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It's probably just boredom. Lynching is a tried and true traditional form of entertainment.
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Feb 2, 2016 15:17
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We can gather round the old Cthaeh and hang us a Rothfuss apologizer.
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Feb 2, 2016 17:43
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Rothfuss, Master of Fantasy m.d. posted:
MartingaleJack fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Feb 2, 2016 |
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Feb 2, 2016 17:46
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Groovelord Neato posted:It could be that the vast majority of reports in this thread, and probably on the whole forums, are baseless. For reference, this forum generates an average of about one report a week, and I have to probate someone about once a month ( usually just for drunkposting). When I see like eight reports over the course of a single week, all from one thread, and most of them from different people, it's pretty clear there's *some* kind of problem. Unfortunately if the problem is "make Rothfuss write good again" I can't do much about that. For the record I have no real opinion on Rothfuss because I haven't gotten around to reading him yet. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Feb 2, 2016 |
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Feb 2, 2016 18:44
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So how many times has that been copy/pasted to the reviews of WMF? Hieronymous Alloy posted:For reference, this forum generates an average of about one report a week, and I have to probate someone about once a month ( usually just for drunkposting). When I see like eight reports over the course of a single week, all from one thread, and most of them from different people, it's pretty clear there's *some* kind of problem. Unfortunately if the problem is "make Rothfuss write good again" I can't do much about that. I'd suggest giving him a go. He's a real meat and potatoes author that cuts right to the action and doesn't waste a single page on pointless fluff that adds nothing to the overall narrative. Something fun that I like to do on rereads is keep Quickbooks open and plot out just how much money Kvothe has at any one time. Solice Kirsk fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Feb 2, 2016 |
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Feb 2, 2016 19:29
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Not enough, apparently.
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Feb 2, 2016 19:29
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Well as long as people stop telling other people to kill themselves for no reason, the reports will probably go back down.
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Feb 2, 2016 19:35
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Benson Cunningham posted:Well as long as people stop telling other people to kill themselves for no reason, the reports will probably go back down. Yeah; this was the source of the one thing I reported. I'm all for a debate on literature, and I'll defend unfounded accusations that Rothfuss is trying to con people and lie about writing Doors of Stone...but literally telling people to go commit suicide is loving atrocious and you deserve to lose your  account.
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Feb 2, 2016 19:48
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Benson Cunningham posted:Well as long as people stop telling other people to kill themselves for no reason, the reports will probably go back down. Whoa, whoa. "No reason?" The people I told to kill themselves had already threatened to kill themselves because they want a Patrick Rothfuss book. Your life is over at that point. You can be nothing but a burden and shame on your family. You undoubtedly can't hold a job, and you're probably not capable of wiping your own rear end. You might even be a Bronie. There's considerable risk that you're going to harm other people and just make the world a worse and unbearably lovely place. "No reason," indeed!
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Feb 2, 2016 19:51
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I never thought I'd see the day a thread would rival the GOT thread for terribleness. The Book Barn is usually so peaceful.
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Feb 2, 2016 19:56
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Preach it, brother, but jivjov is our cross to bear.
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Feb 2, 2016 20:32
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I have no real problem with jivjov, but their bright-eyed optimism regarding Rothfuss is a bit off-putting.
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Feb 2, 2016 21:01
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This thread is a study on rapid y-axis declines.
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Feb 2, 2016 21:06
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If only Rothfuss would release a new book that we could talk about instead.
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Feb 2, 2016 21:09
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jivjov posted:Yeah; this was the source of the one thing I reported. I'm all for a debate on literature, and I'll defend unfounded accusations that Rothfuss is trying to con people and lie about writing Doors of Stone...but literally telling people to go commit suicide is loving atrocious and you deserve to lose your Don't loving report posts dude.
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Feb 2, 2016 21:09
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You need me on that wall.
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Feb 2, 2016 21:20
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Torrannor posted:If only Rothfuss would release a new book that we could talk about instead. We could talk about Slow Regard again. I think it's the first time in my life I couldn't even be bothered to finish a book that short. I would say it felt about 3 times its actual length.
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Feb 2, 2016 21:24
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It's very aptly named, isn't it? I tried reading it hoping the fiasco that was WMF was a one-of situation and he'd learn from that, but nope. Didn't finish it either, found myself just not giving a gently caress. e: VVV Now Baudolino, I love.
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Feb 2, 2016 21:25
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So what did everyone think of Baudolino?
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Feb 2, 2016 21:25
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I vote we turn this into the Legitmately Good Fantasy and Sci-Fi Books thread. Elements needed for consideration - Three dimensional female characters A+, minimum amount of misogyny on part of the author. (Note: misogyny that is part of the plot or a characterization moment gets a pass from this rule.) - No Nice Guy authors - Decent prose, lucid plots - Completed series, standalone novel, or consistent release dates. We could make it a book club or something.
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Feb 2, 2016 22:24
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HIJK posted:I vote we turn this into the Legitmately Good Fantasy and Sci-Fi Books thread. Is The First Law series any good? I have all three on my kindle but haven't gotten around to actually reading them. I also read the first part of the Broken Empire trilogy, Prince of Thorns, but it came off as a little too YA to me for some reason. Quick read though and it had some good parts I guess.
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Feb 2, 2016 22:42
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HIJK posted:I vote we turn this into the Legitmately Good Fantasy and Sci-Fi Books thread. Joe Abercrombie, once you get past the mediocre opening trilogy.
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Feb 2, 2016 22:44
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jivjov posted:Yeah; this was the source of the one thing I reported. I'm all for a debate on literature, and I'll defend unfounded accusations that Rothfuss is trying to con people and lie about writing Doors of Stone...but literally telling people to go commit suicide is loving atrocious and you deserve to lose your The last thing a retard should do is kill themselves.
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Feb 2, 2016 23:14
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CerealCrunch posted:The last thing a retard should do is kill themselves. 
The Slithery D fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Feb 2, 2016 |
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Feb 2, 2016 23:19
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BananaNutkins posted:His next release will be a critical. A good book will likely silence many of his detractor, but not all. Another bad book will place him beside the likes of Peter V Brett, who squandered a promising career and will be soon forgotten. Genuinely curious: what did Brett do to earn peoples' ire? I see support for him growing less enthusiastic lately. I had a hard time making it past book one after the weird sex stuff. But I think he still sells like gangbusters and hit the list with most of his books.
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Feb 3, 2016 00:06
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anathenema posted:Genuinely curious: what did Brett do to earn peoples' ire? I see support for him growing less enthusiastic lately. I had a hard time making it past book one after the weird sex stuff. But I think he still sells like gangbusters and hit the list with most of his books. I get the impression the books just get grosser and more rape-centric as his series continues, which a lot of people find disgusting because it is. However, it also sells well. See: George R. R. Martin
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Feb 3, 2016 00:26
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Gene Wolfe (Book of the New Sun) Roger Zelazny (Amber) Ursula K. Le Guin Scott Lynch (Book 1 only) Dan Simmons (Hyperion Cantos) Paolo Bacigalupi (Windup Girl) Stephen King (Dark Tower Series) N. K. Jemisin (Any) Mervyn Peake (Gormenghat) Hannu Rajaniemi (Whole series) Neil Gaiman Glen Cook (Black Company) China Miéville Terry Pratchett Neal Stephenson Liu Cixin David Mitchell Ann Leckie (Ancillary Justice only) Michael Moorcock Larry Niven (Ringworld) Vernor Vinge Lewis Carroll Lev Grossman Phillip Pullman C. S. Friedman Martin Erikson Atwood There you go. There's a list off the top of my head of people who have authored fantasy/scifi novels that are of a high quality. It is by no means complete. Anything there is better than NotW or WMF though. Benson Cunningham fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Feb 3, 2016 |
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Feb 3, 2016 01:24
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HIJK posted:I vote we turn this into the Legitmately Good Fantasy and Sci-Fi Books thread. I like Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora a lot. Unfortunately he isn't terribly consistent with releases but the first book works super well as a standalone. People aren't super into the two following novels but they are mostly good and enjoyable just slightly disappointing as the setting of the first book was so excellent. Lynch wrote one of the most interesting fantasy worlds I've read that really goes beyond "medieval europe with magic and possibly dragons" There's female characters everywhere in every role. The only explicitly gendered position from what I remember are female gladiators that specifically fight sharks in elaborate matches in floating arenas. I find a lot of the time writers are terrible at using misogyny as characterisation. For example I don't wholly buy that Harry Dresden was always written as intentionally misogynistic. The Lies of Locke Lamora basically restored my faith in the genre after reading Rothfuss. Earwicker posted:I get the impression the books just get grosser and more rape-centric as his series continues, which a lot of people find disgusting because it is. However, it also sells well. See: George R. R. Martin I think it's pretty disappointing how many fantasy authors hand-wave rape and gendered violence to women as something intrinsic to their setting. The fictional setting that they wholly control...
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Feb 3, 2016 01:38
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OK, I'm starting to understand the problem I think. For clarity, the forum rules prohibit low content posts and "empty" flaming and personal attacks. In practical terms, this is something awful: you can say horribly mean things here so long as you are *also* funny and/or making an interesting or useful point that adds to the discussion. If you aren't, don't.
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Feb 3, 2016 01:50
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This is great, you guys have given me so much new reading material! I keep seeing Lies of Locke Lamora spoken of highly so I'm going to tackle that soon. I'll hammer the Sabriel series by Garth Nix again in case anyone hasn't read it yet. The first book is a standalone and a very easy read so you're not committed to the whole series if you read it and don't like it. I mentioned The Rook by Daniel O'Malley, which is great creepy funny supernatural MI6 fun. It has a sequel named Stiletto coming out June 14th! I'm excited enough to preorder! Benson Cunningham, I'm putting Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast at the top of my list, my father read your list over my shoulder, pointed at the it and said "Oh my god. That book is wild. It's about the inhabitants of a castle called Gormenghast and it is wildest weirdest thing you will ever read." So based on that it sounds delightfully bizarre, I'm getting on that this week. Keep the recommendations coming, talk about the books you love! I love it all! HIJK fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Feb 3, 2016 |
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Feb 3, 2016 01:53
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I would not say that Lynch (even only in the first book), Stephenson, Cook, or King count as sufficiently non-misogynist, and even Zelazny and Moorcock need a bit of a side-eyeing fairly often. The thing where the crime boss's daughter gets passed over for a leadership position because she's a woman, and then her father tries to get Locke to marry her, doesn't make sense with the rest of the world he's built and presented, where women can basically be cops in a world where guns don't even exist, let alone shark-fighting gladiator warriors and bodyguards. It's just standard gross fridging, and then the poo poo he alludes to in the third book is horrifyingly ridiculous. Now, I'm enough of a materialist that I find the "power girl" fantasy stupid to begin with, and I don't think eliding the real physical differences between men and women in terms of physical strength and capacity for violence is in any way feminist, but if you've already put that in your world, you have to play by those rules, and it is the creepiest loving to do what he did to that character while also having motherfucking shark toreaderas. He also goes on in the second to blow up the black woman to give Locke's sidekick manpain, and then there's all the poo poo the third. The first book really isn't an exception in any way, those books are neckbeardishly misogynist through and through, Lynch just puts up a better front of pretending he feels weird about it. For contrast, Steven Brust is an author who is clearly 100% about the power girl fantasy, but goes completely all-in with it and stays completely consistent with that throughout. His stupendous badass elves begin gender egalitarian and stay that way, and it's clearly not even a factor for them at all, in any level of society. There's something extra creepy about Lynch, Rothfuss, et al, acting like they're super feminist when they're worse on weird misogynist inevitabilities in their world in ways that authors who are decades older (Brust, Pratchett, etc) are not. Honestly, that's... not a very good list if it's supposed to be fantasy/SF that's both not-misogynist and of decent-to-good literary quality. That's kind of just popular mainstream better-than-schlock-level authors, weeded for R. Scott Bakker/Rothfuss level horrible neckbeardery. Octavia Butler? Liz Williams? Shariann Lewitt? Candace Jane Dorsey? Tanith Lee? Jane Yolen? Plus given some of the authors you do have on there aren't really better than a lot of more iffy woman writers, like McCaffery when she was actually still writing science fiction, MZB even if she was a horrible pedo, etc. I mean, you have Vernor Vinge and not Joan Vinge. 
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Feb 3, 2016 01:55
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anathenema posted:Genuinely curious: what did Brett do to earn peoples' ire? I see support for him growing less enthusiastic lately. I had a hard time making it past book one after the weird sex stuff. But I think he still sells like gangbusters and hit the list with most of his books. The fake Muslim culture with the ceramic dildo magic rites [wish I was joking], along with wheel-spinning for three books with new PoVs.
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Feb 3, 2016 02:01
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BananaNutkins posted:The fake Muslim culture with the ceramic dildo magic rites [wish I was joking], along with wheel-spinning for three books with new PoVs. Holy poo poo what the gently caress is wrong with fantasy authors
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Feb 3, 2016 02:03
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Probably the best scifi book I have ever read is The Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing. It's definitely one of the most realistic "post-apocalytic" books there is, IMO. It's a standalone novel and it certainly meets all of the qualifications for "actually good scifi/fantasy" that described above. However, I would say those qualifications are a bit limited in the sense that I feel obligated to make this disclaimer: the book does not feature any kind of Badass Hero nor does it depict any manner of combat, fighting, weapons, killing, etc. at all. The protagonist is an elderly woman who stays in her apartment for 90% of the novel because she is afraid of what is going on outside, as the world is collapsing around her and news sort of filters in by rumor and she turns deeper into her own mind. It's an excellent piece of speculative fiction and IMO truly frightening in some parts, but if you need your scifi/fantasy to involve heroes or monsters or weapons or some manner of "kicking rear end" then you should either look elsewhere or, better yet, reconsider that view.
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Feb 3, 2016 02:04
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Earwicker posted:Probably the best scifi book I have ever read is The Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing. It's definitely one of the most realistic "post-apocalytic" books there is, IMO. It's a standalone novel and it certainly meets all of the qualifications for "actually good scifi/fantasy" that described above. "Three dimensional female characters" is the only requirement, so it sounds like your recommendation totally fits. Introspective pieces are totally cool and good. I guess I should put in a caveat if people are gonna take these rules seriously, it's okay if the plot features a male protagonist or whatever, it's just that if there are female characters then I don't want them to be set dressing or put on a pedestal or otherwise forced to be a reflection of the author's weird views on women. HELLO LADIES pointed out that even lady authors like Anne McCaffery had some gross views on women that crept into her writing. Dragonriders of Pern would have a very hard time making the cut, I wouldn't recommend it to people without some talk about how it was the 1970s man and McCaffery was a gd idiot about a lot of things. And MZB can gtfo, I'm just glad I never read her books.
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Feb 3, 2016 02:12
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HIJK posted:"Three dimensional female characters" is the only requirement, so it sounds like your recommendation totally fits. Introspective pieces are totally cool and good. Yeah, I only put in that disclaimer because even on top of the gender/race issue it seems nearly impossible to get nerds to read anything that isn't in some sense war- or fighting-centric these days. I also think there is a lot of work that is unfairly dismissed because it is written for children or young adults, even though the content is actually quite compelling and good. Just because something is written in a simpler form of the English language doesn't mean it's not worth reading or that it can't contain complex ideas. Two authors I would strongly recommend in this regard are Madeline L'Engle and Diana Wynne Jones
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Feb 3, 2016 02:18
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HELLO LADIES posted:
I kind of hate Octavia Butler. Liz Williams is fine. Shariann Lewitt I've never read. Candace Jane Dorsey I didn't find exceptional. I've actually never heard of Tanith Lee, is she known state side? Jane Yolen I haven't read. I won't deny some authors, possibly a number of male, white Americans, exhibit misogynistic undertones in their writing. But its also pretty easy to read them into stories when they aren't there, or to arbitrarily decide that something was unintentional rather than a reflection of the world in which the story is told. And this here might blow your god drat mind, a book can be racist, misogynistic, sexist, bigoted, or otherwise and still be an interesting book. Likewise, a book could contain conversations only between trans women and be garbage. Lolita, to a degree, idolizes pedophilia. Huck Finn is unapologetic about displaying the racism of the time period. In a majority of fantasy cultures, which find much of their social basis in medieval Europe, women and the other are considered lesser. Should an author intentional avoid that when penning a novel? Not necessarily. Does it make an author a misogynist to include those elements in their work? Again, not necessarily. Anyway, that argument could go round and round and round. I'm sorry you don't like my book list! Read something else.
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Feb 3, 2016 02:20
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:OK, I'm starting to understand the problem I think. For clarity, the forum rules prohibit low content posts and "empty" flaming and personal attacks. In practical terms, this is something awful: you can say horribly mean things here so long as you are *also* funny and/or making an interesting or useful point that adds to the discussion. If you aren't, don't. While you're looking at the thread have a comment: I'm not sure what the use of this thread is anymore since nearly all of the posts lately are either bitching about the lack of info on the next book, combing over personal stuff on blogs/social media, or wanting to talk about other fantasy books (which is a conversation that could be rolled into plenty of other threads).
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Feb 3, 2016 02:20
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Benson Cunningham posted:In a majority of fantasy cultures, which find much of their social basis in medieval Europe, women and the other are considered lesser. This is a rather weak and tired excuse for the overall pattern, however. Fantasy is fantasy - medieval Europe did not have any dragons, there were no dwarf civilizations inside of mountains, no elf cities in the forests, no demons, no armies of undead.. yet fantasy readers accept all of these things readily. But for some reason whenever criticisms of gender roles are made wrt fantasy novels this silly nonsense about "history" comes up even though most fantasy novels have nothing to do with actual history or real medieval societies whatsoever. I mean if fantasy cultures are really taking their "social basis in medieval Europe", then why aren't the majority of the populations and characters in these books Christian? Christianity was the major force defining medieval European society, including the gender roles which were religiously justified and enforced specifically in that context. It's a little disturbing that so many fantasy authors just want to portray a fantastic world in which women are treated like poo poo but seem to have zero awareness of the actual historical context behind why medieval European society was what it was. Earwicker fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Feb 3, 2016 |
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Feb 3, 2016 02:31
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Srice posted:While you're looking at the thread have a comment: I'm not sure what the use of this thread is anymore If you feel this thread has no use to you, why don't you simply stop posting in it or reading it?
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Feb 3, 2016 02:32
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