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e X posted:
Literal Anglo-American here. Is that a thing? The only negative impression I have of him is that he was kind of a huge rear end in a top hat and a bit of a hypocrite. I mean, short man syndrome jokes aside, of course. I should also point out that I've read Sandra Gulland's Josephine Bonaparte trilogy like four times and it's very sympathetic towards Napoleon. I know it's not the most historically-accurate writing in the world, but it's not crazy.
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Jun 5, 2017 07:08
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Napoleon wasn't even that short.
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Jun 5, 2017 08:37
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He did order massive massacres of civilians and prisoners in French colonies and occupied territories, but that wasn't exactly unusual behavior for generals in the early 19th century.
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Jun 5, 2017 09:26
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Apraxin posted:It's both. I dunno if Weber always intended it that way or if he decided to shoehorn it in after he'd already laid out the Hornblower-in-space elements, but there's a lot of SOCIALISM BAD stuff as the series goes on; like paragraphs on how the proud, free people of Manticore would never submit to the horrors of a graduated income tax. If I remember right, one of the later books explains that the reason Haven is this great expansionist power but also teetering on the brink of collapse is literally that they made the mistake of instituting a social welfare system - being given unemployment benefits made Haven's citizens a bunch of lazy slobs who refuse to work, so the only way the government can keep funding the welfare payments is to conquer neighboring systems and loot their economies. Yeah, both work quite well. Weber did go out of his way to engineer things so that warships would still line up in great rigid formations and exchange broadsides, after all. I'd homed in more on the Soviet comparison mostly because of that. He goes on and on about how their basic income is basically the root of all evil, bankrupting their state and turning the population lazy and useless. Book 2 also featured a proxy war between two minor neighbouring systems that felt very Korea-like. And a fair bit of smugness about how the supposedly egalitarian Havens have significant problems with nepotism, while the literal nobility of Manticore pretty much without fail prove themselves worthy of their station. And yeah, there's a bunch of obnoxious fairly modern political stuff that I ended up mostly skipping right through. Lots of snivelling stereotypes of "Progressives" and "Liberals" who dare to suggest that maybe colonialism and eternal war might be a bad thing, and who are quickly put into place by the right-thinking military types who know that the only solution is to give Haven a jolly good thrashing. Honestly, the more I think back on it, the more it feels like a somewhat more competent John Ringo without (most of) the rape. Which, admittedly, is not very much like Ringo at all, but you get my point. Perestroika has a new favorite as of 16:41 on Jun 5, 2017 |
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Jun 5, 2017 12:02
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Isn't a lot of Baen stuff just generic right-wing military sci-fi? I know Eric Flint (who I believe has been a card-carrying socialist for decades at this point) is the big exception with them.
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Jun 5, 2017 13:30
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They do also have Bujold who is quite leftwing and David Drake who started writing mil-sci-fi as a sort of therapy for his time in Vietnam On the other hand there's Ringo and Kratzman. Not to mention they nearly went bankrupt when they published Newt Gingrich's terrible alternate history novels
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Jun 5, 2017 14:59
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Weren't they like 50% of the Sad Puppies too?
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Jun 5, 2017 15:12
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A Pinball Wizard posted:Weren't they like 50% of the Sad Puppies too? One of the oft-repeated claims of both the Puppy brigades is that the "SJW"s were obviously showing favoritism by not awarding Baen's Toni Weisskopf a Best Editor (Long Form) Hugo, because she's a woman and they like women in SFF, right? This despite the fact that Weisskopf declined to list any of her contributions to the field of editing that year (no one knows if she even personally edited any long-form works in 2014, but the Pups nominated her anyway), and the general editing quality of Baen books being more than a little poo poo - I seem to recall reading, though I can't pull a quote at the moment, that Baen's editorial policy is pretty much "Eh, can't be arsed".
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Jun 5, 2017 15:45
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Ferrosol posted:They do also have Bujold who is quite leftwing and David Drake who started writing mil-sci-fi as a sort of therapy for his time in Vietnam Drake I'm not sure about. I read the first two Lord of the Isles books years ago and remember the second one would have these bits where one of the characters in the protagonist herd (they're all standard high fantasy villagers who discover their true destinies, c.f. Wheel of Time et al.) muses at length about how small town folk who do a day's work for a day's pay are essentially better and more honest than the atheists and free thinkers who live in the big cities, but I don't know if that's meant to be the author's view or the character's view (the character in question being a semi-literate simple-minded farmer). The other thing about David Drake I remember is that he was once criticised for the depiction of violence in his book in terms like "Drake has obviously never experienced real violence in his life" which Drake - as you say, a Vietnam vet - took exception to, and I think he took the Michael Crichton route of naming a character after the critic who gets gruesomely murdered.
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Jun 5, 2017 16:31
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Fleta Mcgurn posted:Literal Anglo-American here. Is that a thing? The only negative impression I have of him is that he was kind of a huge rear end in a top hat and a bit of a hypocrite. If you aren't used to it, yes, it is incredible noticeable. I mean, I think the Americans mostly imported it from the British. And honestly, you are kind of displaying it already. I cant really say I have an opinion on the personalty of any of the historical people of that era, asides from general moral dissonance. So, why would you call him any more of an rear end in a top hat than his contemporaries? I think the first time I really noticed was Night in the Museum 2 of all places, where the villain had a group of henchmen, consisting of Al Capone, Iwan the terrible and ... Napoleon. I found this super weird, since while other two are generally considered "villains" in pop culture, Napoleon, to me, is not. He is basically a neutral historical figure, not any more or less villainous than, lets say any monarch during the 7-Years-War. But like I said, I think it is just the result of the British propaganda painting him as some kind of mad conquerer, bent on world domination, to justify their continued involvement in the coalition wars. And if you want to talk about hypocrisy, I don't think it gets any bigger than that. Honestly, maybe its just that many anglo-american portrayals of that era are told from the English perspective, and I kind of react allergic to anything that tries to portray the British Empire in any kind of heroic light. fake edit: And to make it clear, I am talking about the pop-cultural perspective here, not an actual historical analyses. e X has a new favorite as of 18:16 on Jun 5, 2017 |
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Jun 5, 2017 18:11
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Well America was a de facto ally of Napoleon, though we were so irrelevant to world politics at the time that it never really mattered aside from him selling us all that land in the Louisiana Purchase
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Jun 5, 2017 18:38
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e X posted:If you aren't used to it, yes, it is incredible noticeable. I mean, I think the Americans mostly imported it from the British. And honestly, you are kind of displaying it already. I cant really say I have an opinion on the personalty of any of the historical people of that era, asides from general moral dissonance. So, why would you call him any more of an rear end in a top hat than his contemporaries? Sorry, did you just get weirdly aggressive and kind of condescending towards me while referencing a lesser Ben Stiller movie? I don't do sequels, FOOL. Actual edit: I was also speaking from a pop culture perspective, doy.
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Jun 5, 2017 19:17
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Not really? Don't really see how I was being aggressive or conceding, but in any case, it wasn't my intention . I just wanted to explain where I got the impression and why I think it is the case.
e X has a new favorite as of 19:24 on Jun 5, 2017 |
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Jun 5, 2017 19:22
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e X posted:Not really? Don't really see how I was being aggressive or conceding, but in any case, it wasn't my intention . I just wanted to explain where I got the impression and why I think it is the case. Uh-huh. Either way, I guarantee you that nobody cares this much about Napoleon except Bonapartists, and they're probably not too thick on the ground outside of France. But it's okay, I feel really passionate about Modelland for no actual reason.
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Jun 5, 2017 19:28
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Fleta Mcgurn posted:Uh-huh. Either way, I guarantee you that nobody cares this much about Napoleon except Bonapartists, and they're probably not too thick on the ground outside of France. But it's okay, I feel really passionate about Modelland for no actual reason. Modelland is the greatest outsider art of our time. Where else can you read wonderful sentences like, "Help, there's an intruder in my ooah!"?
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Jun 6, 2017 04:55
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Pinball posted:Modelland is the greatest outsider art of our time. Where else can you read wonderful sentences like, "Help, there's an intruder in my ooah!"? I am so sad the trilogy never materialized. I'm catching up on all the cycles I missed (stopped watching after 10 because it was pretty bland and I hate Versace) and holy poo poo, the difference between Cycle 1 Tyra and the last three cycles is loving INSANE. It's like she was reprogrammed. Also I really hate Jay Manual and he ruined CNTM for me. also books
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Jun 6, 2017 05:02
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Napoleon was better when he went to the water park to let off some steam.
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Jun 6, 2017 07:51
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NAPOLEON MAKE YOURSELF A drat QUESADILLA
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Jun 6, 2017 08:00
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Ferrosol posted:They do also have Bujold who is quite leftwing and David Drake who started writing mil-sci-fi as a sort of therapy for his time in Vietnam Drake is interesting. His Hammer's Slammers stuff is as military as milsf comes, but if i had to assign it an overarching theme i would say it is "war dehumanises its practicioners, and is at best a horrific necessity."
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Jun 6, 2017 08:05
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Wheat Loaf posted:Isn't a lot of Baen stuff just generic right-wing military sci-fi? I know Eric Flint (who I believe has been a card-carrying socialist for decades at this point) is the big exception with them. Seems to me they basically used to publish whatever Jim Baen wanted to publish and kept going with a similar strategy after he passed. So yeah, you do get a lot of right-wing mil-sf, but also Flint and Bujold and Drake and Spoor and whatnot.
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Jun 6, 2017 08:31
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chitoryu12 posted:If you insist. This has got to be one of those 'published author needs some cash' jobs, there's too much random extraneous detail ("the windshield of the austin healey..." not "the windshield") for it not to be someone padding out a word count.
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Jun 6, 2017 12:09
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Of course, even the good Baen authors get that loving fugly trade dress.
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Jun 7, 2017 00:13
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The Lone Badger posted:Drake is interesting. His Hammer's Slammers stuff is as military as milsf comes, but if i had to assign it an overarching theme i would say it is "war dehumanises its practicioners, and is at best a horrific necessity." That sounds like it could be neat. I like when military Sci fi is self aware enough to be cynical like that. Also happens to describe the better Warhammer 40k novels, where the trademark ultraviolence is used to make a point about how damaged the individuals in the setting are. Seeing massacres as the status quo is really disturbing. Sadly only Bowden and Abnett really understand this, with most Bolter porn completely missing the storytelling potential of the franchise in favour of explosions and on the nose fascism that has long since forgotten was supposed to be ironic.
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Jun 7, 2017 01:16
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Groke posted:Seems to me they basically used to publish whatever Jim Baen wanted to publish and kept going with a similar strategy after he passed. So yeah, you do get a lot of right-wing mil-sf, but also Flint and Bujold and Drake and Spoor and whatnot.
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Jun 7, 2017 02:09
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Did not Napoleon at least briefly derail France's whole Revolutionary social democracy? They went from pre-Marxist socialism to just plain having an Emperor. (Though they got better.)
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Jun 7, 2017 02:29
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Maxwell Lord posted:Did not Napoleon at least briefly derail France's whole Revolutionary social democracy? They went from pre-Marxist socialism to just plain having an Emperor. (Though they got better.) Yeah. Ludwig Van Beethoven, who was a staunch anti-monarchist, famously erased his dedication of his 3rd Symphony to Napoleon after Bonaparte declared himself Emperor of France.
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Jun 7, 2017 03:13
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skasion posted:The lady who wrote Kushiel also wrote a couple of books that are almost as shameless of a Lord of the Rings rip-off as Sword of Shannara, but in this version Sauron is the just-misunderstood god of sex and the world is bad because the other gods stabbed him in the dick. Also Frodo is a bushman. It's not the absolute worst piece of Tolkien fan fiction ever, but it may be the worst that ever got printed. That's a pretty bold statement since "Lord of the Rings but with my spin on it" might as well be a subgenre of fantasy. Carrey's version gets points for being a blatant subversion, but looses them all on nigh-unreadable prose. How do you write a book that's a middle finger to Tolkien's catholic asceticism and make it drier than his own writing?
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Jun 8, 2017 16:44
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there wolf posted:That's a pretty bold statement since "Lord of the Rings but with my spin on it" might as well be a subgenre of fantasy. Carrey's version gets points for being a blatant subversion, but looses them all on nigh-unreadable prose. How do you write a book that's a middle finger to Tolkien's catholic asceticism and make it drier than his own writing? This is a good opportunity to recommend the not-terrible (but pretty odd) "The Last Ringbearer" by Kirill Eskov, which is what happens when a Russian evolutionary biologist reads Lord of the Rings and says, "huh, I just can't understand the economic system or geology of Middle Earth". It assumes that LotR is basically propaganda by the winners, Mordor is a nascent industrial society, the West are superstitious Luddites being lorded over by an oligarchy of wizards and scheming elves. It's a bit stiff (understandable given the translation from Russian) and wonky in parts but surprisingly entertaining.
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Jun 13, 2017 12:54
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outlier posted:This is a good opportunity to recommend the not-terrible (but pretty odd) "The Last Ringbearer" by Kirill Eskov, which is what happens when a Russian evolutionary biologist reads Lord of the Rings and says, "huh, I just can't understand the economic system or geology of Middle Earth". It assumes that LotR is basically propaganda by the winners, Mordor is a nascent industrial society, the West are superstitious Luddites being lorded over by an oligarchy of wizards and scheming elves. I liked the concept but I got bogged down in the part where it turned into a crappy spy novel in Umbar, and never got through it. It's too bad the translation of The Black Book of Arda seems to have stalled.
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Jun 13, 2017 16:21
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My problem with The Last Ringbearer is that it went way too far in the other direction.
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Jun 13, 2017 16:24
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Lemniscate Blue posted:I liked the concept but I got bogged down in the part where it turned into a crappy spy novel in Umbar, and never got through it. That's fair comment: it does slow down about halfway through. Interesting about Arda. Looks like revisionist Tolkien is a genre in Russia.
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Jun 13, 2017 23:30
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Konstantin posted:He did order massive massacres of civilians and prisoners in French colonies and occupied territories, but that wasn't exactly unusual behavior for generals in the early 19th century. He inherited the administration of the French revolution and goons seem to love those massacres  Napoleon's generals and administrators had proven themselves in the revolutionary government, which was overthrown because it was a revolving door of would be leaders purging each other. Though as a Brit I don't think we really look on him as a bad guy more than any other historical figure. Beating him is just something we are smug about to the French. Strategic Tea has a new favorite as of 23:58 on Jun 13, 2017 |
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Jun 13, 2017 23:52
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Everyone in history was a literal piece of poo poo.
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Jun 13, 2017 23:54
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Jerry Cotton posted:Everyone in history was a literal piece of poo poo. So if evolution is real then why are there still pieces of poo poo 
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Jun 14, 2017 00:18
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Pastry of the Year posted:So if evolution is real then why are there still pieces of poo poo History in the making, duh!
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Jun 14, 2017 00:19
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Pastry of the Year posted:So if evolution is real then why are there still pieces of poo poo There wouldn't be if we just ate our own poo, like bunnies.
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Jun 14, 2017 00:58
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I once read one of those John Gardner James Bond continuation novels. I don't remember which one it was but it was pretty bad.
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Jun 14, 2017 01:01
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muscles like this! posted:My problem with The Last Ringbearer is that it went way too far in the other direction. Yeah uh, any approach to Tolkien from the direction of "actually I think you'll find evil is good" is guaranteed tomfoolery. The Last Ringbearer, Morlindale, Carey's book and other such have to mangle the text so hard to get it to suit their preconceptions that what's even the point. People who are trying to inject "shades of gray" into Tolkien's work are invariably missing the point of a story about how no one on earth is entirely good and all have been corrupted by pride and the will to power.
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Jun 14, 2017 01:59
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That might be his intention, but boy was he a product of his time.
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Jun 14, 2017 12:26
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skasion posted:Yeah uh, any approach to Tolkien from the direction of "actually I think you'll find evil is good" is guaranteed tomfoolery. The Last Ringbearer, Morlindale, Carey's book and other such have to mangle the text so hard to get it to suit their preconceptions that what's even the point. People who are trying to inject "shades of gray" into Tolkien's work are invariably missing the point of a story about how no one on earth is entirely good and all have been corrupted by pride and the will to power. You could almost say that they're all sinners who can only be redeemed through grace. Truly a universal message for all the world to accept.
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Jun 14, 2017 19:20
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