PYF terrible book: Freud molesting a thesaurus.

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Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

GOTTA STAY FAI posted:

Frank's are good. It's all (sort of) one story that spans a huge amount of time, and each novel ties in with the others well.

Eh, it's more like the first three are one trilogy, and then there's God Emperor, and then Heretics and Chapterhouse are the beginning and middle of an unresolved second trilogy.

# ? Apr 25, 2016 23:23

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# ? May 8, 2024 20:47

Heath: Apr 30, 2008; 🍂🎃🏞️💦

Is there a Dune book that Duncan Idaho isn't in?

# ? Apr 26, 2016 00:02

CroatianAlzheimers: Jun 15, 2009; I can't remember why I'm mad at you...

Heath posted:

Is there a Dune book that Duncan Idaho isn't in?

I'm not sure I understand the question. Why would you even want that?

# ? Apr 26, 2016 01:31

The Vosgian Beast: Aug 13, 2011; Business is slow

Whenever Duncan Idaho appeared in the movie version of Dune, I just imagined a studio audience reacting like they'd just seen Onion Bubs

# ? Apr 26, 2016 01:38

Lamprey Cannon: Jul 23, 2011; by exmarx

So, here's the thing with the Brian Herbert/Kevin Anderson prequels: they are bad. Thing is, that as time goes by, they get consistently worse. You read the first one, which is very bad, and then they keep piling on nonsensical bullshit that clearly demonstrates they didn't get what was cool about the original Dune books. I present an example:

So, in the first 'Dune', we are told that Leto's father, the elder Duke Atreides, was killed in a bullfight. This is something that says a tremendous deal about the society in which the story takes place, where not only would a major figure take place in such an event, but that there isn't any kind of advanced medical technology that could heal the wounds inflicted in such a fight. The first three Brian/Kevin prequel novels go through the backstory immediately leading up to the events of Dune, including that aforementioned bullfight, in which they reveal that it's a space bull with tentacles and acid for blood, which is loving stupid and overindulgent and completely misses the point of the original bit in the story. The Baron Harkonnen is a loving fat gross weirdo because he's a pinnacle of hedonism. He's fat because he loving loves eating food, he's a futuristic Caligula, at the pinnacle of excess. In the Brian/Herbert prequels, it's revealed that Lady Jessica implanted a gene modification virus thing in him to make him fat. That's it! Again, it's loving stupid bullshit technobabbly sci-fi that completely misses the point of the original novels.

Then, in the double-prequels, we get to hear the story of the Butlerian Jihad, the vaguely-referenced event in the original books that led to the outlawing of all thinking machines. These are such a blur that it's hard for me to even remember. The way the story gets told here is basically 'evil robots took over the world, so now we're not going to let there be robots anymore'. There's an evil robot-overmind called Omnius that's taken over all of humanity, and there are a privileged few humans who got to stick their brains in robotic bodies and become 'Cymeks'. Everybody else is downtrodden peasants. Much like the Star Wars prequels, loving everything that happened in the original books gets some nod in the Butlerian Jihad novels. The story of the swordmaster school in which Duncan Idaho was trained gets told (electro-swords for fighting robots, see above for 'loving stupid, completely misses the point'). The invention of the space-folding technology that allows rapid interstellar travel gets described, and it turns out the guy who 'invented' it just took credit for his assistant's work. This assistant later gets vaporized by a cymek, but Doctor Manhattans herself back into reality. Then she founds the Bene Gesserit order. Then she founds the Guild Navigators. Then she fucks off to nobody cares where (this will be important in a bit, unfortunately enough). Also, Omnius puts on gladitorial fights with the cymeks. I don't loving know why, other than to have descriptions of 'cool' robot battles with lasers and explosions. Also, in maybe my favorite part of the whole story, there's a whole drawn-out conversation where somebody asks the robot overmind why the robots don't just live on moons and planets with atmospheres that aren't habitable by humans, and the overmind doesn't have any good answer, basically going 'well, it's the principle of the thing!'. Poking holes in your own dumb-rear end plot doesn't make you look clever, book! Also the Harkonnens are there, and there's one of them who's a total dick for no reason, and he founds the dynasty of dickish-Harkonnens. Also, some Fremen are there, and they have a SANDWORM BATTLE, where they bonk their sandworms into each other until one of them dies. At the end, the robots all get destroyed, but manage to send a signal out into deep space, setting up the inevitable sequel. gently caress those books.

Double-gently caress the sequel. So, allegedly, according to Brian Herbert, his dad left a lock-box full of notes on what he wanted to do with Dune 7. Heretics and Chapterhouse allude to some force on the edges of the Galaxy that was driving the Honoured Matres back into the old empire, so there was a lot of speculation as to what it might be. Fuckin', it's the robots. It's the loving robots. So there. Now, at the end of Chapterhouse, the uber-Duncan Idaho who remembers all of his past clone-lives, and some other people, escape on a big ol' spaceship. In 'Hunters of Dune', it turns out that somebody has a null-capsule full of DNA samples from all the major characters of the original Dune novels! So we loving clone everybody. Paul Atreides is there, both Letos are there, the whole loving gang. Remember what I said about having to shoehorn in everything that was in the originals? Meanwhile, the villains of the story (who at the get-go seem to be the face-morphing people that the Tleilaxu keep cloning) have their own one of these null-capsules, so they clone their own Baron Harkonnen, and make themselves an Evil Paul Atreides, that the Baron will raise up to be super evil. Meanwhile, you know how the Tleilaxu have been trying to make synthetic spice for 5000 years, and never succeeded? Somebody gets the idea to, instead of cloning the spice, clone the sandworms. Apparently, nobody ever ever thought of this. And it works! They genetically engineer sandworms that actually like water, call them seaworms, and set them to work on some planet. There they make [b]ultra-spice[/i], which is like regular spice but a billion times more potent! gently caress you Kevin Anderson and/or Brian Herbert. So, the face-dancers spring their plan, but the plan fails because actually they've been played by the actual villains, the robots! The stupid robots are back from the edges of the galaxy with a gigantic fleet. How did they manage to turn a radio signal into an actual physical robotic device? Who the gently caress cares! Then the lady from the prequels who invented the warp drive and the Bene Gesserit and the guild navigators shows up and blips all the robots out of existence. That's it. I cannot think of another example in all of fiction of a better example of a Deus Ex Machina. Oh, then to wrap everything up in a nice bow, the evil Paul Atreides eats some of the ultra-spice, so he can become God or whatever, and he gets trapped in a vision of the universe, starting at the big bang, evolving to the present second, and then starting over. So he takes a bunch of drugs and goes catatonic, basically. That's it. That's your story. Night night.

I understand there are actually a couple more BH/KJA books, but I just can't. I can't.

Wikipedia posted:

Heroes of Dune is a planned tetralogy of novels by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson set in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. The potential series was initially referred to as Paul of Dune by the authors as early as 2004.[23][24] These novels were intended to "fill in the story" between Frank Herbert's early Dune novels.[23]

The books in the series are:

Paul of Dune (2008)
The Winds of Dune (2009)

Half of the story of Paul of Dune takes place between Frank Herbert's Dune (1965) and Dune Messiah (1969) as Paul�s Jihad rages, Shaddam seeks to regain his throne and Princess Irulan accepts the "task of building the legend of Muad'Dib." She in turn chronicles Paul's early years (between the 2001 Brian Herbert/Anderson prequel Dune: House Corrino and Dune), which feature "his friendship with Duncan and Gurney and Duke Leto's War of Assassins against Grumman."[24][25][26][27] The Winds of Dune (originally announced as Jessica of Dune)[28][29] chronicles events between Frank Herbert's Dune Messiah (1969) and Children of Dune (1976).[30] The final two novels in the series were to be called The Throne of Dune[30] (formerly Irulan of Dune)[28][29] and Leto of Dune (perhaps The Golden Path of Dune).[30] However, in a July 2010 blog post Anderson announced that these novels had been postponed due to plans by Herbert and Anderson to publish a trilogy (later known as Great Schools of Dune) about "the formation of the Bene Gesserit, the Mentats, the Suk Doctors, the Spacing Guild and the Navigators, as well as the solidifying of the Corrino imperium."[31]

Plot

In Paul of Dune, Paul Atreides's childhood lessons in the political intrigues of the empire are juxtaposed with his current struggle to secure his control over it. His Fremen armies are spread across the universe in attempt to bring rebel worlds to heel, and Paul avoids one assassination attempt only to nearly die in another.[32] In The Winds of Dune, Paul's disappearance into the desert has left a power vacuum, and his closest advisors struggle to determine what path his empire should take.[33]

Great Schools of Dune is a prequel trilogy of novels written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, set in Frank Herbert's Dune universe. A sequel to the Legends of Dune trilogy (2002-2004), the series takes place nearly a century after the events of Brian Herbert and Anderson's Dune: The Battle of Corrin (2004), in which the Army of Humanity finally defeats the thinking machine armies of Omnius. Now, the fledgling Bene Gesserit, Mentat and Suk Schools, as well as the Spacing Guild, are threatened by the independent anti-technology forces gaining power in the aftermath of the Butlerian Jihad.[2][35][36] The Great Schools of Dune trilogy, first discussed by Anderson in a 2009 interview and later named by him in a 2010 blog post, chronicles the early years of these organizations, which figure prominently in the original Dune novels.[31][36][37][38][39][40] Though the third and final novel was originally identified by Anderson as The Swordmasters of Dune in 2009,[37] in 2014 Brian Herbert and Anderson confirmed that its title would be Navigators of Dune.[41][42][43] On July 27, 2015, Anderson previewed the cover of Navigators of Dune on Twitter and noted its 2016 release.[44]

The books in the series are:

Sisterhood of Dune (2012)
Mentats of Dune (2014)
Navigators of Dune (2016)

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

# ? Apr 26, 2016 02:29

CroatianAlzheimers: Jun 15, 2009; I can't remember why I'm mad at you...

Lamprey Cannon posted:

loving Christ...

I knew they were bad, but I didn't know they were that bad. I've only ever read Dune, but I've read it a million times and I love it. I never read any of the sequels because I didn't want my love of the original ruined.

# ? Apr 26, 2016 02:52

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

why did you read all those Bad Dune Books

you could have... not read them

# ? Apr 26, 2016 02:57

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Sham bam bamina! posted:

why did you read all those Bad Dune Books

you could have... not read them

I don't think this thread would work if people did something sensible like stop reading a book when it turned out to be terrible.

# ? Apr 26, 2016 03:21

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

Absurd Alhazred posted:

I don't think this thread would work if people did something sensible like stop reading a book when it turned out to be terrible.

I understand reading one Dune prequel, maybe two if you can't take a hint (I gave up 20-30 pages into The Butlerian Jihad and never gave the rest a second thought). Lamprey Cannon's depth of investment in this crap just baffles me, even as "hate-reading".

# ? Apr 26, 2016 03:55

muscles like this!: Jan 17, 2005

Kind of stupid how Brian Herbert and KJA don't seem to care that Frank Herbert had a reason that he skipped those chunks of the Dune story originally.

# ? Apr 26, 2016 04:06

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

I haven't read any of his Dune books, but I have read a couple of Kevin J Anderson's original works. Alternitech was inoffensive - a somewhat neat idea that never really goes anywhere - but Hopscotch was definitely bad. Not as bad as those Dune books sound, but still, I never finished it. It's been a while so I may have some details wrong, but here goes.

The premise is that at some point in the future, people just spontaneously develop the ability to switch bodies with each other (which they call "hopscotching" for some reason). Rather than coming up with some technobabble explanation or leaving it as some unexplained future technology, Anderson explicitly states that it's a thing that just happened out of nowhere. You'd think that would be the sort of mystery the book might focus on, but it doesn't. In fact, the book doesn't really focus on anything.

One character joins a cult where they just switch bodies with each other all the time. The cult leader gets really obsessed with her for some reason and she eventually runs away, but can't get her original body back because someone else ran away with it, so she's stuck in someone else's body permanently.

Another character takes a job where he switches into his boss's body and exercises for him so the guy can basically get the benefits of that without spending the time. But on top of that, and unknown to him, the boss is also using his body to take a bunch of drugs and has already basically killed several people who had the job before. It takes a stupidly long time for him to catch on to this.

There's also a character who can't body swap, which basically makes him a bitter social outcast (even though there are other people who also can't or won't do it), and there's no real plot progression at all. Also they're all orphans, but that's not really relevant to anything as far as I could tell. There's enough there to make an interesting setup for at least three different books, but it just meanders along with nothing really happening at all.

This was also an issue with Alternitech, in which the story never really goes much beyond establishing the premise, but at least Alternitech was short. It left you with the feeling that, had it been longer, it would have done more (although the truth is that it probably wouldn't). This book is much, much longer.

# ? Apr 26, 2016 05:29

Lamprey Cannon: Jul 23, 2011; by exmarx

Sham bam bamina! posted:

I understand reading one Dune prequel, maybe two if you can't take a hint (I gave up 20-30 pages into The Butlerian Jihad and never gave the rest a second thought). Lamprey Cannon's depth of investment in this crap just baffles me, even as "hate-reading".

Well, you have to understand, I read 'Dune' when I was in elementary school, so by the time I started picking up the prequel novels, I was in middle school. Most of the things that I mentioned, like acid-blood tentacle-bulls and robot gladiator fights, are really cool to a typical middle-schooler. I remember actually pre-ordering the last of the prequels, 'The Battle of Corrin', the year before I entered highschool, but even by that point, some of the dumber things in those books were starting to stand out to me. It wasn't until years later, I think I was home from college, that I decided to check out the sequel books, and after I started reading those, and it was *so clear* how awful they were, I had this flood of memories, and all of the embarrassing bullshit that I'd overlooked or enjoyed in the earlier books when I was 13 came back to me. I did feel it necessary finish 'Hunters' and 'Sandworms', just because it was such a hilarious MST3K-level trainwreck (and partly just to see how it ended).

# ? Apr 26, 2016 06:23

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

D'oh, of course.

# ? Apr 26, 2016 06:58

Strom Cuzewon: Jul 1, 2010

Lamprey Cannon posted:

So, here's the thing with the Brian Herbert/Kevin Anderson prequels: they are bad. Thing is, that as time goes by, they get consistently worse. You read the first one, which is very bad, and then they keep piling on nonsensical bullshit that clearly demonstrates they didn't get what was cool about the original Dune books. I present an example:

So, in the first 'Dune', we are told that Leto's father, the elder Duke Atreides, was killed in a bullfight. This is something that says a tremendous deal about the society in which the story takes place, where not only would a major figure take place in such an event, but that there isn't any kind of advanced medical technology that could heal the wounds inflicted in such a fight. The first three Brian/Kevin prequel novels go through the backstory immediately leading up to the events of Dune, including that aforementioned bullfight, in which they reveal that it's a space bull with tentacles and acid for blood, which is loving stupid and overindulgent and completely misses the point of the original bit in the story. The Baron Harkonnen is a loving fat gross weirdo because he's a pinnacle of hedonism. He's fat because he loving loves eating food, he's a futuristic Caligula, at the pinnacle of excess. In the Brian/Herbert prequels, it's revealed that Lady Jessica implanted a gene modification virus thing in him to make him fat. That's it! Again, it's loving stupid bullshit technobabbly sci-fi that completely misses the point of the original novels.

Then, in the double-prequels, we get to hear the story of the Butlerian Jihad, the vaguely-referenced event in the original books that led to the outlawing of all thinking machines. These are such a blur that it's hard for me to even remember. The way the story gets told here is basically 'evil robots took over the world, so now we're not going to let there be robots anymore'. There's an evil robot-overmind called Omnius that's taken over all of humanity, and there are a privileged few humans who got to stick their brains in robotic bodies and become 'Cymeks'. Everybody else is downtrodden peasants. Much like the Star Wars prequels, loving everything that happened in the original books gets some nod in the Butlerian Jihad novels. The story of the swordmaster school in which Duncan Idaho was trained gets told (electro-swords for fighting robots, see above for 'loving stupid, completely misses the point'). The invention of the space-folding technology that allows rapid interstellar travel gets described, and it turns out the guy who 'invented' it just took credit for his assistant's work. This assistant later gets vaporized by a cymek, but Doctor Manhattans herself back into reality. Then she founds the Bene Gesserit order. Then she founds the Guild Navigators. Then she fucks off to nobody cares where (this will be important in a bit, unfortunately enough). Also, Omnius puts on gladitorial fights with the cymeks. I don't loving know why, other than to have descriptions of 'cool' robot battles with lasers and explosions. Also, in maybe my favorite part of the whole story, there's a whole drawn-out conversation where somebody asks the robot overmind why the robots don't just live on moons and planets with atmospheres that aren't habitable by humans, and the overmind doesn't have any good answer, basically going 'well, it's the principle of the thing!'. Poking holes in your own dumb-rear end plot doesn't make you look clever, book! Also the Harkonnens are there, and there's one of them who's a total dick for no reason, and he founds the dynasty of dickish-Harkonnens. Also, some Fremen are there, and they have a SANDWORM BATTLE, where they bonk their sandworms into each other until one of them dies. At the end, the robots all get destroyed, but manage to send a signal out into deep space, setting up the inevitable sequel. gently caress those books.

Double-gently caress the sequel. So, allegedly, according to Brian Herbert, his dad left a lock-box full of notes on what he wanted to do with Dune 7. Heretics and Chapterhouse allude to some force on the edges of the Galaxy that was driving the Honoured Matres back into the old empire, so there was a lot of speculation as to what it might be. Fuckin', it's the robots. It's the loving robots. So there. Now, at the end of Chapterhouse, the uber-Duncan Idaho who remembers all of his past clone-lives, and some other people, escape on a big ol' spaceship. In 'Hunters of Dune', it turns out that somebody has a null-capsule full of DNA samples from all the major characters of the original Dune novels! So we loving clone everybody. Paul Atreides is there, both Letos are there, the whole loving gang. Remember what I said about having to shoehorn in everything that was in the originals? Meanwhile, the villains of the story (who at the get-go seem to be the face-morphing people that the Tleilaxu keep cloning) have their own one of these null-capsules, so they clone their own Baron Harkonnen, and make themselves an Evil Paul Atreides, that the Baron will raise up to be super evil. Meanwhile, you know how the Tleilaxu have been trying to make synthetic spice for 5000 years, and never succeeded? Somebody gets the idea to, instead of cloning the spice, clone the sandworms. Apparently, nobody ever ever thought of this. And it works! They genetically engineer sandworms that actually like water, call them seaworms, and set them to work on some planet. There they make [b]ultra-spice[/i], which is like regular spice but a billion times more potent! gently caress you Kevin Anderson and/or Brian Herbert. So, the face-dancers spring their plan, but the plan fails because actually they've been played by the actual villains, the robots! The stupid robots are back from the edges of the galaxy with a gigantic fleet. How did they manage to turn a radio signal into an actual physical robotic device? Who the gently caress cares! Then the lady from the prequels who invented the warp drive and the Bene Gesserit and the guild navigators shows up and blips all the robots out of existence. That's it. I cannot think of another example in all of fiction of a better example of a Deus Ex Machina. Oh, then to wrap everything up in a nice bow, the evil Paul Atreides eats some of the ultra-spice, so he can become God or whatever, and he gets trapped in a vision of the universe, starting at the big bang, evolving to the present second, and then starting over. So he takes a bunch of drugs and goes catatonic, basically. That's it. That's your story. Night night.

I understand there are actually a couple more BH/KJA books, but I just can't. I can't.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Also a scene with Tleilaxu entertaining clone-Baron by loudly farting.

# ? Apr 26, 2016 08:10

divabot: Jun 17, 2015; A polite little mouse!

Uncyclopedia: Kevin J. Anderson That's an older slightly less sucky version.

# ? Apr 26, 2016 08:27

Stick Insect: Oct 24, 2010; My enemies are many.

My equals are none.

I finished Homeland by Cory Doctorow. It's exactly what I expected, it's just like the previous episode, Little Brother, where main character Marcus is an author self-insert and the story is Doctorow's nightmare/wet dream. It's actually a story that teaches the reader stuff, and the part where it teaches things is pretty good. The story, not so much.

It has themes that Doctorow likes to write about : government spying, government corruption, hacking, counterculture, nerd culture, oppression, police brutality, intimidation & torture.

The book feels dated because it's pre-Snowden. It recommends TrueCrypt. :downs:

The ending was the worst part of it all, Marcus breaks up with his girlfriend, and a few pages later, the story fast-forwards a few months and they get back together, just so there can be somewhat of a happy ending.

# ? Apr 26, 2016 11:13

Carthag Tuek: Oct 15, 2005; Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
sl�gt skal f�lge sl�gters gang

When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth, also by Doctorow, is so bad. I forgot the catalyst exactly, but there's a virus or something that kills the majority of people, but a bunch of computer janitors maintain order by sitting in their server rooms and emailing each other.

# ? Apr 26, 2016 11:20

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Lamprey Cannon posted:

Well, you have to understand, I read 'Dune' when I was in elementary school, so by the time I started picking up the prequel novels, I was in middle school. Most of the things that I mentioned, like acid-blood tentacle-bulls and robot gladiator fights, are really cool to a typical middle-schooler. I remember actually pre-ordering the last of the prequels, 'The Battle of Corrin', the year before I entered highschool, but even by that point, some of the dumber things in those books were starting to stand out to me. It wasn't until years later, I think I was home from college, that I decided to check out the sequel books, and after I started reading those, and it was *so clear* how awful they were, I had this flood of memories, and all of the embarrassing bullshit that I'd overlooked or enjoyed in the earlier books when I was 13 came back to me. I did feel it necessary finish 'Hunters' and 'Sandworms', just because it was such a hilarious MST3K-level trainwreck (and partly just to see how it ended).

This was me, except with the Star Wars EU.

Mammals that can suppress the force
A literal clone of Luke Skywalker
A Jedi that got so good at the force that she was able to extract poisonous nanites from Mon Mothma
A warrior-assassin race that served Darth Vader out of gratitude for keeping their planet barely alive, except the robots that were "fertilizing" the soil were actually keeping it deader than it should have been
A new superweapon that could destroy entire star systems by detonating stars, hidden inside a secret base in the middle of a cluster of black holes

All very cool to younger me, until I got older and got to the Yuuzhan Vong and went "hey, they're not even really fighting the Empire anymore, what gives?"

# ? Apr 26, 2016 11:42

The Vosgian Beast: Aug 13, 2011; Business is slow

gradenko_2000 posted:

A literal clone of Luke Skywalker

Named Luuke.

There was a third clone named Luuuke.

# ? Apr 26, 2016 13:42

Davros1: Jul 19, 2007; You've got to admit, you are kind of implausible

Tiggum posted:

Another character takes a job where he switches into his boss's body and exercises for him so the guy can basically get the benefits of that without spending the time.

This was actually the plot of an episode of Red Dwarf

# ? Apr 26, 2016 13:56

NLJP: Aug 26, 2004

The Vosgian Beast posted:

Named Luuke.

There was a third clone named Luuuke.

With some of these things I just imagine the writer got drunk with some friends and they just used whatever they suggested to see how much they could get away with, Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks style.

edit: I looked up Luuuke and it was a parody or something apparently

Mind you, what I said goes for the non Frank Dune books I guess.

NLJP has a new favorite as of 15:28 on Apr 26, 2016

# ? Apr 26, 2016 15:25

Lamprey Cannon: Jul 23, 2011; by exmarx

gradenko_2000 posted:

This was me, except with the Star Wars EU.

Mammals that can suppress the force
A literal clone of Luke Skywalker
A Jedi that got so good at the force that she was able to extract poisonous nanites from Mon Mothma
A warrior-assassin race that served Darth Vader out of gratitude for keeping their planet barely alive, except the robots that were "fertilizing" the soil were actually keeping it deader than it should have been
A new superweapon that could destroy entire star systems by detonating stars, hidden inside a secret base in the middle of a cluster of black holes

All very cool to younger me, until I got older and got to the Yuuzhan Vong and went "hey, they're not even really fighting the Empire anymore, what gives?"

Worth noting: this is from a Star Wars EU novel by Kevin J. Anderson!

Also worth noting: Kevin J. Anderson looks exactly the way you'd expect he would!

# ? Apr 26, 2016 17:48

Na'at: May 5, 2003; You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star; Lipstick Apathy

gradenko_2000 posted:

A new superweapon that could destroy ~~entire~~multiple star systems by detonating stars, hidden inside a secret base ~~in the middle of a cluster of black holes~~made out of a planet

That's the stupidest poo poo I've ever heard of.....

# ? Apr 26, 2016 20:13

Max: Nov 30, 2002

You should all be aware that Chuck Tingle is now an official Hugo Award Finalist for Best Short Story, "Space Raptor Butt Invasion."

http://midamericon2.org/home/hugo-awards-and-wsfs/2016-hugo-finalists/

# ? Apr 26, 2016 20:28

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Max posted:

You should all be aware that Chuck Tingle is now an official Hugo Award Finalist for Best Short Story, "Space Raptor Butt Invasion."

http://midamericon2.org/home/hugo-awards-and-wsfs/2016-hugo-finalists/

I sincerely hope he beats Vox Day.

Especially if he then writes a story of a reactionary blogger taken in the butt by an awards ballot, which is of course also a billionaire from space.

# ? Apr 26, 2016 20:36

Sanguinary Novel: Jan 27, 2009

Lamprey Cannon posted:

Worth noting: this is from a Star Wars EU novel by Kevin J. Anderson!

Also worth noting: Kevin J. Anderson looks exactly the way you'd expect he would!

I'm loving stunned he doesn't have the stereotypical black hat that all sci-fi/fantasy authors have.

# ? Apr 26, 2016 20:56

Somfin: Oct 25, 2010; In my🦚 experience🛠️ the big things🌑 don't teach you anything🤷‍♀️.; Nap Ghost

Sanguinary Novel posted:

I'm loving stunned he doesn't have the stereotypical black hat that all sci-fi/fantasy authors have.

The scraggly bloatee kinda makes up for it

# ? Apr 26, 2016 21:00

The Vosgian Beast: Aug 13, 2011; Business is slow

Max posted:

You should all be aware that Chuck Tingle is now an official Hugo Award Finalist for Best Short Story, "Space Raptor Butt Invasion."

http://midamericon2.org/home/hugo-awards-and-wsfs/2016-hugo-finalists/

I am 100% this is part of the prolonged temper tantrum against this story winning a Hugo.

# ? Apr 26, 2016 22:21

Jerome Agricola: Apr 11, 2010; Seriously,

who dat?

The Vosgian Beast posted:

I am 100% this is part of the prolonged temper tantrum against this story winning a Hugo.

Winning a Nebula. Nominated for Hugo.

E: This year they've also nominated things like SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police and an episode of MLP.

Jerome Agricola has a new favorite as of 22:50 on Apr 26, 2016

# ? Apr 26, 2016 22:46

Cumslut1895: Feb 18, 2015; by FactsAreUseless

Jerome Agricola posted:

Winning a Nebula. Nominated for Hugo.

E: This year they've also nominated things like SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police and an episode of MLP.

Also �If You Were an Award, My Love� lol

# ? Apr 27, 2016 00:58

The Vosgian Beast: Aug 13, 2011; Business is slow

Cumslut1895 posted:

Also �If You Were an Award, My Love� lol

Toldya. Insane amounts of anger about a pretty good story, basically just because one of the many far-right nutjobs weaponizing nerd culture told them to be angry.

# ? Apr 27, 2016 00:59

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

The Vosgian Beast posted:

Toldya. Insane amounts of anger about a pretty good story, basically just because one of the many far-right nutjobs weaponizing nerd culture told them to be angry.

This is such a good term, I am stealing it.

# ? Apr 27, 2016 01:34

Guy Mann: Mar 28, 2016; by Lowtax

I like the idea of living forever in a computer cloud instead of perception ending when I die but the fact that Cory Doctorow et al are going to be on their deathbeds faced with the existential horror that they wasted their life on The Rapture For Atheists and are still going to die like everyone else with nothing to show for it almost makes up for it.

# ? Apr 27, 2016 03:19

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

Lamprey Cannon posted:

Also worth noting: Kevin J. Anderson looks exactly the way you'd expect he would!

Completely ordinary and unremarkable? :shrug:

# ? Apr 27, 2016 03:29

The Saddest Rhino: Apr 29, 2009; Put it all together.
Solve the world.
One conversation at a time.

Antivehicular posted:

I sincerely hope he beats Vox Day.

Especially if he then writes a story of a reactionary blogger taken in the butt by an awards ballot, which is of course also a billionaire from space.

https://twitter.com/ChuckTingle/status/725150580709142528

Jerome Agricola posted:

Winning a Nebula. Nominated for Hugo.

E: This year they've also nominated things like SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police and an episode of MLP.

# ? Apr 27, 2016 06:48

SurreptitiousMuffin: Mar 21, 2010

I think the thing we're all really overlooking is that Grimm got nominated.

You know, the show where X-Files meets Supernatural in the budget aisle and they get married in Vegas three hours later.

# ? Apr 27, 2016 08:25

Nanomashoes: Aug 18, 2012

I have no idea how the guy behind Chuck Tingle manages to stay interested enough to keep going with it, but then I also feel that if there were no Chuck Tingle it would be necessary to invent him.

# ? Apr 27, 2016 08:46

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

The Vosgian Beast posted:

Toldya. Insane amounts of anger about a pretty good story, basically just because one of the many far-right nutjobs weaponizing nerd culture told them to be angry.

I just read this story, and oh my God, how are people this angry about this? It's just tribalism, right? Nobody is legitimately arguing in good faith that this story is bad enough to destroy fantasy fiction, right?

# ? Apr 27, 2016 08:51

The Saddest Rhino: Apr 29, 2009; Put it all together.
Solve the world.
One conversation at a time.

Antivehicular posted:

I just read this story, and oh my God, how are people this angry about this? It's just tribalism, right? Nobody is legitimately arguing in good faith that this story is bad enough to destroy fantasy fiction, right?

the argument is that this sentence

quote:

They�d grasp each other for comfort instead of seizing the pool cues with which they beat you, calling you a fag, a towel-head, a shemale, a sissy, a spic, every epithet they could think of, regardless of whether it had anything to do with you or not, shouting and shouting as you slid to the floor in the slick of your own blood.

which suggests the story features a trans & muslim character is the only reason it won, therefore far-left liberal under-representation inclusion has gone wrong etc, so all fantasy fiction will die

# ? Apr 27, 2016 09:19

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# ? May 8, 2024 20:47

The Vosgian Beast: Aug 13, 2011; Business is slow

Antivehicular posted:

I just read this story, and oh my God, how are people this angry about this? It's just tribalism, right? Nobody is legitimately arguing in good faith that this story is bad enough to destroy fantasy fiction, right?

Let's look at the comments for the story, shall we?

Some angry dudes posted:

The funny thing is that if you change those five blustering gin-soaked pool players into demographic profiles more reflective of who is relatively most likely to beat someone senseless�.
�.then this story stops being funny at all, and starts being hate speech.
Funny how that works � how whether revenge-murder porn is just that, or Art, or something worse, depends chiefly on whose gory death is being fantasized.

Drivel. Neither science fiction NOR a story. �If you give a mouse a cookie� was more riveting and had the added advantage of having beautifully rendered pictures that catered to my apparently slavish tastes in literature. It is a good thing Ms Swirsky was blessed with an XX Chromosome otherwise this drek would not get a second glance.
Heinlein wept.

The one good thing about this horrid tripe of a story is that it�s one of the things that gave us �Sad Puppies�.
I suppose the world should at least be thankful for that.

Wow, such bigotry in a story. Such ignorant fear of the unknown, of the working people you have never deigned to speak to, so never understood outside the arrogant prejudices of the �educated� left. Sarah Hoyt (a far better writer) was quite right about this nasty, childish little tale.
By the way, I am a graduate of an older, better-known university than any of those commenting here attended, ironically in Earth Sciences which includes palaeobiology, but one who has worked with and made friends of more working men and women than academics or writers. None has ever so much as commented negatively upon my education except in positive terms, nor on anyone else�s skin colour or background. The only bigotry I ever see is from the educated people, especially the socialists.

# ? Apr 27, 2016 11:23

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > PYF terrible book: Freud molesting a thesaurus.

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