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Guy Goodbody posted:9 Princes in Amber and Wizard of Earthsea Hate to agree on something with Top Anime Freak, but yes, Ursula Le Guin's fantasy is good, as is her sci-fi stuff (perhaps the greatest author of the genre, tbh)
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Jul 22, 2017 23:25
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Guy Goodbody posted:Narnia is also really solid. It's a kid's series and obviously Christian as gently caress, but they're solid kid's books. Narnia blew my mind as a kid. It's probably one of the shockingly unexpectedly deep kids series next to Animorphs
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Jul 22, 2017 23:25
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Earthsea is good. Le Guin is always really political in all her writing, which I like, and the tight focus of the books compared to sprawling GoT is probably better from an artistic point of view. I still enjoyed GoT more. Silly pleb me, I guess. Narnia is a nice super dated Jesus allegory if you are into that kinda thing.
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Jul 22, 2017 23:26
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One of the things I appreciate about game of thrones that I think makes it stand out from alot of other fantasy works is that everything in it is a consequences of the characters actions. If somebody dies or betrays somebody or whatever it's always traceable back to some specific decision and thats really refreshing. The most tenuous thing I can think of is the white walkers attacking but even that sorta works because they imply that the white walkers are born from the children of crastor (and presumably other idiots beyond the wall). He gave them all his sons and each of them became a white walker allowing the army to grow and their influence to spread/raise more dead people. Crastor isn't one of the main characters in the books so his actions don't really count when I point out that everything is character's consequences, but he was allowed to continue what he did for so long because the night's watch made an exception for him. John knew when he first met Crastor that the night's watch should have killed him and burned his keep as a traitor, but they chose to let him continue and feed the white walkers strength because it was convenient for them to have a safe location beyond the wall. Which might be reading too far into it in this one circumstance but certainly I think the rest of the story is much more solidly 'character actions->consequences->plot' instead of just poo poo happening to them. Agent355 has a new favorite as of 23:32 on Jul 22, 2017 |
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Jul 22, 2017 23:26
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doverhog posted:Earthsea is good. Le Guin is always really political in all her writing, which I like, and the tight focus of the books compared to sprawling GoT is probably better from an artistic point of view. I still enjoyed GoT more. Silly pleb me, I guess. Lathe of Heavens is the best scifi novel, period, imo
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Jul 22, 2017 23:28
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steinrokkan posted:Lathe of Heavens is the best scifi novel, period, imo I'm trying really hard to pick a "best scifi novel" and failing so I'll name a really good one that was in contention instead. Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks.
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Jul 22, 2017 23:38
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Jastiger posted:As for GoT, the show is really well done, but honestly the books are far, far, far, far better. *Is GRRM* *Writes hundreds and hundreds of characters that don't matter to the plot and peppers them into every scene* *Spends pages and pages describing all the various foods at a dinner* *Has the most popular character go on a pointless quest to discover 'where whores go' which was a jokey one-off line from his rear end in a top hat father*
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Jul 22, 2017 23:42
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doverhog posted:I'm trying really hard to pick a "best scifi novel" and failing so I'll name a really good one that was in contention instead. Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks. Also: A Fire Upon The Deep.
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Jul 22, 2017 23:43
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steinrokkan posted:Also: A Fire Upon The Deep. this book is definitely worth reading
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Jul 22, 2017 23:44
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WampaLord posted:*Has the most popular character go on a pointless quest to discover 'where whores go' which was a jokey one-off line from his rear end in a top hat father*  you don't actually think he doesn't know that right? I mean like the book has problems but subtext...
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Jul 22, 2017 23:47
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I've read A Deepness in the Sky but not that one, gonna reserve it from the library now.
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Jul 22, 2017 23:47
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Agent355 posted:
I dunno, I definitely got the impression that it was both a mantra of madness and that also Tyrion desperately wanted to find out where Tysha went.
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Jul 22, 2017 23:54
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The books are definitely good reads if you're the kind of nerd that posts on forums, but ADWD definitely falls off a bit. Especially the Tyrion parts. Even the show shows it, Tyrion used to be a fan favourite but Dinklage has had gently caress all to do for the past dozen or more episodes, even his goofy accent is slipping. It's extra noticeable because Dinklage is one of the few established, really good actors left alive and the focus has shifted onto the talented-but-not-Charles-Dance younger stars.
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Jul 23, 2017 00:32
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Turtlicious posted:Being fat has a lot to do with hosed up brain chemistry and addiction, and should be treated as a disease, rather than something you "will" yourself out of. Ah, the "professional victim" philosophy. Tell that to the goons who lost all their excess weight in YLLS. EDIT: Are you British, by any chance?
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Jul 23, 2017 00:49
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I read a trilogy by LeGuin as a teenager, I can't remember the namr but it kind of turned me off of reading any more of her stuff, because all three books focused on like losing your virginity and reading and it made it all feel samey, and then I read the beginning of the latge of heaven and it went right into the sex stuff with his aunt and I was all ok I guess this is all ya got then and never finished it.
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Jul 23, 2017 01:49
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Agent355 posted:JK rowling put out another novel series, detectives I think, under a pen name and nobody bought it. It was critically panned and sold incredibly few units, then she came out and said 'it was I, dio, all along' and all of a sudden it was critically acclaimed and people bought it. Wikipedia posted:Before Rowling's identity as the book's author was revealed, 1,500 copies of the printed book had been sold since its release in April 2013, plus another 7,000 copies of the ebook, audiobook, and library editions. The book surged from 4,709th to the best-selling novel on Amazon after it was revealed on 14 July 2013 that the book was written by Rowling under the pseudonym "Robert Galbraith".
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Jul 23, 2017 03:57
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Tiggum posted:Sounds like it was doing pretty well and people liked it even before they knew who wrote it? You think 8500 copies is "doing well" for a book?
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Jul 23, 2017 04:01
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All books suck, so, yes? I'm assuming that's a big number.
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Jul 23, 2017 04:08
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It was almost 5,000th on a best seller list. It is not a good number. There are erotica books about people loving bears higher than 5,000th. 8,500 is not really absolute gutter trash but it is firmly in the 'nobody really gives a poo poo' section. Agent355 has a new favorite as of 04:13 on Jul 23, 2017 |
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Jul 23, 2017 04:10
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If it's a first time author why would anyone take notice of it unless there was crazy advertising? Sales figures lie anyway. "Marcel Proust was a Neuroscientist" was on the top 10 list and the writer turned out to be a self-plagiarizing hack.
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Jul 23, 2017 04:14
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I bought The Silkworm, one of those Robert Galbraith books , at a junkshop without knowing it was J.K Rowling. It was a decently written genre fiction book, but I can't imagine the series ever being a huge seller without the Harry Potter connection.
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Jul 23, 2017 04:56
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Book chat reminds me of another PHUO: I almost always prefer non-fiction to fiction. If I'm interested in a subject and like the author's style, I know I'll come away with something worthwhile from a non-fictional book. I can love everything about a fictional book- the subject, the characters, the writing style, the arcs and themes- and then the author can gently caress it up on the last loving page and I want to hurl the drat thing across the room. Or in a series, it starts to fall apart and I feel like I've wasted an investment. I've been burned enough that I only ever read classic poo poo anymore. And on that note, gently caress Charles Dickens. loving hack.
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Jul 23, 2017 05:07
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WampaLord posted:You think 8500 copies is "doing well" for a book? Yeah? From what I've read, anyway. Like, there are a tiny number of super successful authors who sells millions of copies, but for most authors that would be considered a success?
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Jul 23, 2017 05:23
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yeah I eat rear end posted:Unpopular opinion: they only put ed sheeran in that episode because they knew there was nothing else in it to keep people talking about the boring dead show that is the game of thrones. They've actually been trying to get him on as a cameo for years because Arya's actor is a big fan and they wanted to surprise her.
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Jul 23, 2017 08:34
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Fantasy fiction is bad. I think fantasy works best as short stories and role-playing games, not as novels. Novels are too long and self-indulgent for fantasy. Short stories make you tell a tighter story: get in, make your point, get out. Robert E. Howard's The Tower of the Elephant is legit better than any fantasy novel. If it was adapted to a novel it'd be a bunch of bullshit for hundreds of pages. But as a short story it is tight and coherent and exciting and fast-paced and evocative. As for rpgs, those are all about players creating their own experiences so theyre less about one author enjoying the sound of their own voice for 300 pages. Clark Ashton Smith's The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan or The Tale of Satampra Zeiros are both better than Game of Thrones and Harry Potter combined.
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Jul 23, 2017 16:05
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in many cases, kink-shaming is actually good. Some kinks are absolutely shameful as hell
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Jul 23, 2017 16:17
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Guy Goodbody posted:in many cases, kink-shaming is actually good. Some kinks are absolutely shameful as hell my kink is kinkshaming others
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Jul 23, 2017 16:22
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PYF Kinkshame
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Jul 23, 2017 16:41
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Guy Goodbody posted:in many cases, kink-shaming is actually good. Some kinks are absolutely shameful as hell such as anime
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Jul 23, 2017 16:45
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Tiggum posted:Yeah? From what I've read, anyway. Like, there are a tiny number of super successful authors who sells millions of copies, but for most authors that would be considered a success? I mean, for like a first time author i would be pretty stoked about it but on a national scale with any sort of promotion that's pretty awful
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Jul 23, 2017 16:47
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Brits are at least as dumb as Americans
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Jul 23, 2017 16:49
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Tolkien rules and if you don't like his work it's because you don't "get" it. Reading LotR is like reading a medieval chanson de geste more than it is like reading a novel.
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Jul 23, 2017 19:21
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hawowanlawow posted:Brits are at least as dumb as Americans True but theyre less fat. Australians are equally fat but less dumb. Or so it seems to me, i could be wrong.
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Jul 23, 2017 23:49
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Blue Star posted:True but theyre less fat. Australians are equally fat but less dumb. Or so it seems to me, i could be wrong. Straya is definitely the dumbest of anglo countries.
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Jul 24, 2017 00:17
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Tolkien rules and if you don't like his work it's because you don't "get" it. Reading LotR is like reading a medieval chanson de geste more than it is like reading a novel. I have an English degree and professional writer parents and this is still one of the douchiest sentences I have ever seen. Also incredibly wrong, it has interesting world building and language work, saddled under a slog worse than Dickens. And that motherfucker got paid by the word.
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Jul 24, 2017 00:51
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Aesop Poprock posted:I mean, for like a first time author i would be pretty stoked about it but on a national scale with any sort of promotion that's pretty awful But don't you have to judge it by the standard of a first-time author since no one knew it was her?
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Jul 24, 2017 03:28
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Bamabalacha posted:I have an English degree and professional writer parents and this is still one of the douchiest sentences I have ever seen. an english degree, holy poo poo
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Jul 24, 2017 03:32
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Aesop Poprock posted:I mean, for like a first time author i would be pretty stoked about it but on a national scale with any sort of promotion that's pretty awful How was it marketed and promoted?
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Jul 24, 2017 03:38
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Chris Nolan needs to dump Hans Zimmer. Interstellar, Dunkirk, and Inception have obnoxiously loud music blaring all the loving time telling you how you're supposed to feel just in case you're too dumb to understand what's happening on the screen. Just shut the gently caress up or quiet down the music for a bit and let me listen to the sound of boats exploding in peace.
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Jul 24, 2017 04:55
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fruit on the bottom posted:How was it marketed and promoted? Well I was a manager at Barnes and noble at the time and it had a shelf feature so it wasn't like a locally sold thing
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Jul 24, 2017 06:14
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