|
Ancillary Justice won because it was the least bad book in a very weak field.
|
# ? Aug 18, 2014 16:57 |
|
|
# ? May 16, 2024 01:55 |
|
Cardiovorax posted:and the winner was this obviously plagiarized? While I fully grant that her "big idea" of the book (the gender less nature of core structures) was lifted wholesale from Samuel Delany's Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, (or more likely they lifted from the same source - polari and 60s gay subculture). that does not make it a case of plagiarism by any means. Plenty of works have ripped off real world things and used them as their big hook, it's what scifi is famous for. I don't see how Leche was plagiarizing because she used polari as the defining aspect of her hook but Asimov wasn't when he used the fall of Rome for Foundation or Heinlein wasn't when he used the Korean War for Starship Troopers or Stross wasn't when he used Debt for Neptune's Brood
|
# ? Aug 18, 2014 16:58 |
|
Peel posted:Not even the Nebulas? I stand corrected. Maybe I was thinking of the Clarke. Which Ancillary Justice also won. Yeah, I think the Clarkes are. A few years back there was a minor scandal about publishers not submitting copies of the books for the judges to read and the BSFA or whoever wouldn't pony up for books themselves. I think one of the books was Against the Day, so in that case there surely wasn't much commercial incentive. See, that's a fuckup.
|
# ? Aug 18, 2014 18:11 |
|
Which Foundation books should I read?
|
# ? Aug 18, 2014 18:27 |
|
Either Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation or Foundation. The first is a different sort of beast to the latter two, which are more conventional adventure yarns, and everything after them gets daft.
|
# ? Aug 18, 2014 18:48 |
|
systran posted:Ancillary Justice was okay but I honestly do think it won just because of the gender thing, which wasn't really even made very interesting within the story. The author called too much attention to it by making the main character remark so often on how much trouble it had dealing with gendered language, especially before saying things which had no apparent gender associated with them (I sure hope I don't mess up this phrase, argh it's so awkward and I don't want to offend anyone by getting the gender wrong...."Yo what's up"). It didn't feel like a natural fit in the world building and it also didn't seem like a thing the character would have actually had any trouble with. I think it was a decent concept but the execution was really poor. Tiny Timbs fucked around with this message at 19:39 on Aug 18, 2014 |
# ? Aug 18, 2014 19:37 |
|
I suspended disbelief there by assuming the language they were speaking inflected a lot more based on gender (or maybe a gendered 'you' or whatever) but I agree it just didn't integrate into the story in a meaningful way.
|
# ? Aug 18, 2014 19:44 |
|
Ornamented Death posted:On the other hand, I finished The Dark Defiles today and have no one with which to discuss it . Howd you get your hands on this? Its not out until the 14th of october or something Finished Steel Remains and Cold Commands over the past few days. I really enjoyed them. Ringil is a badass. Any idea what the whole dark gates stuff is about ??
|
# ? Aug 18, 2014 19:54 |
|
spootime posted:Howd you get your hands on this? Its not out until the 14th of october or something Ornamented Death posted:I got an ARC from Net Galley. I've said it before, if you want advanced copies of stuff, just start a review blog and eventually you'll be getting more books than you can possibly read. You probably won't get any of the big names (Butcher, Rothfuss, Sanderson, etc.) unless you can prove you get massive traffic, but you'll still never be wanting for something to read.
|
# ? Aug 18, 2014 20:07 |
|
The gender thing was actually pretty loving brilliant because it's gotten SO much more discussion for the book than it otherwise would have received. Every post I read about it in this thread before it actually won the Hugo was entirely based on its gender bullshit. Everything I've read about it ANYWHERE, honestly, it was only brought up because of the gender thing. I've never seen any review of it that described it just as a book about a rogue AI seeking revenge on its transhuman master, which is a shame because that's what the book is actually about. The gender stuff is completely unimportant, but nobody would be talking about the book if it wasn't there.
|
# ? Aug 18, 2014 20:25 |
|
Khizan posted:The gender thing was actually pretty loving brilliant because it's gotten SO much more discussion for the book than it otherwise would have received. Sure, but it was a gimmick that didn't add anything to the actual book and stuck out as exactly what it was, a gimmick. If you're really concerned about things like gender issues, I would think it would be extra annoying, because the author got all this attention and did nothing whatsoever with the gender aspect. It could have easily been the ship being incapable of using proper nouns and constantly worrying about how to hold conversations with people without being able to use their names.
|
# ? Aug 18, 2014 20:33 |
|
Autonomous Monster posted:
I freaking loved it- i thought it would be published much later, so i rushed to buy it when i read this a couple of days ago, and it's another great book. Yes, i agree that for someone who hasn't read the other trilogies this would probably be very confusing and slow. For me though it was a incredible journey, and goddamit i want the next book. Also, i continue to be impressed by how well Hobb manages to have different voices from different people. Both Bee and Fitz' voices managed to be very alike but oh so different, both because of age and gender. Give me a minute to cry for Bee, just finished the book a minute ago. Rougey posted:Christ, I just finished reading Fools Assassin. Cardiac posted:
Yes, GRRM doesn't really make his character suffer, and the deaths are never really that bad. Hobb, otoh, manages to tear my heart in two and then forces me to eat it. And i better enjoy the meal, too. Arkeus fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Aug 18, 2014 |
# ? Aug 18, 2014 22:27 |
|
Arkeus posted:Yes, GRRM doesn't really make his character suffer Unless your name (which you must remember) is Theon Greyjoy
|
# ? Aug 18, 2014 22:34 |
|
Ancillary Justice's only crime is that it's duller than dishwater. People latch onto the gender stuff in the same way that people said The Matrix was like, really smart and philosophical, guuuyyyyys.
|
# ? Aug 18, 2014 23:12 |
|
I couldn't get into it, but space opera is incredibly not my thing in the first place. Still think it probably deserved it the most out of the pool of nominees.
|
# ? Aug 18, 2014 23:20 |
|
neongrey posted:I couldn't get into it, but space opera is incredibly not my thing in the first place. Still think it probably deserved it the most out of the pool of nominees. Yeah, but that whole slate needed to be replaced with other poo poo.
|
# ? Aug 18, 2014 23:37 |
|
Hedrigall posted:People latch onto the gender stuff in the same way that people said The Matrix was like, really smart and philosophical, guuuyyyyys.
|
# ? Aug 18, 2014 23:45 |
|
I haven't read Ancillary yet but I like a lot of people who think it's really good
|
# ? Aug 19, 2014 00:01 |
|
I really enjoyed Ancillary Justice and I'm glad to see it won the Hugo! I didn't find the gender thing that obtrusive. I remember only two times it was discussed in detail -- once at the very beginning when Breq is sizing up the barfight she's about to get into and another time when she finally arrives on one of the Emperor's home planets and points out the various fashions on display. It seemed wholly believable and was part of the world building. I honestly more or less forgot about it as the book went on. I do agree that it's over-emphasized a bit in reviews and recommendations since the actual story in Ancillary Justice is much more than ruminations on the societal construct that is gender -- there's a lot of debates in the book over both the system of ancillaries, imperialism, and transhumanism that I liked. I was pretty impressed by both the world building and the characters in the book. Despite the high stakes that drive the book, it did a good job of making relevant and real small scale human conflicts (whether between two people, two societies, or between the Radtch and a to-be colonized planet) and painting them as forming the foundations of larger scale conflicts. The characterization was also a big draw and I got close to both Breq and Seivarden as the book went on, as well as the larger cast of characters even though they only showed up for a scene or two. It's much less actiony than I thought it'd be going in, but all in all I thought it was a solid book. Not completely sure how the trilogy will bear out, but I'm definitely going to buy the next one when it comes out in October.
|
# ? Aug 19, 2014 00:19 |
|
Magician's Land Chapter 26 (84%ish) - My god, the final battle of Fillory is one of the most glorious things I've read in a fantasy novel. It's like Pelennor Fields, the "everything gets unleashed" scene from Cabin in the Woods, and JK Rowling's nightmares, all mixed up together And Janet is amazing Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Aug 19, 2014 |
# ? Aug 19, 2014 01:29 |
|
Hedrigall posted:And Janet is amazing Yeah, I didn't have a whole lot of use for Janet in the first two books (actually, scratch that, I hated her by the end of the first book), but her story of how she got her axes (and her general conduct in this book) entirely redeemed the character for me. Plus I really loved one of the tiny bits earlier in The Magician's Land where Eliot makes some nice little observation about how he's decided that Janet must think everyone else in the world is as critical and judgmental as her (or something like that) and how that must make the world a really scary place for her. I'm mangling it, but it was one of many really nice little characterizations throughout the book that were just perfect. I had incredibly high expectations going in to The Magician's Land and Grossman met them all.
|
# ? Aug 19, 2014 01:48 |
|
The gender stuff in AJ isn't bad, except insofar as we think Breq should have had more mastery of gender distinctions than she did. It's more substantial than the intriguing but unrealised-in-text footnote that was the constructed status of Marain because it actually spends some time with the difficulties a person could have trying to recall and deploy distinctions vitally important in her host society that she wasn't raised to make. But it's still ultimately just a neat worldbuilding detail, so it shouldn't be given too much focus - the book's look at imperialism is more important but less soundbitable. You could probably do a reading comparing the two but I'm not going to reread AJ so soon.GENDERWEIRD GREEDO posted:The author called too much attention to it by making the main character remark so often on how much trouble it had dealing with gendered language, especially before saying things which had no apparent gender associated with them (I sure hope I don't mess up this phrase, argh it's so awkward and I don't want to offend anyone by getting the gender wrong...."Yo what's up"). Like Systran said I took this as comments on the non-English language she was speaking - of course the distinctions don't render in English, because English doesn't make those distinctions, just like Radch doesn't make the distinctions English does. It doesn't translate, which is the point. I thought that was made clear in the text but maybe I'm misremembering. e: my main problem with the response to AJ (beyond the excessive praise) is all the people describing it as 'Banksian' which as I made clear to Cardiovorax I just don't see at all, either as praise or condemnation. Peel fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Aug 19, 2014 |
# ? Aug 19, 2014 02:05 |
|
Peel posted:Like Systran said I took this as comments on the non-English language she was speaking - of course the distinctions don't render in English, because English doesn't make those distinctions, just like Radch doesn't make the distinctions English does. It doesn't translate, which is the point. I thought that was made clear in the text but maybe I'm misremembering. No, that's obvious and it's part of the problem I have with how that was presented because you need to put more work into describing the context when writing in English. Overall it's a far less interesting view on gendered language and gender roles in society than in Banks' novels and I really don't think it should be as notable a part of the novel as bloggers seem to think. So yeah I guess that falls in line with the first point in your post. It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense for a knowledgeable character to struggle between saying "el gato" and "la gato" and have people talk about how important that is to the overall work. Tiny Timbs fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Aug 19, 2014 |
# ? Aug 19, 2014 03:00 |
|
GENDERWEIRD GREEDO posted:So yeah I guess that falls in line with the first point in your post. It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense for a knowledgeable character to struggle between saying "el gato" and "la gato" and have people talk about how important that is to the overall work. Well you struggled with it, apparently.
|
# ? Aug 19, 2014 03:04 |
|
andrew smash posted:Well you struggled with it, apparently. What?
|
# ? Aug 19, 2014 03:05 |
|
el gato, la gata
|
# ? Aug 19, 2014 03:29 |
|
Forums posters are not leftover bits of transhuman artificial intelligences.
|
# ? Aug 19, 2014 03:36 |
|
From the author of the Revelation Space series comes an interstellar adventure of war, identity, betrayal, and the preservation of civilization itself. A vast conflict, one that has encompassed hundreds of worlds and solar systems, appears to be finally at an end. A conscripted soldier is beginning to consider her life after the war and the family she has left behind. But for Scur—and for humanity—peace is not to be. On the brink of the ceasefire, Scur is captured by a renegade war criminal, and left for dead in the ruins of a bunker. She revives aboard a prisoner transport vessel. Something has gone terribly wrong with the ship. Passengers—combatants from both sides of the war—are waking up from hibernation far too soon. Their memories, embedded in bullets, are the only links to a world which is no longer recognizable. And Scur will be reacquainted with her old enemy, but with much higher stakes than just her own life. It's a 100-ish page novella, out in June 2015.
|
# ? Aug 19, 2014 06:38 |
|
Khizan posted:el gato, la gata Intentional dude, since I was talking about someone struggling with gendered languages
|
# ? Aug 19, 2014 07:04 |
|
I started The Red Knight and enjoy the thesaurusness of it, as well as the real feeling detail with regard to armour, weapons, horses, etc. But holy crap it takes a weird turn some 20 pages in when the badass protagonist uses his invisibility power (that we didn't know he had) to sneak into a nunnery and make out with a sexy nun in a really creepy, slightly rapey way. quote:The three heads snapped around. Two of the girls turned and ran. The third novice hesitated for a fatal moment—looking. Wondering.
|
# ? Aug 19, 2014 08:08 |
|
Alastair reynolds' books have possibly the most generic scifi cover art i have ever seen.
|
# ? Aug 19, 2014 13:50 |
|
I can also only think of a few examples where the cover is even tangentially related to the story. By which I mean the ship and the planet on the cover resemble anything described. Because it's always a ship and a planet.
|
# ? Aug 19, 2014 14:05 |
|
Cardiovorax posted:Never mind that Banks did it first, twenty-five years ago and like an order of magnitude less obnoxiously. He actually managed to make an interesting commentary on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis out of it, instead of mediocre tumblr bait. I'm trying to think of a more pretentious post that could have made the same points, but I don't think I can. I feel like we have enough material at this point for a Cardiovorax post bingo game. We get it, really, you think Ancillary Justice, Hugo Award winner, was not an original work or interesting to you. Please stop haranguing.
|
# ? Aug 19, 2014 14:20 |
|
Velius posted:I'm trying to think of a more pretentious post that could have made the same points, but I don't think I can. I feel like we have enough material at this point for a Cardiovorax post bingo game. We get it, really, you think Ancillary Justice, Hugo Award winner, was not an original work or interesting to you. Please stop haranguing. But haranguing is fun!
|
# ? Aug 19, 2014 14:35 |
Eh, it was a decent book but it was no Lord of Light or Ringworld or The Dispossessed or even Stand on Zanzibar. Honestly I'm disappointed that the Wheel of Time didn't get the nod. For all of its many faults, it shaped the genre, and that's what I expect from a Hugo winner. Ancillary Justice seemed . . interesting, sure, but not something that I'm ever going to re-read.
|
|
# ? Aug 19, 2014 14:38 |
|
Kind of a shame Six-Gun Snow White didn't win best novella: it was really fantastic. I wonder if it would've had a better shot if it had a more 'serious' title. So what would you all have liked to have seen nominated for a Hugo instead? Not being snarky, I think it was a really weak field and am curious. I'm only about 1/3rd of the way through A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar, but I already like it way more than I liked Ancillary Justice.
|
# ? Aug 19, 2014 14:44 |
|
Megazver posted:But haranguing is fun!
|
# ? Aug 19, 2014 14:46 |
|
Cardiovorax posted:Forums posters are not leftover bits of transhuman artificial intelligences. You post in the forum you've got, not the forum you wish you had.
|
# ? Aug 19, 2014 14:50 |
|
Cardiovorax posted:It really is. Sometimes it's just really satisfying to be pointlessly viciously spiteful at something. Actually, calling the gender thing in Ancillary Justice tumblr bait is pretty spot on. I didn't have a concise way of saying how I felt about that, but you hit it. I didn't read any of the others nominated for the Hugo, but from descriptions, I'd still have picked Ancillary Justice.
|
# ? Aug 19, 2014 15:02 |
|
|
# ? May 16, 2024 01:55 |
|
I was totally fine with Wheel of Time being nominated as a complete work, but couldn't in good faith give the nod to a series that spent so long being so bad. And some of its influence I regard as strongly negative. Here's A Song of Ice and Fire turned bloated and meandering right on schedule, and there's Kvothe needing money again, and over there's Branderson's epic fantasy series, already planned to be ten thousand-page books. I didn't have time to try A Stranger in Olondria before the voting hit, if it's better than AJ I'll have to try it next.
|
# ? Aug 19, 2014 15:07 |