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EmmyOk posted:There is a difference between simplicity and a dumb message or idea. The ideas kids read about when they're young help form their thoughts and ideas later in life. I didn't think the Hunger Games had a dumb message. Kids should be aware of class conflict, economic oppression, and how popular entertainment and the promise of individual gain can be manipulated to sew divisiveness among people who would otherwise have common cause. I do think Divergent had a dumb message, and that's why I'm more critical of it that Hunger Games or even the Uglies series I mentioned earlier. As I said earlier, I'm cool with babies first screed on class warfare. If I could remember what it was called I'd tell you about babies first libertarian manifesto which I was far less fond of.
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Oct 20, 2016 01:59
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That poster mentioned a immortality planned parenthood book
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Oct 20, 2016 02:11
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Brass Key posted:Yeah, but I don't mean so much the fact that that one thing happened, but that it's a thing that keeps happening. It's a world without nuance. The villains will break every promise, betray every trust and commit every excess because the world turns on the protagonists exclusively. Though that's kind of a problem across the whole genre. In Twilight Bella made a choice so it's okay
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Oct 20, 2016 02:18
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EmmyOk posted:That poster mentioned a immortality planned parenthood book Yeah, that also sounds like a shitfest that I have no desire to defend. There was this book called Unwind that was real big a few years ago, and it was one giant "truth is in the middle" message about abortion. The war between pro/anti-abortion groups apparently became an actual war, and it was resolved with some law where up until age 18 you had the option to 'unwind' your kid which meant sending them off to have all their entire bodies cut up and donated, which totally wasn't the same as killing them because they lived on in pieces. The actual story is dull as all get-out, following the
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Oct 20, 2016 03:04
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That sounds like someone read the plot summary to Never Let Me Go but didn't realize that it actually focused on the characters living what lives they had and not just moping about being walking organ banks.
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Oct 20, 2016 03:45
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there wolf posted:Yeah, that also sounds like a shitfest that I have no desire to defend. There was this book called Unwind that was real big a few years ago, and it was one giant "truth is in the middle" message about abortion. The war between pro/anti-abortion groups apparently became an actual war, and it was resolved with some law where up until age 18 you had the option to 'unwind' your kid which meant sending them off to have all their entire bodies cut up and donated, which totally wasn't the same as killing them because they lived on in pieces. The actual story is dull as all get-out, following the It's still amazing to me that this book is real, because I just want to know what the hell the author was thinking. "Hmm, what would be a logical compromise to end a long war between both sides of the abortion issue? I know, the murder of actually conscious children. Both sides are gonna eat that poo poo up." I could almost buy it if it was, like, "abortion is illegal but any and all unwanted children can be surrendered at birth to the Definitely Not The Clonus Horror Children's Home," since that would at least nominally be a compromise between "no abortion" and "don't be forced to raised unwanted children," but the Unwind scenario is like the worst of both worlds: you have to raise the kids until they're like 13 or something (I think? I haven't read it myself), and then they get medical-murdered. There's stupid YA nonsense, and then there's actively venal YA nonsense, and then there's Unwind. At least nobody rapes a bear? Like, as far as I know, anyway.
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Oct 20, 2016 04:26
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Antivehicular posted:It's still amazing to me that this book is real, because I just want to know what the hell the author was thinking. "Hmm, what would be a logical compromise to end a long war between both sides of the abortion issue? I know, the murder of actually conscious children. Both sides are gonna eat that poo poo up." I could almost buy it if it was, like, "abortion is illegal but any and all unwanted children can be surrendered at birth to the Definitely Not The Clonus Horror Children's Home," since that would at least nominally be a compromise between "no abortion" and "don't be forced to raised unwanted children," but the Unwind scenario is like the worst of both worlds: you have to raise the kids until they're like 13 or something (I think? I haven't read it myself), and then they get medical-murdered. Adoption is a solution for an unwanted child, not an unwanted pregnancy. But it's cool, it's not like Unwind has any interest is acknowledging the other person, unquestionable alive and conscious, involved in a pregnancy either. Just makes me so loving mad... The author made a big deal about being neither for or against abortion when asked about it. The entire book is one long attempt at validating his ethical cowardice as the correct way to feel so it's all a bunch of contrivances to set up gotcha questions for either side. It's obviously not my bag, but I can't imagine a pro-life person reading this and appreciating the implication that slicing a kid of for parts doesn't mean they really dead, because you can get all the recipients together and feel the presence of the donor's soul.
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Oct 20, 2016 05:58
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there wolf posted:If I could remember what it was called I'd tell you about babies first libertarian manifesto which I was far less fond of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_Who_Owned_a_City Is the one I recall, which my teacher read to us in grade 4, lol. It starts off pretty gripping and ends pretty dark.
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Oct 20, 2016 14:37
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there wolf posted:Adoption is a solution for an unwanted child, not an unwanted pregnancy. But it's cool, it's not like Unwind has any interest is acknowledging the other person, unquestionable alive and conscious, involved in a pregnancy either. Just makes me so loving mad... I'm not going to say men should never write books about ethics and childbearing, but FFS. THIS guy certainly shouldn't have.
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Oct 20, 2016 15:35
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pookel posted:I can't imagine anyone who knows a drat thing about pregnancy or abortion thinking that slicing a teenager up for parts is any way analogous to abortion, unless you are A) an anti-abortion nutjob who is also B) a dude. I was going to say, the author claims to be neither for nor against it but cutting up kids as an alternative to abortion really just sounds like something some pro-life nutjob likes to tell people is something that legal abortion will lead to because SLIPPERY SLOPE.
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Oct 20, 2016 15:43
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Re: Unwind, don't forget how racism is over because after the civil war over abortion some guy went round the country painting really moving pictures of white and black people.
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Oct 20, 2016 16:19
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YA dystopian novels are a wonderland for terrible social commentary based on absurd slippery slope scenarios. I brought one up earlier in the threadThe Vosgian Beast posted:When I was a teenager, I read a YA dystopian novel about a future America where everyone was obsessed with safety. Everyone had to take pills to calm their negative emotions, and sports were played at a leisurely pace, and they'd renamed the USA the "Safer States Of America". The protagonist didn't take his drugs to get ahead in a race, so he had to go to a prison camp where he has to face the threat of polar bears, but learns to play American football the way it used to be played, and finally finds true happiness. All this was presented basically entirely straight-faced. It turned out to be called Rash by Pete Hautman in case anyone was wondering
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Oct 20, 2016 16:33
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Pretty sure there's at least two crappy sequels to Unwind, too. I tried to read a sporking of it but the whole premise was so idiotic and dull I couldn't maintain interest.
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Oct 20, 2016 17:15
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Seldom Posts posted:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_Who_Owned_a_City It's isn't, but is that the one where the adults all die/disappear and there's something about a pirate queen? No the book I was thinking of was Storm Theif about this island affected by these probability storms that would blow through and randomly change poo poo up. basically building a level of instability into reality itself; also there are guard bots keeping anyone from leaving the island. It's of course run by some fascist state authority and your protagonists are two teens working as thieves who find some item the government is after and get chased around. The final confrontation leads to the teens running into the old control room and meeting a hologram of one of the guys who built the thing causing the storms and explains why to them. They created a perfect, post-scarcity, utopian society but then got bored with it all and created the storms to liven things up. Of course the first thing the storms did was remove whatever mechanism there was for turning them off, and the resulting chaos caused a collapse of society. Gato posted:Re: Unwind, don't forget how racism is over because after the civil war over abortion some guy went round the country painting really moving pictures of white and black people. I'd forgotten this part. Why did you remind me?
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Oct 20, 2016 17:37
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What's worse, a book with a dumb premise or a book that has an interesting premise and squanders it? Because I just remembered Robert Sawyer's Neanderthal series, and hoo boy. There's a parallel world where Neanderthals became the dominant species instead of Homo sapiens, and through shenanigans involving an underground research station in the same place in both worlds, a bridge opens up and a Neanderthal scientist falls through. So far so good, right? Wrong. Not only is the book incredibly dull, but the author spends most of it jerking off about the superiority of the Neanderthals' peaceful ways and magical pollution-free technology because they're so in tune with nature. There's an equally dull romance with the female human main character, who's afraid to get too close to him because she was raped like fifteen pages in by some rando. She tried to scare the rapist off (while being held at knifepoint) by telling him she had hiv (she doesn't). The rapist is like "oh really... ME TOO." I about cringed my entire face off and in retrospect I'm not sure why I didn't put it down right there. Somehow, this series has won many awards.
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Oct 20, 2016 18:06
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Seldom Posts posted:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_Who_Owned_a_City Oh man, I loved this book as a kid. It gets pretty violent, I remember the protagonist almost gets assassinated somewhere towards the end. It probably wouldn't stand up to a reading as an adult. My submission is Poet Anderson ...Of Nightmares by Tom DeLonge. Yes, the lead singer of Blink 182 Tom DeLonge. He's pushing a "multimedia storytelling experience" with this series, where the premise is basically that there is a "dream world" and the protagonist is super special because he can manipulate it better than anyone else, despite everyone he encounters having decades more experience than him. Technically DeLonge story boarded it and had someone else write it for him, but I'm not sure that anyone could've redeemed the story without ruining his "vision." He's doing a ton of vanity projects with it too, including a movie and a comic book series. He's apparently doing this with half a dozen other books that are just as middle school power fantasy-esque. tentawesome has a new favorite as of 18:56 on Oct 20, 2016 |
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Oct 20, 2016 18:39
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there wolf posted:It's isn't, but is that the one where the adults all die/disappear Not a book, but this made me remember The Tribe, a British/New Zealand television series about the lives of children and teens in a city after a virus kills all of the adults. They gather into groups, Tribes, and it got pretty violent and dark at times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tribe_(TV_series)
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Oct 20, 2016 19:10
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Brass Key posted:What's worse, a book with a dumb premise or a book that has an interesting premise and squanders it? Because I just remembered Robert Sawyer's Neanderthal series, and hoo boy. There's a parallel world where Neanderthals became the dominant species instead of Homo sapiens, and through shenanigans involving an underground research station in the same place in both worlds, a bridge opens up and a Neanderthal scientist falls through. So far so good, right? I finished the first one and immediately gave up on the second one when I tried to read it. That goddamned rape scene ruined the whole book.
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Oct 20, 2016 20:44
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there wolf posted:I'd forgotten this part. Why did you remind me? You can tell they're not racist any more because they call people 'siena' and 'umber' instead of 'white' and 'black' because those were the colours the painter used, maaaan. I distinctly remember someone describing someone else as 'lily-siena'. Funny the things that stick with you, really.
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Oct 20, 2016 20:45
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Speaking of hamfisted satire, does anyone remember that one where black people ("coals") ruled cruelly over white people ("diamonds") and the black folks were all ridiculously monstrous, and the (very white) author said BUT MAYBE YOU'RE THE RACIST IT'S ABOUT HOW HARD BLACK PEOPLE HAVE IT
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Oct 20, 2016 20:56
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Brass Key posted:What's worse, a book with a dumb premise or a book that has an interesting premise and squanders it? Because I just remembered Robert Sawyer's Neanderthal series, and hoo boy. There's a parallel world where Neanderthals became the dominant species instead of Homo sapiens, and through shenanigans involving an underground research station in the same place in both worlds, a bridge opens up and a Neanderthal scientist falls through. So far so good, right? That's a pretty interesting riff on the noble savage. I'm going to go with squanders. I've read plenty of stuff with stupid premises that's still managed to be for or even good once you just accept whatever the dumb framing is. That's probably a good definition of a guilty pleasure for a lot of people; it's dumb, but if you go with it...
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Oct 20, 2016 20:56
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Are you talking about Save the Pearls? It's some really trashy YA novel where due to increased UV radiation, white people (pearls) have died out and have to wear honest to god blackface to survive in a society dominated by black people (coals) and other people of color (each race had its own cutesy precious stone based nickname). I remember the author was planning to launch a huge ad campaign trying to turn it into the next Hunger Games but considering that I haven't heard anything about it other than a few snark sites cackling at it, we can see how well that went. 
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Oct 20, 2016 21:04
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tentawesome posted:My submission is Poet Anderson ...Of Nightmares by Tom DeLonge. Yes, the lead singer of Blink 182 Tom DeLonge. He's pushing a "multimedia storytelling experience" with this series, where the premise is basically that there is a "dream world" and the protagonist is super special because he can manipulate it better than anyone else, despite everyone he encounters having decades more experience than him. Technically DeLonge story boarded it and had someone else write it for him, but I'm not sure that anyone could've redeemed the story without ruining his "vision." He's doing a ton of vanity projects with it too, including a movie and a comic book series. He's apparently doing this with half a dozen other books that are just as middle school power fantasy-esque. I got sold so hard on that thing by one of the animated trailers they did for it. I bought the 15 minute "movie" for like $5 on iTunes and it didn't even have that scene. Calling it a generic power fantasy is an insult to generic power fantasies.
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Oct 20, 2016 21:08
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Indigo Raven posted:Are you talking about Save the Pearls? It's some really trashy YA novel where due to increased UV radiation, white people (pearls) have died out and have to wear honest to god blackface to survive in a society dominated by black people (coals) and other people of color (each race had its own cutesy precious stone based nickname). Coal is such an obvious racist nickname. Pearls and diamonds, things valued for appearances, and then dirty, dusty coal that almost nobody likes the look of and is mainly used for fuel. At least pick obsidian or something to make it less obvious. At least obsidian is also shiny and nice to look at.
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Oct 20, 2016 21:15
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Indigo Raven posted:Are you talking about Save the Pearls? It's some really trashy YA novel where due to increased UV radiation, white people (pearls) have died out and have to wear honest to god blackface to survive in a society dominated by black people (coals) and other people of color (each race had its own cutesy precious stone based nickname).
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Oct 20, 2016 21:16
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I like how the racism in Save the Pearls is so awful everyone forgets the romantic lead is a super-brilliant and powerful "coal" who turns himself into a panther man. And the writer had a bust of him commissioned.
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Oct 20, 2016 22:18
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Meet the author: Oh what, she IS black? No, wait. Ooooooh nooooooooo.
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Oct 20, 2016 22:46
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SUPERMAN'S GAL PAL posted:I like how the racism in Save the Pearls is so awful everyone forgets the romantic lead is a super-brilliant and powerful "coal" who turns himself into a panther man. Any particular reason? Or did he just like panthers?
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Oct 20, 2016 22:48
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Meet the author: I went through the same though process. "Hang on, her facial features don't look anything like...ohhhhhhhhhhh."
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Oct 20, 2016 23:07
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SUPERMAN'S GAL PAL posted:I like how the racism in Save the Pearls is so awful everyone forgets the romantic lead is a super-brilliant and powerful "coal" who turns himself into a panther man. And the writer had a bust of him commissioned. There's a pantherman? Great. Now I have to read it. Aw, public library. Why do you have to have standards now?
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Oct 20, 2016 23:12
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Pretty sure that's an actress for the promotional video about the book. Eden is the female lead and the reason she sprays herself with "midnight luster" (yes, it's actually called that in the book) is in part to protect herself from some BS radiation and in part to increase her "mate rate." See, all the light-skinned people are dying out because the sun is too hot or something. I recall reading the author is older and one reviewer suggested they're stuck in an early 80s style of sci-fi writing. Possibly the author doesn't realize how racist the whole premise is - doesn't excuse it of course, but may explain why it's so bafflingly self-unaware. The Lone Badger posted:Any particular reason? Or did he just like panthers? I can't recall if it was some experiment to save humanity or what. I think the real reason is the author wanted some werepanther-on-girl action.
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Oct 20, 2016 23:51
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I read Unwind and the scene where they actually do it to one teenager was very effective and still bothers me and I kind of hate the author for doing that. Because as explained above by other people, the whole thing is stupid as gently caress. I read through Divergent hoping there'd be some kind of twist, like *everyone* is actually told they're divergent so they're all playing this weird cat-and-mouse with each other, but nope. It's as stupid as it looks.
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Oct 20, 2016 23:56
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Brass Key posted:She tried to scare the rapist off (while being held at knifepoint) by telling him she had hiv (she doesn't). The rapist is like "oh really... ME TOO." Probably terrible of me, but all I can think of is that this sounds like a line out of a Chick tract. I'm thinking specifically of that one where a rock band are picked out and groomed for stardom by a manager who's Satan in disguise, and then when the one of them announces he's marrying his boyfriend against the manager's wishes, he thinks to himself, "Then I'll give you a wedding present... Some AIDS!"
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Oct 21, 2016 01:10
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HopperUK posted:I read Unwind and the scene where they actually do it to one teenager was very effective and still bothers me and I kind of hate the author for doing that. Because as explained above by other people, the whole thing is stupid as gently caress. Yeah, I read Divergent and felt like the author was trying to turn not knowing what to do with your life after High School into a superpower. I kept reading looking for a "you are not really that special" moment, but it never came.
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Oct 21, 2016 04:27
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Fashionable Jorts posted:I got sold so hard on that thing by one of the animated trailers they did for it. I bought the 15 minute "movie" for like $5 on iTunes and it didn't even have that scene. Calling it a generic power fantasy is an insult to generic power fantasies. I did the exact same thing  I enjoy Angels & Airwaves, but I think I'm going to stay away from anything else he puts his hands on. A friend of mine tried to recommend this because we're both A&A fans and oh man.The Goodreads summary: The earth shifts. It seems impossible. A ghost girl reaches out to Charlie through the terrified skater boys. She’s being stalked by a vengeful spirit that shares a past with Charlie’s family. It soon becomes clear that the spirit is coming for him. He has to save the ghost girl and save himself. His only hope? The nerd Wiz, the loser Riley, the skaters Mouse and Mattheson who want to hook-up with the girl. But, seriously, she’s a ghost.
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Oct 21, 2016 05:49
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So I am reading The Left hand of Darkness for a class and i can't get into it. I went in with an open mind(i tried Atwood scifi earlier this year and i really love her stuff), I like some of the ideas the book tries to do(the governments diplomacy, the different concepts of gender,) but her writing and the intro to the book just turn me off. the introduction feels pretentious as gently caress and the writing in generals feels like its trying way to hard to be intelligent and artistic. i normally like descriptive writing alot but she feels way to long winded. I feel kinda bad for not liking it because everyone tells me how great Le Guin is. its probaly also because its written in present tense which i have never been into.
Dapper_Swindler has a new favorite as of 01:25 on Oct 22, 2016 |
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Oct 22, 2016 01:22
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Dapper_Swindler posted:I feel kinda bad for not liking it because everyone tells me how great Le Guin is. its probaly also because its written in present tense which i have never been into. I was really disappointed when I finally read Earthsea. They're supposed to be major scifi/fantasy books and obviously le Guin is super well known, but I honestly couldn't tell why. I had 0 emotional attachment to the characters, no real investment in the story, and can barely remember the plot by now. I felt like she spent way more time talking about weird magical rules and whatever than she did actually telling a story. Not that I would call them BAD (as far as I can remember), they were just supremely uninteresting to me. I feel that way about most older scifi-type books though. A lot of them are written in a similarly dry style and it's not for me.
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Oct 24, 2016 04:25
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Captain Candyblood posted:I felt like she spent way more time talking about weird magical rules and whatever than she did actually telling a story. The reason why most fantasy and sci-fi is underwhelming.
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Oct 24, 2016 04:39
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Earthsea is notable because it came out in 1964. It's not really a terrific book no, but it's highly influential on the genre.
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Oct 24, 2016 06:16
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Captain Candyblood posted:I was really disappointed when I finally read Earthsea. They're supposed to be major scifi/fantasy books and obviously le Guin is super well known, but I honestly couldn't tell why. I had 0 emotional attachment to the characters, no real investment in the story, and can barely remember the plot by now. I felt like she spent way more time talking about weird magical rules and whatever than she did actually telling a story. Not that I would call them BAD (as far as I can remember), they were just supremely uninteresting to me. I pretty much enjoyed Earthsea, especially Ged's journey to defeat the wizard in the Dry Land - how his influence is compared to a narcotic, and how he's slowly destroying the entire world, because, well, nobody wants to die. On the other hand Tehanu is terrible garbage and she should have left it as a trilogy.
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Oct 24, 2016 08:25
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