SF & F Mega-thread: I had to google 'spock pirate depilatory'

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > SF & F Mega-thread: I had to google 'spock pirate depilatory'

«‹›962 »

DACK FAYDEN: Feb 25, 2013; Bear Witness

Arsenic Lupin posted:

Exordia was reviewed in the NYT! Sorry, no gift link. https://bsky.app/profile/amalelmohtar.com/post/3kmhy25mwg52e

Whoops, Amal El-Mohtar provided a gift link. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/27/books/review/new-science-fiction.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Y00.-Ku6.ruU7LFhMEi0s&smid=url-share

quote:

EXORDIA (Tordotcom, 532 pp., $29.99) is Seth Dickinson�s fourth novel and first work of science fiction, following three installments of the excellent Baru Cormorant fantasy series,

hey it's official Baru isn't science fiction the NYTimes said so

(I bet their writer also spent thirty pages waiting for spaceships)

# ? Feb 29, 2024 13:01

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 4, 2024 00:33

buffalo all day: Mar 13, 2019

FPyat posted:

Dune Part 2 might just be enough to convince me to read those drat sequels.

Everyone who reads Dune should have to read Dune Messiah

# ? Feb 29, 2024 13:03

BastardySkull: Apr 12, 2007

branedotorg posted:

It doesn't get noticeably different so if you aren't enjoying it now...

Is it the 'present' or the WW2 stuff you don't like?

I think it's both to be honest, at this point. I think I'm still wondering what the twist or premise is, where is this going? I've not read any books of his where I got this far through and I'm still thinking "and?". Maybe it's much more slow burning.

I've read Anathem, Seveneves, Diamond Age, Snow Crash, Fall, and Termination Shock and not felt the same way.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 13:15

Harold Fjord: Jan 3, 2004

You read Fall without reading REAMDE?

SMDH

You don't know Dodge!

REAMDE got some flack at the time but its way better than Fall and Termination Shock imo.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 15:32

BastardySkull: Apr 12, 2007

I had no idea it was linked to anything else, but I really enjoyed Fall cause of all the mad Egdod poo poo. Termination Shock was kinda bleak in that "he's going to end up being right about this, isn't he" way Stephenson manages here and there but I enjoyed it all the same. And obviously a guy who kills hundreds of boars appeals to the goon inside.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 15:36

parara: Apr 9, 2010

gvibes posted:

I think Assassin's Blade. It is allegedly less smutty than some of the others.

Oof, Sarah J. Maas. Nah you can have fun with that one on your own.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 15:36

Yngwie Mangosteen: Aug 23, 2007

Lex Talionis posted:

Two conflicting theories of bleakness:

I'm with Kestral. Milkfred's conception of cozy fantasy as way to escape the guilt of capitalist consumption is pretty cool but I haven't read any of these books about orcs sipping ales in taverns so when I think of cozy fiction I think of Becky Chambers. I couldn't stomach very much of it but it didn't seem like her first book was engaging with capitalism and colonialism at all and was instead about putting a socially anxious character in a very mildly uncomfortable situation and then having everything turn out great.

This is such a great way to describe why Becky Chambers didn't resonate with me either. Which is funny because I loved The Goblin Emperor which is similar in that way. But The Goblin Emperor went a bit deeper with it, and explored more interesting aspects of classism and such while remaining almost entirely cozy.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 16:04

mewse: May 2, 2006

BastardySkull posted:

I think it's both to be honest, at this point. I think I'm still wondering what the twist or premise is, where is this going? I've not read any books of his where I got this far through and I'm still thinking "and?". Maybe it's much more slow burning.

I've read Anathem, Seveneves, Diamond Age, Snow Crash, Fall, and Termination Shock and not felt the same way.

Cryptonomicon may have been a product of its time? Like you, I read it after reading a bunch of other Stephenson books (definitely after I'd read The Baroque Cycle) and I enjoyed it except for its ending. It does seem very late-90s, early internet, "wow! the information superhighway!" kind of feeling.

mewse fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Feb 29, 2024

# ? Feb 29, 2024 16:28

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.

Lex Talionis posted:

I think the cross-genre march of coziness is evidence for the Kestral theory.

Sorry, what is the Kestral theory?

# ? Feb 29, 2024 16:48

mystes: May 31, 2006

General Battuta posted:

Sorry, what is the Kestral theory?

Lex Talionis posted:

Two conflicting theories of bleakness:

Kestral posted:
For my money, the Baru books are pretty high on my bleak-o-meter not because of the state of the world, but because extraordinarily awful things happen to the protagonist, a lot, in ways that are realistically rendered to the point of horror, and her life is a sine wave of extreme competence followed by extreme helplessness and futility. Her suffering is rendered in high fidelity and it goes on a long, long time.

Milkfred E. Moore posted:
It's why I've never been able to get aboard the cozy train despite being an absolute sap. I feel like it is something like what Battuta mentioned, especially with how it's cozy fantasy and not cozy sci-fi: fantasy these days feels a lot like a genre in which you can have the trappings of modernity without the systems that allow them to exist and the history that enabled it. So, you end up with Gnomish technologies and elf magicks making coffee shops and air conditioning possible, because the ultimate fantasy () is being able to have those things free of the downsides (colonial exploitation, capitalism, climate change) and the easiest way to do it is in an alternate universe.

Whereas I think sci-fi these days is more about engaging with those systems and thoughts, even with esoteric technologies and not-magic.

I'm with Kestral. Milkfred's conception of cozy fantasy as way to escape the guilt of capitalist consumption is pretty cool but I haven't read any of these books about orcs sipping ales in taverns so when I think of cozy fiction I think of Becky Chambers. I couldn't stomach very much of it but it didn't seem like her first book was engaging with capitalism and colonialism at all and was instead about putting a socially anxious character in a very mildly uncomfortable situation and then having everything turn out great. Meanwhile, when my Kindle is off it shows me advertisements for mostly self-published books (and I love these ads, by the way, I would pay more for this feature, how's that for bleakly capitalist?) and there seems to be a lot of people writing "cozy mysteries" where older women solve crimes while touring the south of France, the south of Italy, and other picturesque souths (not the south of the United States, alas). I think the cross-genre march of coziness is evidence for the Kestral theory.

Does anyone have suggestions of fiction that would heighten the contradictions here by showing either happy characters in the bleak world or bleak characters in a happy world? It doesn't count if it's ironic happiness (1984 isn't about a happy character just because he loves Big Brother at the end).

It's not even fiction but the closest thing that comes to mind for me is when I read Siddhartha Mukherjee's Emperor of All Maladies, a history of cancer treatment that I think has an overall positive arc to it (we are much, much better at treating cancer now than a hundred years ago!) but I couldn't get more than halfway through because I found it so depressing to read a book where nearly every "character"--the patients doing experimental chemo treatments in the 60s or whatever--died of cancer.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 16:50

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.

Dog you just quoted the post I replied to

# ? Feb 29, 2024 17:16

mystes: May 31, 2006

General Battuta posted:

Dog you just quoted the post I replied to

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you were saying but you asked what the "Kestral theory" is and I believe that is referring to what Kestral said which is being quoted in that post, which the post also refers to as one of two theories

# ? Feb 29, 2024 17:29

Confusedslight: Jan 9, 2020

With everything going on *gestures broadly at the world
I'm after a very light read. Can be sci fi or fantasy but the main thing I'm after is something not heavy at all. If anybody has any recommendations that would be very much appreciated!!

# ? Feb 29, 2024 17:34

mystes: May 31, 2006

Confusedslight posted:

With everything going on *gestures broadly at the world
I'm after a very light read. Can be sci fi or fantasy but the main thing I'm after is something not heavy at all. If anybody has any recommendations that would be very much appreciated!!

See the discussion from a couple weeks ago earlier linked in this post from the last page

voiceless anal fricative posted:

Some good reccs came out of this, a few pages back:

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3900237&pagenumber=896&perpage=40&userid=0#post537795688

# ? Feb 29, 2024 17:43

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Bleak to me is Blood Meridian or Teatro Grotesco. Hopeful to me, in the sense being discussed, is Suttree. Having read only the first Baru book I can't say yet whether it is hopeful, unless just getting Baru to the seat of power is "hopeful". What I took away is that Baru has learned how to replicate the destructive power of colonialism.

Looks like its time to finish the series!

# ? Feb 29, 2024 17:44

Confusedslight: Jan 9, 2020

mystes posted:

See the discussion from a couple weeks ago earlier linked in this post from the last page

I somehow missed this! Thanks!

# ? Feb 29, 2024 17:47

Arsenic Lupin: Apr 12, 2012; This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.

DACK FAYDEN posted:

hey it's official Baru isn't science fiction the NYTimes said so

(I bet their writer also spent thirty pages waiting for spaceships)

Amal El-Mohtar is a multiple-award-winning SFF writer, who writes both SF and fantasy, and who edits a "fantastic poetry" quarterly. You may disagree with her take, but she's an informed reader.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 17:57

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.

mystes posted:

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you were saying but you asked what the "Kestral theory" is and I believe that is referring to what Kestral said which is being quoted in that post, which the post also refers to as one of two theories

"Bad things happen to Baru Cormorant" is not a theory about the spread of cozy literature across genres? It's an observation about the Baru Cormorant books.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 18:06

MockingQuantum: Jan 20, 2012

General Battuta posted:

"Bad things happen to Baru Cormorant" is not a theory about the spread of cozy literature across genres? It's an observation about the Baru Cormorant books.

I read it that "I think the cross-genre march of coziness is evidence for the Kestral theory" was a twee, complicated goon way of saying... well honestly I have no idea, I don't think the post you were responding to made a ton of sense to me tbh. But basically arguing "cozy fantasy showing up everywhere makes me agree with Kestral's read on why Baru Cormorant could be called bleak"

# ? Feb 29, 2024 18:34

Kalman: Jan 17, 2010

General Battuta posted:

"Bad things happen to Baru Cormorant" is not a theory about the spread of cozy literature across genres? It's an observation about the Baru Cormorant books.

I think it�s more of a description of what they think makes Baru (and by extension other books) bleak. Ie the Kestral theory of bleakness.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 18:37

MockingQuantum: Jan 20, 2012

Lex Talionis posted:

Two conflicting theories of bleakness:

I'm with Kestral. Milkfred's conception of cozy fantasy as way to escape the guilt of capitalist consumption is pretty cool but I haven't read any of these books about orcs sipping ales in taverns so when I think of cozy fiction I think of Becky Chambers. I couldn't stomach very much of it but it didn't seem like her first book was engaging with capitalism and colonialism at all and was instead about putting a socially anxious character in a very mildly uncomfortable situation and then having everything turn out great. Meanwhile, when my Kindle is off it shows me advertisements for mostly self-published books (and I love these ads, by the way, I would pay more for this feature, how's that for bleakly capitalist?) and there seems to be a lot of people writing "cozy mysteries" where older women solve crimes while touring the south of France, the south of Italy, and other picturesque souths (not the south of the United States, alas). I think the cross-genre march of coziness is evidence for the Kestral theory.

Does anyone have suggestions of fiction that would heighten the contradictions here by showing either happy characters in the bleak world or bleak characters in a happy world? It doesn't count if it's ironic happiness (1984 isn't about a happy character just because he loves Big Brother at the end).

It's not even fiction but the closest thing that comes to mind for me is when I read Siddhartha Mukherjee's Emperor of All Maladies, a history of cancer treatment that I think has an overall positive arc to it (we are much, much better at treating cancer now than a hundred years ago!) but I couldn't get more than halfway through because I found it so depressing to read a book where nearly every "character"--the patients doing experimental chemo treatments in the 60s or whatever--died of cancer.

Incidentally, Chambers is one of the better "cozy" writers right now IMO, the first Wayfarers book isn't fantastic about facing capitalism and colonialism head-on, but there is a lot more acknowledgement of ways in which the universe it's set in sucks and is exploitative the further you get in the book iirc. Most people's bigger complaint about it, in my experience, is the handwavey way it handles space travel using algae, lol.

The second book definitely deals more directly with the difficulties of living in an exploitative society. None of her books are ever entirely about that, they're more about the ways people find to be kind and happy in the world they're dealt, but I think her later books deal with more realistic social pressures in an interesting way. I liked the second and third Wayfarers books better than the first and fourth, partially because of the broader lens they had on those issues. They're still not big social commentaries where the characters contend with the harsh realities of existence in a bold and revolutionary way, though.

The Monk and Robot books are kind of a different thing altogether, I think, though I've only read the first one.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 18:45

Stuporstar: May 5, 2008; Where do fists come from?

I thought Klara and the Sun was a cozy read. My friends did not agree lol

# ? Feb 29, 2024 18:55

buffalo all day: Mar 13, 2019

Stuporstar posted:

I thought Klara and the Sun was a cozy read. My friends did not agree lol

lmao imagining them reading the scene where klara is exploring the apartment in NYC thinking this was like legends and lattes or something

# ? Feb 29, 2024 19:09

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 think THE CIPHER is depressive-cozy :unsmith:

# ? Feb 29, 2024 19:37

mewse: May 2, 2006

Bilirubin posted:

Bleak to me is Blood Meridian or Teatro Grotesco.

This is off-topic for the sf/f thread but I read Blood Meridian last year after Cormac McCarthy had passed, and I loving hated it. Not because it was bleak or violent, but because it seemed like lit major bait from the 80s. Obtuse flowery language and "shocking" violence (shocking by 80s standards, not game of thrones standards). Just a loving miserable, useless book. I'm sure I'm offending someone here and I'm sorry.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 19:54

minema: May 31, 2011

I find I'm in a weird place where I don't necessarily want "cozy" but I do want low stakes/low action scifi and fantasy books and often "cozy" books are an easy way to guarantee this. I didn't enjoy Legends and Lattes though, it was all so surface feel-good I just couldn't engage. I do enjoy Becky Chambers work, the third one particularly (which maybe has the most "non-cozy" stuff happen?). But then I don't find the Farseer books particularly depressing so maybe I'm just all over the place.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 20:02

BastardySkull: Apr 12, 2007

The one thing about the cozy stuff that really pisses me off is the demands I keep seeing on the likes of Goodreads for various authors to conform to that kind of book. It's so incredibly dull. Yet there are writers (Le Guin?) who could write in a way that at times evoke some of those same feelings while in between actually tackling deeply uncomfortable things.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 20:10

mdemone: Mar 14, 2001

General Battuta posted:

I think THE CIPHER is depressive-cozy

That book is so loving good and there's really no reason it should be, just based on the concept.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 20:19

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Hi all! Please stop by the book club thread and vote for which review written by a goon should win the January contest and that book become the next book of the month!

# ? Feb 29, 2024 20:20

GhastlyBizness: Sep 10, 2016; seashells by the sea shorpheus

minema posted:

I find I'm in a weird place where I don't necessarily want "cozy" but I do want low stakes/low action scifi and fantasy books and often "cozy" books are an easy way to guarantee this. I didn't enjoy Legends and Lattes though, it was all so surface feel-good I just couldn't engage. I do enjoy Becky Chambers work, the third one particularly (which maybe has the most "non-cozy" stuff happen?). But then I don't find the Farseer books particularly depressing so maybe I'm just all over the place.

Same tbh. SFF with less focus on plot/action/quests/high stakes thriller business? Sign me up! But then when I read some 'cozy' stuff, it makes me think no, not like this.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 20:26

Stuporstar: May 5, 2008; Where do fists come from?

GhastlyBizness posted:

Same tbh. SFF with less focus on plot/action/quests/high stakes thriller business? Sign me up! But then when I read some 'cozy' stuff, it makes me think no, not like this.

Same. Which is why I�m writing that kinda SF. I like the kinda thing that explores the hardships of daily living (with a bit of humor though) in space. Like how people learn to live in a capitalist hellscape without the privilege blinders that cozy fic has

Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Feb 29, 2024

# ? Feb 29, 2024 20:35

mewse: May 2, 2006

Bilirubin posted:

Hi all! Please stop by the book club thread and vote for which review written by a goon should win the January contest and that book become the next book of the month!

This is the voting thread if you are dumb like me and can't find it

# ? Feb 29, 2024 20:38

fez_machine: Nov 27, 2004

For cozy science fiction, I love "The Long Haul: From the ANNALS OF TRANSPORTATION, The Pacific Monthly, May 2009" by Ken Liu
https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/liu_11_14/

# ? Feb 29, 2024 21:07

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

mewse posted:

This is off-topic for the sf/f thread but I read Blood Meridian last year after Cormac McCarthy had passed, and I loving hated it. Not because it was bleak or violent, but because it seemed like lit major bait from the 80s. Obtuse flowery language and "shocking" violence (shocking by 80s standards, not game of thrones standards). Just a loving miserable, useless book. I'm sure I'm offending someone here and I'm sorry.

His lack of punctuation pisses me off. They're for clarity of reading, they aren't some useless literary affectation!

# ? Feb 29, 2024 21:35

minema: May 31, 2011

Stuporstar posted:

Same. Which is why I’m writing that kinda SF. I like the kinda thing that explores the hardships of daily living (with a bit of humor though) in space. Like how people learn to live in a capitalist hellscape without the privilege blinders that cozy fic has

Yessss exactly, do you have anything published?

# ? Feb 29, 2024 21:38

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.

BastardySkull posted:

The one thing about the cozy stuff that really pisses me off is the demands I keep seeing on the likes of Goodreads for various authors to conform to that kind of book. It's so incredibly dull. Yet there are writers (Le Guin?) who could write in a way that at times evoke some of those same feelings while in between actually tackling deeply uncomfortable things.

Yeah, calls for more books without X inevitably turn into calls for fewer books with X (and corresponding chastisement of the writers). Sometimes this can be a good thing! Not always.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 21:38

anilEhilated: Feb 17, 2014; But I say fuck the rain.; Grimey Drawer

FPyat posted:

Dune Part 2 might just be enough to convince me to read those drat sequels.

All three are pretty decent.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 21:42

Gaius Marius: Oct 9, 2012

zoux posted:

His lack of punctuation pisses me off. They're for clarity of reading, they aren't some useless literary affectation!

And is there ever a moment McCarthy is unclear? His prose is precise enough that they would only be a distraction.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 21:46

GhastlyBizness: Sep 10, 2016; seashells by the sea shorpheus

Cormac McCarthy posted:

James Joyce is a good model for punctuation. He keeps it to an absolute minimum. There�s no reason to blot the page up with weird little marks. I mean, if you write properly you shouldn�t have to punctuate.

He�s being glib and very funny imo but agreed re: his work never being unclear. And Blood Meridian owns. Whatever about the bleakness, it�s masterfully, beautifully written and in par to halt has some of the most beautiful landscape writing ever put to paper.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 22:02

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 4, 2024 00:33

Problematic Pigeon: Feb 28, 2011

And McCarthy has such a good ear for dialogue you don't really need quotation marks to tell when narration ends and dialogue begins, and each character has such a specific voice it's always clear who is talking in a conversation.

I don't know that every writer should emulate him to that degree, but it definitely works for him.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 22:08

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > SF & F Mega-thread: I had to google 'spock pirate depilatory'

«‹›962 »