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Not holding this against the authors but The Goblin Emperor and The Long Way did become standard bearers for the 'hopepunk' genre, they were received as optimistic depictions of better worlds (or at least of people fighting to make better worlds) even if that wasn't the authors' intentions which does leave the impression that 'hope' in this case really just means 'emotionally literate people being nice to and respecting each other' which sure I can agree smacks of liberalism but I can see the appeal too
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Aug 15, 2022 16:30
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Bear Sleuth posted:I wouldn't say Long Sun is light on plot. Oodles of stuff happen in that book. But Wolfe is a writer who's light on action. What little he shows is often obscured or is service of character rather than spectacle. He's more interested in the action's import and ramifications, so it makes sense there's more conversations about the action than depiction of it. This is a story where an army of robots fights off an invading empire's airship and a battle-nun on horseback slices through hovertanks with her infinite lightsaber. It's basically a final fantasy. But because Wolfe keeps that stuff shrouded he can write a story that's way more cerebral and philosophical, with interest into moral and theological concerns, while still being anime star wars. Right that's why I said he "lost the plot" specifically. There's clearly a plot happening in his books, it's just often obscured behind so many layers that I find it has about as much relationship to the book I'm actually reading as an underground stream does to a divining rod. Like, he had to write a whole fifth book to explain what happened in the entire four book New Sun storyline. New Sun is great for what it is, but it doesn't successfully tell a story by itself until you peek behind the curtain and read Urth too.
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Aug 15, 2022 16:46
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ToxicFrog posted:This take is absolutely wild to me because I don't think I have ever see Long Way lauded as "especially optimistic, politically" until your post. The setting it takes place in is a pretty crappy one, in a lot of ways, for a lot of people, and while the sequels get more up-close-and-personal with that, it's not exactly hidden in the first book. It was just... weird. It didn't come together for me (the fact that it took my *absolute* least favorite character archetypes from firefly and dialed them up to 11 didn't help). The sequels could have been better, I don't know.
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Aug 15, 2022 16:53
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The sequels go a lot heavier into how much the universe is pretty terrible tbh. Like book 2 stars escaped slaves attempting to hide and raise a new illegal AI. Book 3 has you go to the human diaspora and a look into how much it sucks. Book 4 is the most interesting because it doesn't have any human characters in a starring role so it tackles how a bunch of aliens have serious societal issues. Wayfarers is many things, but I don't think its some kind of look into a Utopia or even a particularly hopeful future. Every book shows a lot of hosed up systemic issues that people struggle with, it just focuses mostly on how its characters live in that kind of world because none of them are important in the grand scheme of things.
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Aug 15, 2022 17:00
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ToxicFrog posted:This take is absolutely wild to me because I don't think I have ever see Long Way lauded as "especially optimistic, politically" until your post. The setting it takes place in is a pretty crappy one, in a lot of ways, for a lot of people, and while the sequels get more up-close-and-personal with that, it's not exactly hidden in the first book. The Guardian called it "a quietly profound, humane tour de force that tackles politics and gender issues with refreshing optimism". Tor.com said "“Becky Chambers’ debut is a joyous, optimistic space opera ... Although it isn’t shy about tackling Big Questions, Planet is a heart-warming debut novel that will restore your faith in science fiction (specifically) and humanity (in general). Goodreads seems to have a lot of people who like it for that reason. It was recommended to me by someone comparing it to the optimism of Star Trek, which is something I quite like, but I would argue Star Trek can be read as far more radical, for all its failings. I think the mentioned examples kind of speak for themselves, but YMMV of course. It was also really funny to me that Wikipedia editors are the guardians of knowledge and history in the setting, but I think I have seen that in other sci-fi books as of late. thotsky fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Aug 15, 2022 |
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Aug 15, 2022 17:10
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If you google for reviews that include the word 'progressive' you'll find a fair number. I figure when people say the book is 'progressive' they mean 'has aliens that gently caress'. EDIT: I was thinking about series where I'm glad the aliens don't gently caress, and I think Brin's Uplift has to be the top of that list. That series could have gone a really weird direction. If I'm misremembering and the uplift dolphins got it on with other species please ruin my day. Tezer fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Aug 15, 2022 |
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Aug 15, 2022 17:13
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Tezer posted:If you google for reviews that include the word 'progressive' you'll find a fair number. I figure when people say the book is 'progressive' they mean 'has aliens that gently caress'.
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Aug 15, 2022 17:19
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Count Thrashula posted:I'm rereading The Lord of the Rings, bar none my favorite fantasy world and always will be. I enjoy other fantasy series, but none of them have the elegant simplicity of LOTR. I just finished The Raven Tower and that scratched kind of the same itch for me, a simple story told in a complex world that you only see a slice of.
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Aug 15, 2022 17:25
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Tezer posted:EDIT: I was thinking about series where I'm glad the aliens don't gently caress, and I think Brin's Uplift has to be the top of that list. That series could have gone a really weird direction. If I'm misremembering and the uplift dolphins got it on with other species please ruin my day.  I only read two Uplift books but the humans, aliens, uplifted dolphins, and uplifted chimpanzees all gently caress, and at least some of the loving is cross-species.
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Aug 15, 2022 17:38
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ToxicFrog posted:
This I remembered. quote:and at least some of the loving is cross-species. Damnit, this I blocked out.
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Aug 15, 2022 17:40
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I don't remember any loving, but there was definitely some dolphin weirdness.
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Aug 15, 2022 17:52
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No Dignity posted:Not holding this against the authors but The Goblin Emperor and The Long Way did become standard bearers for the 'hopepunk' genre, they were received as optimistic depictions of better worlds (or at least of people fighting to make better worlds) even if that wasn't the authors' intentions which does leave the impression that 'hope' in this case really just means 'emotionally literate people being nice to and respecting each other' which sure I can agree smacks of liberalism but I can see the appeal too Yeah I mean "emotionally literate people being nice to and respecting each other" is a bar that real life spectacularly fails to clear more often than not, and I could definitely see "what if everything was terrible but people actually made an effort to be good to each other" as falling under the "hopepunk" banner, although I don't really have a good understanding of how the term is used in practice. And "poo poo sucks in the large scale, but in the small scale my family and I can work together carve out a little corner that sucks less for us" is both an appealing story in general and one that feels pretty immediately relatable even in a sci-fi or fantasy setting. The utopian bits of Trek or the Culture are more "optimistic" in the sense of "look at how good society could be", but they also don't show a path to get there; it's not so much "about systemic change" as "about a new system that would be an improvement on the status quo, if you can figure out how to implement it". They're "what if we lived in a better, but wildly different, world" vs. "what if the crappy world we live in now had softer edges". They're very different kinds of optimism and very different kinds of escapism and I think there's room for both.
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Aug 15, 2022 17:53
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thotsky posted:I don't remember any loving, but there was definitely some dolphin weirdness. "I know interspecies marriages are for business. It’s just, well — I think it was just because you’re pretty and bright, and I’m lonely, and … and maybe I’m just a bit in love with you.” Her heart beat faster. This time it was not the gheer chemicals responsible. Her tendrils lifted of their own accord..."
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Aug 15, 2022 17:56
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thotsky posted:I don't remember any loving, but there was definitely some dolphin weirdness. It's been a long time since I read them, and I have no interest in rereading them to refresh my memory, but IIRC in one there's a dolphin who's really horny about humans and has a relationship with one of them where it's never really clarified if they're just flirting-without-intent, or if there's something actually happening there, or if she fucks her boyfriend while the dolphin watches, or what; and in the other there's a long running human/alien relationship in which they definitely gently caress, although Brin takes the coward's way out and makes the alien "basically human but with weird hair" so he never has to grapple with questions like "how exactly do they gently caress when the alien weighs half a tonne and its genitalia can only be stimulated by powerful magnetic fields".
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Aug 15, 2022 18:02
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Tezer posted:"I know interspecies marriages are for business. It’s just, well —  Why is it always tentacles
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Aug 15, 2022 18:28
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RDM posted:
Medusa, in that case - the tentacles were basically her hair.
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Aug 15, 2022 18:37
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RDM posted:
I first tried the word 'prehensile' and thankfully did not get any relevant hits.
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Aug 15, 2022 18:41
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Authors like Vonnegut and Lem not considering what they wrote to be pure science-fiction and not having/not wanting SFWA (science fiction writers of America) membership made certain authors (like Niven and Pournelle) and more than a few wannabe bigName internet people intensely mad. The madness level intensified when Nebula and Hugo Award time came around. David Brin wrote lots of creepy wtf sex stuff into his Uplift stories, however the real reason you shouldn't read David Brin is because all the equal rights positivity and underdogs winning out vs terrible odds, and establishment figures being out-of-touch and so on in his stories are diametrically opposed to David Brin's beliefs and conduct in real life.
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Aug 15, 2022 18:46
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Would you prefer his writing was in line with his personal beliefs? If he's that lovely surely it is a good thing they're diametrically opposed?
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Aug 15, 2022 19:02
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Count Thrashula posted:I'm rereading The Lord of the Rings, bar none my favorite fantasy world and always will be. I enjoy other fantasy series, but none of them have the elegant simplicity of LOTR. If what you're after is a deeply complex but internally consistent world with a lot of thought that's been put into it, and a reasonably-sized cast, the The March North / Commonweal may be what you're after. Although if you haven't read The Silmarillion, do that first!
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Aug 15, 2022 19:05
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Kestral posted:If what you're after is a deeply complex but internally consistent world with a lot of thought that's been put into it, and a reasonably-sized cast, the The March North / Commonweal may be what you're after. Although if you haven't read The Silmarillion, do that first!
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Aug 15, 2022 19:12
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I have read the Silmarillion! I'm at the point where I've spent like 30 years steeping myself in the LOTR universe and I'm looking to branch out haha
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Aug 15, 2022 19:14
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Oh yeah then definitely g r a y d o n
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Aug 15, 2022 19:16
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90s Cringe Rock posted:Oh yeah then definitely g r a y d o n Two recs in here, that's good enough for me! Wow, only 44 reviews on Goodreads.
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Aug 15, 2022 19:22
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Book 5, a mist of grit and splinters (or whatever) was kind of a slog but i really enjoyed the series up until that point. A progression power fantasy about a polity.
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Aug 15, 2022 19:30
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Count Thrashula posted:I have read the Silmarillion! I'm at the point where I've spent like 30 years steeping myself in the LOTR universe and I'm looking to branch out haha I recommend Orconomics, a book which I enjoyed and would characterize as "supermarket checkout-grade".
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Aug 15, 2022 19:31
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Speaking of Silmarillion, I read somewhere that it's great in audio form because it was written in the storytelling tradition which is why it can be awkward to read. Did anyone get the audiobook and can they recommend it for that reason if so?
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Aug 15, 2022 19:33
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thotsky posted:Would you prefer his writing was in line with his personal beliefs? If he's that lovely surely it is a good thing they're diametrically opposed? I prefer people not being shitbags, but that's me. Deeply complex but internally consistent world setups are tricky in fantasy and scifi. Like the consistent theme of the original Dune series books being nepotism and Duncan Idaho's.
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Aug 15, 2022 19:35
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err, nevermind.
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Aug 15, 2022 19:49
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The person looking for weirder, darker fantasy could try The Vorrh. I really liked the prose but I bet some folk would bounce right off.
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Aug 15, 2022 19:52
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RDM posted:I recommend Orconomics, a book which I enjoyed and would characterize as "supermarket checkout-grade".
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Aug 15, 2022 19:57
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quantumfoam posted:David Brin wrote lots of creepy wtf sex stuff into his Uplift stories, however the real reason you shouldn't read David Brin is because all the equal rights positivity and underdogs winning out vs terrible odds, and establishment figures being out-of-touch and so on in his stories are diametrically opposed to David Brin's beliefs and conduct in real life. Quick scan of wikipedia doesn't give me anything, help me out. Count Thrashula posted:Two recs in here, that's good enough for me! Wow, only 44 reviews on Goodreads. That's how you know it's good.
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Aug 15, 2022 19:57
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RDM posted:
"Consentacle: A Card Game of Human-Alien Intimacy by Naomi Clark — Kickstarter" https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/metasynthie/consentacle-a-card-game-of-human-alien-intimacy
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Aug 15, 2022 19:59
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From start to 'creepy sexualising of a female character' in Uplift took like - two and a half pages. I was not in the drat mood so I put the book down and I've never picked it up again.
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Aug 15, 2022 20:03
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HopperUK posted:The person looking for weirder, darker fantasy could try The Vorrh. I really liked the prose but I bet some folk would bounce right off. Seconding The Vorrh, that's an excellent book. I really need to get around to the sequels.
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Aug 15, 2022 20:14
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bagrada posted:Speaking of Silmarillion, I read somewhere that it's great in audio form because it was written in the storytelling tradition which is why it can be awkward to read. Did anyone get the audiobook and can they recommend it for that reason if so? That was probably one of my posts! I can highly recommend the Martin Shaw narration of the audiobook, it elevates the original text considerably imo. One of the best narrator-to-text fits I’ve heard out of the hundreds of audiobooks I’ve listened to.
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Aug 15, 2022 20:54
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:"Consentacle: A Card Game of Human-Alien Intimacy by Naomi Clark — Kickstarter" https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/metasynthie/consentacle-a-card-game-of-human-alien-intimacy I ended up not really enjoying this game, but the art was fun and interesting. Just that the gameplay was pretty flat.
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Aug 15, 2022 21:27
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Kestral posted:That was probably one of my posts! I can highly recommend the Martin Shaw narration of the audiobook, it elevates the original text considerably imo. One of the best narrator-to-text fits I’ve heard out of the hundreds of audiobooks I’ve listened to. Sounds perfect, thank you. I'll tag that to grab next.
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Aug 15, 2022 21:34
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silvergoose posted:I ended up not really enjoying this game, but the art was fun and interesting. Just that the gameplay was pretty flat. I bought a copy just to give to a prudish friend, which was hilarious, but I wish I'd kept it. Never played it.
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Aug 15, 2022 21:41
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Tezer posted:Quick scan of wikipedia doesn't give me anything, help me out. David Brin is a baby boomer generation contrarian rear end in a top hat that has been coddled his entire professional life. If David Brin is doing Socratic Method dialogues with his contrarian takes on things, maybe he should have mentioned that a few decades ago. What was socially progressive back in 1967 isn't progressive anymore. Baycon2019 is the most recent example of David Brin spouting off. from: https://file770.com/pixel-scroll-5-28-19-pix-el-last-scroller-of-krypton/ ===== I’m reluctant to get into what happened when I was on a panel yesterday because it was fairly traumatic, but the short of it is that a well-known author guest (David Brin) started the panel by saying he wouldn’t trust regular Americans with this but we’re alpha sci fi writers, then went into a very ableist spiel about how we all know some beings – including, specifically certain humans, and he referenced the developmentally disabled – are inferior, people are just too politically correct to say so. Then he asked a moral dilemma question about if it would be more ethical to uplift animals and have them as servants than to genetically alter humans as servants and make them low IQ Then he got into an argument with a young enby [non-binary] person in the audience who was sitting near Darcy (Chris Hughes) and the rest of the extremely poorly moderated panel included lots of yelling between the audience and panel, as he’d set the tone. He seemed to be intentionally asking baited or loaded questions…. =====
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Aug 15, 2022 22:18
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