is thunderdome actually good or is it just a bunch of dickwaving It's good and fun to do, or it was back when I was doing it.
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May 11, 2022 04:34
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fez_machine posted:The Riddle Master of Hed although not truly representative of her work as a whole is a classic for a reason and a great first novel. While some of McKillip's later work can be hard to start reading, Hed is pleasant the whole way through.
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May 11, 2022 04:57
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Thunderdome rulesHopperUK posted:It's good and fun to do, or it was back when I was doing it. Come back for the 10th anniversary in a few weeks (and before too if you have time)
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May 11, 2022 05:13
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BananaNutkins posted:This is good information, thanks. I'll look into it. You're welcome. The self-pub thread on here is pretty quiet these days but if you're thinking of expanding or publishing more, there's still people who have it bookmarked and will answer questions when they crop up.
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May 11, 2022 08:18
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Cicero posted:I feel like I've definitely seen this before, where the end of one chapter is the protagonist about to fight someone and the beginning of the next is just them dealing with the aftermath. One of my favourite "fight scenes" is in Nine Princes in Amber when the narrator and his soldiers are surrounded, and then he says: "Reader, I'll be brief. They killed everyone but me."
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May 11, 2022 08:58
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ISTR one chapter in Snow Crash which ends with "...and then it's just a chase scene" or something like that.
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May 11, 2022 10:04
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