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So reading the first chapter of mother of learning and are you people really recommending reading about Zorian the worst named protagonist emo ever? Please tell me it gets better after the first chapter. (Though reading more I guess it is hilarious how he's such a stereotype) Affi fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Mar 28, 2017 |
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Mar 28, 2017 06:14
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Affi posted:So reading the first chapter of mother of learning and are you people really recommending reading about Zorian the worst named protagonist emo ever? It gets better after the first chapter.
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Mar 28, 2017 08:26
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Doctor w-rw-rw- posted:It gets better after the first chapter. I agree. He starts off like that but he really grows as a character once the main plot kicks in. Although on a second readthrough the first chapter is hilarious because you know what's actually going on and he really, really doesn't.
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Mar 28, 2017 10:20
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He did get better. I actually like that he is competent and not suicidal as Zack.
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Mar 28, 2017 13:40
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blastron posted:Yeah, Ra is, though I wish it had ended very differently. I dislike the ending so much that I can now only recommend it begrudgingly, with a big "the ending is weird and I don't like it but the first 3/4s is good" disclaimer in front of it. Oh, I don't know, I thought it was kind of cool that there isn't a happy ending for anyone. It's very unusual to see any kind of media where the villain wins or where the heroes fail, I kind of liked it.
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Mar 28, 2017 20:30
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Mother of Learning is great. I agree Zorian is sort of hilariously stereotypical at first glance and I remember rolling my eyes at some of the stuff in the first chapter and then being like 'ohhh...' when it gets explained later on.
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Mar 29, 2017 06:38
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Mad Hamish posted:I thought it was kind of cool that there isn't a happy ending for anyone. You are entirely wrong about some folks. 
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Mar 29, 2017 07:14
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Mad Hamish posted:Oh, I don't know, I thought it was kind of cool that there isn't a happy ending for anyone. It's very unusual to see any kind of media where the villain wins or where the heroes fail, I kind of liked it. To be honest, I really like stories where the heroes fail a lot too, but only if that failure is satisfying. The way the story ended was very unsatisfying to me because it essentially retroactively invalidated the agency of the main characters. Their entire existence was ultimately meaningless; they were the scrubs that happened to get caught up in a war between two powers unimaginably greater than them and had no deliberate influence on the outcome. Laura stopped being the protagonist when she started blindly following not-Tanako's plan. Her part in the final chapters could have just as easily been played by any of the potentially countless possessed mages. Natalie didn't do very much besides advance the plot via exposition. Even the actual heroes-escaping-with-humanity bit was stolen from them by Rachel, so the final few chapters were basically the entire world falling apart around the heroes due to the grand plans of people above them while they struggle ineffectively, only for a deus ex machina to come in and provide the ultimate solution. It was a deeply unsatisfying ending.
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Mar 29, 2017 15:27
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So I just read the whole of Mother of Learning over about 2 days, how often does this thing update? Also, I'd completely forgotten Fictionpress was even a thing, I read some great and also some awful stuff on there as a kid...
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Mar 30, 2017 14:47
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Nettle Soup posted:So I just read the whole of Mother of Learning over about 2 days, how often does this thing update? Every three weeks, more or less. You could give money to the author via Patreon but it's unlikely to change his publishing rate.
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Mar 30, 2017 14:52
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Fair enough, maybe I'll skim off some of what I give to Wildbow and give to them instead!  Man, I just logged into my old fictionpress account, it looks like all the good stuff I'd favourited is long gone, leaving only the trash, and what utter dregs they are. There used to be some cool stuff in there too, one girl who updated every day for a while, writing a gypsy caravan fantasy in real time day by day (She gave up and it was probably awful), a good retelling of Cinderella, some neat sci-fi, I wonder where it all went and if any of them ever got published...
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Mar 30, 2017 15:04
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Actually fnished mother of learning and i got to say its pretty good and very fun to read! Too bad about the update rate but wht can you do?
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Apr 3, 2017 13:59
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I've almost finished reading through what's currently available of Unsong and it's very good.
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Apr 3, 2017 14:11
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Affi posted:Actually fnished mother of learning and i got to say its pretty good and very fun to read! At least it's consistent. Hero's war is going on its second month without an update.
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Apr 3, 2017 17:57
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Doctor w-rw-rw- posted:At least it's consistent. Hero's war is going on its second month without an update. I'll hopefully forget it and be able to get back to it in a year or two. Where can I find Ra? Would love reading something complete.
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Apr 3, 2017 18:28
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Qntm.net
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Apr 3, 2017 18:41
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https://qntm.org/ra
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Apr 4, 2017 03:41
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I also really enjoyed Fine Structure (same author as Ra). It's a bit unpolished in places, but I can excuse it for being a raw mash of a whole bunch of ideas all at the same time because those ideas are cool.
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Apr 4, 2017 21:34
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Huh, just finished Ra, clicked some links, and apparently the ending is being re-written Was an interesting read, though the first 2/3 was definitely better than the latter parts. Scope went sky-high.
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Apr 5, 2017 06:19
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That's good news. He also talks about new SCP stuff on the way, and his SCP stuff is better than most of the site and reads fairly well standalone.
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Apr 5, 2017 07:02
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Having a hard time enjoying Ra. Is the convulted technomagicbabble part of why People like it?
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Apr 5, 2017 20:12
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Affi posted:Having a hard time enjoying Ra. Is the convulted technomagicbabble part of why People like it? Possibly? I liked it . If you know some of the engineering roots it hints a lot at how magic works, which is fun and intriguing. It also does a good job of selling the idea that magic is an extremely well understood field of engineering, quite apart from more standard stories would portray. Not gonna blame you if it puts you off, though.
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Apr 5, 2017 22:45
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yeah ra does technomagicbabble as well as any piece of fiction ive ever seen tbh
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Apr 6, 2017 01:43
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Magic as an engineering discipline appealed to me as a programmer and engineer. The concept of speaking words of power into the ether while holding the entire picture of the spell in your head is very much like very old-school punch card computing, where you had to precisely convert the program in your head into a series of inscrutable holes in some pieces of paper. Describing the actual effects of magic as the results of magnificently fiddly equations is wonderful, the entire concept of "phonic algebra" is an amazing touch, and the stark disconnect between the precise magic coming out of academia and the just-get-it-done approach of the Hatt Group engineers is insightful. I love the fact that actual wizardry is the result of literally cheating, either through (mid-story spoilers) exploiting flaws in how magic is constructed or (late-story spoilers) using bits of leftover supertech, and that real, practical magic is extremely specific and purpose-built. Scientific magic is very much my poo poo, and I will eat up any story that treats magic as a thing to be studied, analyzed, and unwound instead of mystical hand-wavy garbage.
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Apr 6, 2017 05:59
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blastron posted:Magic as an engineering discipline appealed to me as a programmer and engineer. The concept of speaking words of power into the ether while holding the entire picture of the spell in your head is very much like very old-school punch card computing, where you had to precisely convert the program in your head into a series of inscrutable holes in some pieces of paper. Describing the actual effects of magic as the results of magnificently fiddly equations is wonderful, the entire concept of "phonic algebra" is an amazing touch, and the stark disconnect between the precise magic coming out of academia and the just-get-it-done approach of the Hatt Group engineers is insightful. I love the fact that actual wizardry is the result of literally cheating, either through (mid-story spoilers) exploiting flaws in how magic is constructed or (late-story spoilers) using bits of leftover supertech, and that real, practical magic is extremely specific and purpose-built. Scientific magic is very much my poo poo, and I will eat up any story that treats magic as a thing to be studied, analyzed, and unwound instead of mystical hand-wavy garbage. I sort of agree - it's also sort of funny how on one hand in a lot of cases authors insist that magic should be this vague, undefined thing that's totally not a science, and yet simultaneously wizards are scholarly nerds who read and study and experiment all day, which kinda sounds like a scientist to me. I mean, if you can study it to that extent and learn all the specific rules and nuances then it only makes sense for it to be a science, since 'science' is just a method of studying something and the knowledge gained by doing so.
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Apr 6, 2017 06:40
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The way magic was initially discovered in Ra was one of my favourite things about it.quote:The first magic spell is spoken by a 90-year-old retired Indian physicist named Suravaram Vidyasagar on 1st June 1972. It is one hundred and seventy-nine syllables long, comprising equal parts Upanishadic mantra and partial differential equation.
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Apr 6, 2017 07:52
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Speaking of practical magic, does anyone have any more good examples of it? I'm craving more of it.
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Apr 6, 2017 22:59
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Vateke posted:Speaking of practical magic, does anyone have any more good examples of it? I'm craving more of it. There's definitely UNSONG.
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Apr 7, 2017 15:01
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Unsong might be the best example of the economics of magic - if magic were real corporate America would immediately commodify it and throw as many low-wage workers at it as possible
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Apr 7, 2017 15:28
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Unsong and Mother of Learning, I suppose.
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Apr 7, 2017 15:32
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There, I finished The Gods are Bastards, it was pretty good, but not as good as Mother of Learning, much easier to make an rss feed for though. I'd like to see a word count. Now onto... A Practical Guide to Evil? Also, holy poo poo I really am gonna skim off some of what I give to Wildbow to give to this guy. Reading the comments as I went along I think somebody has placed a bad luck curse on him, he needs all the help he can get. Nettle Soup fucked around with this message at 15:21 on Apr 16, 2017 |
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Apr 16, 2017 15:04
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In 12-42 of TGaB, the lightsaber massacre was goddamn gut-wrenching. For all that I'm not liking the Sci-Fi twist to the story, the author is really effective at writing it.
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Apr 16, 2017 16:04
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Yeah, I wasn't too sure about that either but I'm warming up to it as it goes along. That bit was good, and it's not like it hadn't been hinted at from right near the start I guess. Started a practical guide to evil, chapter 3 so far, it's ok but god drat there's a lot of typos, word-mistakes and random tense changes. I'm assuming it gets better?
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Apr 16, 2017 16:42
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Nettle Soup posted:Yeah, I wasn't too sure about that either but I'm warming up to it as it goes along. That bit was good, and it's not like it hadn't been hinted at from right near the start I guess. Not really. Practical guide always has iffy editing. I really like the setting and characters, though, and it seems a lot more grounded than most of these serials.
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Apr 16, 2017 16:47
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Readership in later chapters helps with errors and minor corrections. I mostly don't think too much about it.
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Apr 16, 2017 16:47
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So I got bored of all that and decided to work my way down the list of topwebfiction, here's how it went. 1: The Good Student - how does this have top billing and nothing but positive comments. It reads like it was written by an autistic 7 year old. 2: Twig - Twig doesn't get enough love. 3: How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis - I think I've seen this anime. Slightly better written than The Good Student but still shoddy. 1 and 3, they're both so... Emotionless, with no spacing between things happening. "I woke up and found myself lying on the ground and I discovered I was having a panic attack, I hadn't had a panic attack in a long time. After I got better I got up and started to look for food, I remembered my family back home and felt sad, somebody suggested we hunt for dinner, I..." and so on. Tell don't show? 4: Super Powereds - I'm put off just by the title. Within the first sentence it's exhibiting the same problem as the two above. prologue posted:The two well dressed men materialized outside of a small white brick building. The taller of the two pulled out a small notepad, made an entry with the slash of a few pen strokes, then stowed it away once more. 5: Worm - It says a lot that this is still at #5. 6: The Gods are Bastards - This one is actually good, I read it up there. It even manages to be funny! Recommended! 7: Unsong - I tried this in the past and followed it for a while, did it ever crawl out of it's own arse? It wasn't as badly written as that guff up there anyway, it just got a bit um, deeply into it's own system and references I felt. I think it was on chapter 7 when I got bored of it. 8: A Practical Guide to Evil - It's ok, I don't like what it's doing with chapter 16, which is turning suddenly into an enders game type "you're controlling troops now!" scenario, but without any build up, training or emotional investment to actually make that work. I'll probably give it another go, later. 9: The Wandering Inn - Writing is still a bit haphazard in places, the author has no idea how to work speech into a paragraph and names are overused, but it might get past that. [Hint: It doesn't] The idea is pretty cute anyway and that's almost enough to save it, but it's not an easy read. Worth having a look at. Another thing I've noticed they all do is weirdly specific units of measurements that make no real sense, "She found a river a few miles from home, it was nice and close for fetching water" "He searched around his feet for an hour before giving up" "she sat in the chair for an hour before thinking "I'm hungry". She sat in the chair for another hour before getting up" "he was given water that made him feel drowsy. A second later, he’d fallen on his face and everything had gone black." 10: The Iron Teeth - yet another story told in the "this this happened he was bored then that happened he did the thing" style, I don't know what it's called but I don't like it. It has all the same issues as the rest of them, within the first few paragraphs. Why is this list filled with such trash! Maybe it's because all the good authors get themselves book deals...
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Apr 17, 2017 02:06
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Nettle Soup posted:8: A Practical Guide to Evil - It's ok, I don't like what it's doing with chapter 16, which is turning suddenly into an enders game type "you're controlling troops now!" scenario, but without any build up, training or emotional investment to actually make that work. I'll probably give it another go, later. So, that kinda bothered me too at first (it feels like it's really coming out of nowhere and could have probably been better executed), but (spoilers for stuff after this point up to the end of book 1 or so) It turns out this is basically where her legion comes from when she gets one, and by the time they're our of the wargames, the characters and relationships are better developed and it works well.
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Apr 17, 2017 02:58
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Unsong alternates between being really loving funny (anything with Nixon, Uriel, etc.) and being balls deep in scripture references. The author does a pretty good job of explaining the latter in a way that makes sense even if you don't know what he's talking about, but it's still really offputting sometimes. Definitely worth reading for the funny parts though, it's had me in tears more than once.
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Apr 17, 2017 03:01
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The Good Student and How to Avoid Death are by the same author which explains the quirks between them. For The Practical Guide Black loves to throw Cat into the deep end and an eventual goal she had was to command a legion. So when he has to foist her off onto someone else while he deals with the red letter the war college is the perfect place for her to spend time networking.
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Apr 17, 2017 03:02
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Besides, the war games are hilarious. If only for how everyone is backstabbing each other. Also, the first appearance of the undead suicide zombie goat.
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Apr 17, 2017 03:18
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