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grittyreboot posted:Piers Anthony claimed this chapter was a joke. https://imgur.com/a/xr2IH
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Jul 17, 2016 10:33
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Not that the very ideas aren't stomach-turning, but there's something about reading them as part of a federal document that's especially nauseating. there wolf posted:significant rapes and mutilations quote:magic cock rings quote:gives to her adoptive brother quote:The sexual politics in this series are very strange. 
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Jul 17, 2016 12:33
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WendyO posted:The other one was Agatha Christie's Harley Quin short stories, which contain a lot less cheesecake clown and more smug omniscient rear end in a top hat. The stories are just the usual english mystery stuff, but the primary detective character is some sort of enigmatic supernatural character. So they know the solution right away and just wait until the story is two pages from ending before springing into action, rather than having any sense of investigation or deduction at work. An annoying motif to that is that they're supposed to appear as just a normal person, but when it comes time to reveal the mystery there's always some trick of the lighting or shadow that gives them the appearance of wearing a clown suit. I don't know a lot about what English decor was like back in the old days, but I doubt it featured colored glass everywhere. This reminded me of the worst crime novel I've ever read. I don't even need to go into detail because it's bad for exactly the reasons you'd think a crime novel with a clairvoyant protagonist might be bad: 
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Jul 17, 2016 13:30
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Jerry Cotton posted:This reminded me of the worst crime novel I've ever read. I don't even need to go into detail because it's bad for exactly the reasons you'd think a crime novel with a clairvoyant protagonist might be bad: So it's like a chapter long?
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Jul 17, 2016 19:47
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Maxwell Lord posted:So it's like a chapter long? There's more than one crime and also the writer spends hell of words to make the protagonist seem like a mysterious and interesting woman with great wisdom.
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Jul 17, 2016 19:57
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That's a shame; I remember liking The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax. 
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Jul 17, 2016 22:33
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Sham bam bamina! posted:That's a shame; I remember liking The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax. Well yeah I wouldn't have bought the thing (for 1€) if it hadn't been for the Pollifax books.
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Jul 18, 2016 10:50
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Are people familiar with the Lord Darcy books? One of the main characters is a forensic sorcerer, but the rules of what sorcery can and can't do are well established to 'play fair' as a mystery.
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Jul 18, 2016 11:52
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grittyreboot posted:Piers Anthony claimed this chapter was a joke.
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Jul 19, 2016 15:17
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The court no longer accepts, "I meant it ironically." as a defense. 
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Jul 19, 2016 17:44
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Klaus88 posted:The court no longer accepts, "I meant it ironically." as a defense. Parody retcons are always hilariously dumb.
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Jul 19, 2016 18:00
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↓ Fair enough, sorry. Sham bam bamina! has a new favorite as of 20:36 on Jul 19, 2016 |
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Jul 19, 2016 19:35
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Okay everyone, let's get ready for this derail
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Jul 19, 2016 20:15
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Also, it's come up before but the In Death series by J. D. Robb, the pen name for Nora Roberts, are pretty godawful. The basic premise is that it's the future and this super hardass cop gets results, with the help of her network of unlikely friends and coworkers, along with her super hacker billionaire husband. The really terrible part is that the main character is a fascist scumbag. Even with everything stacked in her favor - her husband will just steal whatever she needs to solve the case, she throws around her weight as a cop constantly by threatening to shut down businesses or lock witnesses up in jail, every bit of witness information is forced - she still has to cheat in order to bring the bad guys in. Almost every plot for each book, and there are a shitload of them, hinges on the kind of extreme measures for results that you get from Dirty Harry movies. But then there's the worst part and what really turned the whole thing sour. One of the larger defining character moments is that the main character was abused by her stepfather, who was protected by her biological mother. She shot him, wound up in the foster care system, and is emotionally distant as a result. Which is grim but believeable. One of these books, and I don't remember which, decided to feature her 'opposite number.' A character that was mistreated as a young girl and escaped that by killing her abuser, and then wound up in foster care. Except this other character becomes a gang member because she didn't have a stable foster home, any followup treatment, or anything else. It's kind of a poignant thing that this is the worst case scenario, where the always-right protagonist could've become a nope nothing like that at all. It's all brushed off - all the similarities, all the 'well foster care was bad but it wasn't a group home' musings, everything that at least tries to justify why the main character is such a scumbag, are swept away because the main character is just a better person, and crime doers don't deserve any mercy whatsoever. The protagonist is virtuous and pure in everything she does, and someone else with the same background is absolute scum because they wanted to be like that. It was disgusting and lazy and stupid and horrifying.
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Jul 23, 2016 17:00
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WendyO posted:Also, it's come up before but the In Death series by J. D. Robb, the pen name for Nora Roberts, are pretty godawful. The basic premise is that it's the future and this super hardass cop gets results, with the help of her network of unlikely friends and coworkers, along with her super hacker billionaire husband. Yeah, the In Death books have a really uncomfortable, if subtle, vein of conservativism like that, where a number of major characters -- the protagonist, her husband, the protagonist's best friend who IIRC is a former pickpocket turned massive superstar pop musician? -- are defined by having made good on tragic and/or criminal pasts, and anyone with a similar situation who didn't make good as instantly and thoroughly is judged as inadequate/possibly subhuman, with absolutely no degree of reflection on the characters' or author's part. (It's particularly gross given that, as you mention, the protagonist's husband is pretty much still an active criminal and the protagonist is constantly venting her childhood rage at anyone in her blast radius who gives her an excuse, but they're the protagonists and nominally on the side of right, so they get a pass.) Christ, I even want to say there's a subplot in a few books where domestic-violence victims are judged for not being complete model victims who left their partners on their own volition after the first abuse incident, which is really pretty disgusting given how complex DV survival can be in the real world. There's also the whole "everyone is pretty judgy about prostitution even though it's been legal for decades" bit, although admittedly that's more understandable. Still, just once I'd like to read an SF novel in a world with legalized, regulated prostitution where the main character has an attitude other than "clucky moral condemnation with only token acceptance of its legality" about it.
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Jul 23, 2016 22:08
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Antivehicular posted:There's also the whole "everyone is pretty judgy about prostitution even though it's been legal for decades" bit, although admittedly that's more understandable. Still, just once I'd like to read an SF novel in a world with legalized, regulated prostitution where the main character has an attitude other than "clucky moral condemnation with only token acceptance of its legality" about it. There was this weird short story I read once where "male chauvinism" was outlawed and the protagonist was some kind of fixer who helped people with their illegal problems who was hired by a couple who wanted a kind of master/slave-wife 50s family unit. Not the best examination of future society.
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Jul 23, 2016 22:20
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It's been brought up before, but I just want to echo the sentiment: gently caress "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern.  It's a pile of ridiculous, pretentious, predictable garbage. It's been a year since I read this book while bored out of my mind at a graveyard shift job, and I am still pissed off at it. Edit: Have you ever Spite-Read a book? Like, you have to finish it to know if you correctly predicted the loving stupid ending? I Hate-Read this book. Every other page turn was met with "Are you loving KIDDING me?" Mouse Dresser has a new favorite as of 22:37 on Jul 23, 2016 |
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Jul 23, 2016 22:34
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Mouse Dresser posted:It's been brought up before, but I just want to echo the sentiment: gently caress "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern. I've never read it and know nothing about it. Based solely on the cover art, does it think it is way more witty and precocious than it actually is? Is it intended for girls who watched every single Johnny Depp/Tim Burton movie in high school? How close am I.
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Jul 23, 2016 22:44
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Antivehicular posted:There's also the whole "everyone is pretty judgy about prostitution even though it's been legal for decades" bit, although admittedly that's more understandable. Still, just once I'd like to read an SF novel in a world with legalized, regulated prostitution where the main character has an attitude other than "clucky moral condemnation with only token acceptance of its legality" about it. Niall Teasdale's Steel Beneath the Skin series, while still definitely qualifying to be in this thread, does have random sex with anyone seen as completely normal and commonplace as long as the people involved are consenting, so that's close.
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Jul 23, 2016 22:58
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Mouse Dresser posted:It's been brought up before, but I just want to echo the sentiment: gently caress "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern. I'm reading it right now, and I'm enjoying it. I can see thinking it's a little twee, but it's not a bad book.
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Jul 23, 2016 23:30
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Samfucius posted:I've never read it and know nothing about it. Based solely on the cover art, does it think it is way more witty and precocious than it actually is? Is it intended for girls who watched every single Johnny Depp/Tim Burton movie in high school? Granted I've got like 100 pages to go , but it's sort of somewhere between Something Wicked Comes This Way and Johnathon Strange and Mr.Norrell.
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Jul 23, 2016 23:45
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Antivehicular posted:Still, just once I'd like to read an SF novel in a world with legalized, regulated prostitution where the main character has an attitude other than "clucky moral condemnation with only token acceptance of its legality" about it. I know man, properly thought-out prostitution is what really makes a science fiction novel for me too. The characters, plot, setting, speculations of technology, that's all nice but what I'm really jonesing for is the protagonist to take a walk through the red light district, check out the whores, then pick one of them and, well, getting to see what bio-enhancements she has, if you know what I mean  Although seriously, you're probably looking for Samuel R. Delany; Babel-17 and, I think, Stars in my Pockets like Grains of Sand, maybe others.
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Jul 24, 2016 02:49
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Firefly, even if it's not a book.
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Jul 24, 2016 04:04
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Firefly has exactly what they said they don't want, the protagonist has entirely unveiled moral contempt for the profession with a grudging acceptance of the legality of it.
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Jul 24, 2016 04:13
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Mal might not have respected Inara's profession, but it was pretty clear that the show itself did, from what I remember.* And it was an ensemble cast; there were episodes where she was definitely the protagonist. *Which honestly isn't a whole lot; it's been forever since I saw it. Sham bam bamina! has a new favorite as of 04:27 on Jul 24, 2016 |
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Jul 24, 2016 04:21
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Samfucius posted:I've never read it and know nothing about it. Based solely on the cover art, does it think it is way more witty and precocious than it actually is? Is it intended for girls who watched every single Johnny Depp/Tim Burton movie in high school?  100% dead-on target.
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Jul 24, 2016 04:24
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Sham bam bamina! posted:Mal might not have respected Inara's profession, but it was pretty clear that the show itself did, from what I remember.* And it was an ensemble cast; there were episodes where she was definitely the protagonist. One of my big problems with Firefly was with Inara's profession not being at all representative of prostitution, legalized or not. It was basically super ideal utopian girl power thing that sort barely resembled even the basic framework of prostitution and Mal calling her a whore and poo poo came across more as crass hyperbole than intended. Whedon may have wanted to employ the hooker with a heart of gold archtype, but he couldn't commit.
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Jul 24, 2016 04:36
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Fair enough. Again, it's been forever since I saw it.
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Jul 24, 2016 05:02
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I wasn't trying to argue against you, actually, though I guess now that I think about it that is relevant.
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Jul 24, 2016 05:06
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Since I apparently sparked this big derail: it doesn't actually have to be prostitution, but I'm just bugged when SF sets up a different set of social/legal mores in its setting but then has the protagonists react just like a modern person would, particularly a reactionary modern person. It's always struck me as sort of lazy writing. To get back into dumb poo poo from In Death, there's also the bit where all drugs are referred to with dumb future-y names, despite the fact that the novels are only set ~50 years in the future and they're obviously real-world drugs. There's "zoner," for example, which from context is clearly just weed, and "Zeus" which is obviously just cocaine, but it's like Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb got paranoid about having her characters use the actual names of drugs, even if they're cops discussing a case. Even over-the-counter painkillers are called "blockers" for some reason. Like, is this poo poo designed to make it sound more futuristic or something? So clumsy.
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Jul 24, 2016 05:29
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Eh, he may not have committed, but it's a key trope of the western. At least he took out the part where she was going to get gang raped, but kill all her rapists because she took poison that made having sex with her fatal. I'm curious if there's any fiction at all that portrays sex workers as just people. Not idealized, not demonized, just ... people. With all the hookers in sci-fi, you'd think they'd get it right by pure chance once in a while. To contribute: I stumbled upon an e-book called "Stories from the Beat". I thought it'd be yet another cop memoir...but wow. It's yet another cop memoir filled with horrible racist stereotypes! Every Mexican is Jose, every trailer park inhabitant is Joe-Bob. The cover has a poorly drawn chihuahua drinking a beer. I knew some cops were racists, but somehow I'd think they'd have the sense to not put it in writing. And then publish it.
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Jul 24, 2016 05:43
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Firefly did at least examine the difference between 'realistic' prostitution and the companions in like, the last episode. Whedon didn't write it, though and it was a pretty poo poo episode if memory serves.
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Jul 24, 2016 07:49
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I've read three well-regarded literary novels this year that start going on about grown men sleeping with sexy 14 year olds (and they're always 14 exactly). I can just feel the "well, 13 is too young, But 14, now 14 is great!" coming through the page. Why. 
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Jul 24, 2016 08:13
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Not really dealing with age, but it did kinda throw me for a loop that in the Ringworld books it's just like "Hey, you're an alien!" "Yep, hey, nice fire!" "Thanks! I made it myself!" "So, wanna gently caress?" "Yay!" SO MANY TIMES. Seriously, I read the first two books and there are just no buildups or anything, just "Hey, random person with genitals I like, wanna slam em together?" "Sure, I got 20 mins". For as much as people told me THIS IS A LITERARY CLASSIC all I could really think of was "This is really badly written sex, and it happens way a loving lot." (pun not intended)
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Jul 24, 2016 08:43
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Brass Key posted:I've read three well-regarded literary novels this year that start going on about grown men sleeping with sexy 14 year olds (and they're always 14 exactly). I can just feel the "well, 13 is too young, But 14, now 14 is great!" coming through the page. Why. is right. I don't even know that I want to speculate on what weird line in these people's heads is crossed by age 14. Name and shame? I know I'd appreciate knowing what to avoid next time I go on a literary-fiction bender.
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Jul 24, 2016 08:48
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Antivehicular posted:
I can't remember what the first one was, but the other two were King Rat and Germinal. Made weirder by the one being an ~exotic~ chieftain's daughter that he sneaks out of a prison camp to sleep with and the other being an underfed coal-mine worker who dresses like a boy (and yet he can see her "womanly softness" through her clothes or something?).  There's an argument to be made that since both books are vaguely about the degradation of the human condition it can be read as commentary, but it's way too lovingly written for that.
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Jul 24, 2016 09:06
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Mouse Dresser posted:Edit: Have you ever Spite-Read a book? Like, you have to finish it to know if you correctly predicted the loving stupid ending? Stephen King's Dark Half. Hated it from start to finish, hated every moment of it. King had written a lot of "I'm a writer! My mind is a scary, dark place! I'm secretly a bad rear end! I'm virile!" poo poo before, but did he have to write a book specifically about it? It's not hard to see where he got the idea he could publish his grocery list and people would still read it
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Jul 24, 2016 11:57
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I can't remember if I've bitched about this before in this thread but nothing ruins an otherwise-decent scifi book for me more than the author's dick just slapping itself all over the page. It's not even that egregious, it's just something that annoys me to no end. I tried to read the Uplift trilogy and then the first time a woman appears, on like page four or something, the book immediately drools all over the swimsuit she's wearing like, gently caress offffff
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Jul 24, 2016 12:16
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HopperUK posted:I can't remember if I've bitched about this before in this thread but nothing ruins an otherwise-decent scifi book for me more than the author's dick just slapping itself all over the page. It's not even that egregious, it's just something that annoys me to no end. I tried to read the Uplift trilogy and then the first time a woman appears, on like page four or something, the book immediately drools all over the swimsuit she's wearing like, gently caress offffff I'm not a big sci-fi fan at all but from my fairly limited experience with the genre, unnecessary weird sex scenes and asides about how bad religion is that have nothing to do with anything both seem to be staples of the genre.
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Jul 24, 2016 12:49
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hackbunny posted:Stephen King's Dark Half. Hated it from start to finish, hated every moment of it. King had written a lot of "I'm a writer! My mind is a scary, dark place! I'm secretly a bad rear end! I'm virile!" poo poo before, but did he have to write a book specifically about it? It's not hard to see where he got the idea he could publish his grocery list and people would still read it is this what garth mahrengi is supposed to be mocking?
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Jul 24, 2016 13:27
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