|
Inescapable Duck posted:I mean, just have a drat fantasy setting where they also invented computers and guns if you want them that badly. Or just do Fallout. I'm a huge sucker for lost colony stories, tbh, but as far as books go it's a pretty small genre. Courtship Rite is a lost colony book that I like but some of it probably belongs here. The thing is, it takes place on a barely-terraformed world with no animal life but small insects and native plant life that's mostly poison. The many-times descendants of the colonists have become dependant on the remnants of old genetic and artificial womb tech for a lot of their food production. War doesn't happen because the food supply is so tenuous that killing people for no reason and leaving them to rot is unthinkable. Yes, that means exactly what you think it does. There's a lot of casual cannibalism in this book.
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 15:07
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 17, 2024 18:07 |
|
|
Tiggum posted:Kind of the opposite, really. Like, it's the most interesting thing about the Shannara Chronicles (TV show anyway, I haven't read the books) and I wish they'd get into it more because it's just kind of there in the background. And there are so many generic fantasy settings that having something like that just makes it slightly less repetitive. The weird part is whenever I've seen illustrations of the books or the game or whatever, it's just regular fantasy. The trolls are just regular trolls in fantasy clothes, and not wearing the weird gas masks the show has. Seems like a missed opportunity. Also that group of elf-hating humans watching Star Trek, thinking it's real, and booing Spock was probably the best moment in the show.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 15:19
|
|
|
outlier posted:Thomas Covenant was huge in its day. I think a lot of it's allure was that the protagonist was so un-heroic (without being a an outright dick) and spent so much time trying to avoid his fate. I gave the rape in the opening chapter a pass because it was drawn as a horrible action done by a tormented man who was out of his mind who spent the rest of the series beating himself up for it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 16:09
|
|
|
That prince of thorns discussion made me think of the last third of a clockwork orange for some reason. Alex justifiably gets the poo poo kicked out of him even after his reconditioning. And he loving deserved it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 16:30
|
|
|
Arcsquad12 posted:That prince of thorns discussion made me think of the last third of a clockwork orange for some reason. Alex justifiably gets the poo poo kicked out of him even after his reconditioning. And he loving deserved it. Prince of Thorns is very deliberately trying to be a fantasy Clockwork Orange, it even riffs on the "chill winter bastard though dry" line and you can feel how pleased with himself the author is. Except Alex actually changes, whilst Jorg is the fixed point at the centre of the universe. The post apocalyptic stuff is genuinely nicely done though. Especially the demon in the wall that shouts at everyone "WARNING FOREIGN PRESENCE DETECTED. INITIATING TERMINATION SEQUENCE"
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 17:03
|
|
|
Sounds like contrived time travel incest à la Heinlein to me. Author digs incest but doesn't want his protagonist to come off creepy, so they make up a weird scheme where he's innocently loving his daughter.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 17:03
|
|
|
Foxhound posted:I can't say I've encountered it too much. I used to read a lot more than I do these days and read a whole lot of fantasy in my teens and the only series I can recall that does it is The Death Gate Cycle. I liked that series as a kid and am kind of scared to revisit it in case it was actually not that good and I'm just being nostalgic. Yyyeeah, it's probably for the best that you don't. I wouldn't say it's outright terrible and it does have a lot of cool ideas, but a lot of the writing and characterization is cringey as hell (particularly "funny" characters like the baby-talking dwarves or the crazy wizard.)
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 17:11
|
|
|
Straight White Shark posted:baby-talking dwarves Powaqoatse posted:Sounds like contrived time travel incest à la Heinlein to me. Author digs incest but doesn't want his protagonist to come off creepy, so they make up a weird scheme where he's innocently loving his daughter. Rather than derail with defending authors, let's get back to books we loath: Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein. It's well-known, and the back of the book describes it as 'A searing indictment of western culture'. Starts promising, with a guy being returned to earth after being raised all his life by Martian aliens; he knows nothing but the language but no social structure nor cues. Then it goes downhill. Everything we do is kinda poo poo and boring and 100x worse than the long-lived uberMartians, except for sex, since they don't have libidos, literally the only redeeming human virtue. So he opens up an actual cult based around having orgies with him as the head. Remenicant of other Heinlein works, every philosophical point the protagonist has is automatically correct since the author says it is (There must be a proper term for this!), and to prove it the protagonist uses his martian mind-powers on anyone who disagrees, showing how right he is. It's been a while, and I can't remember what a lot of his points where, but the book is hot trash with nothing to recommend it except its readable prose.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 17:27
|
|
|
Inescapable Duck posted:I mean, just have a drat fantasy setting where they also invented computers and guns if you want them that badly. Or just do Fallout. There's Hard to be a God where humanity discovers a planet resembles ours but is stuck in medieval times. So anthropologists travels to the planet to investigate why the civilization on that planet doesn't advance while trying not to gently caress it up with their advanced technology they fail miserably.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 18:08
|
|
|
Man it's kind of worrying how many books I've seen in this thread that have been recommended to me by otherwise cool and good friends. Prince of Thorns, Name of the Wind, and Ready Player One have all been thrown at me at one point or another. I never made it far enough into RPO to see all of the laughably bad poo poo as I'm just the opposite of the target audience for it. I'm too young to have nostalgic affinity for the 80s so the whole thing came off as "Hey remember thing you weren't conscious for?? It sure is important and cool!" which just was not a good hook. I did enjoy the first...two thirds? of Name of the Wind. It didn't seem too super cringy before he went to magic school and it had an interesting take on how magic works. But it's been so long I don't really remember a drat thing I read.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 19:07
|
|
|
Why is incest so prevalent in lovely genre works? I can maybe understand in Fantasy if you wanna argue "Nah man it's like reality dude, happened all the time in those royal families!" but it happens way too often for that argument to work, but it happens in sci-fi too. It's so loving weird, is it just creeps injecting their fetish into their works?
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 19:13
|
|
|
Inescapable Duck posted:Something about 'standard' fantasy lit has the protagonist tend to be the least likeable and sympathetic character in it besides maybe Lord Evil McRapeocaust and also lots of jarring sexual content. It's basically a long-form version of fanfiction in that way. I'm really loving sick of this lazy trend of calling everything fanfiction because just calling it lovely is too mainstream or something. Fanfiction didn't invent graphic sexual content or the concept of the anti-hero. And there's something especially tasteless about taking the worst tropes of a legitimate literary genre dominated by men, and pinning them on the dubiously legal subculture cooked up by women and gays so they could have some representation of their interest and desires. When straight men want to write stories about rapist heros it's not fanfiction; it's just novels.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 19:15
|
|
|
OldTennisCourt posted:It's so loving weird, is it just creeps injecting their fetish into their works?
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 19:33
|
|
|
there wolf posted:I'm really loving sick of this lazy trend of calling everything fanfiction because just calling it lovely is too mainstream or something. Fanfiction didn't invent graphic sexual content or the concept of the anti-hero. And there's something especially tasteless about taking the worst tropes of a legitimate literary genre dominated by men, and pinning them on the dubiously legal subculture cooked up by women and gays so they could have some representation of their interest and desires. When straight men want to write stories about rapist heros it's not fanfiction; it's just novels.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 19:37
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 19:40
|
|
|
nine inch nails(the band)
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 20:25
|
|
|
Great Metal Jesus posted:Man it's kind of worrying how many books I've seen in this thread that have been recommended to me by otherwise cool and good friends. Prince of Thorns, Name of the Wind, and Ready Player One have all been thrown at me at one point or another. Name of the Wind is fairly tolerable for long stretches. The sequel, Wise Man's Fear, is where poo poo starts getting really dire what with the sex ninjas and the Actual Sex Goddess.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 20:26
|
|
|
outlier posted:The second trilogy? Eh ... I actually like the first book of trilogy mk II most - the Land being thoroughly hosed up by the Sunbane was a much more interesting setting than generic-magic-fantasyland-horsies-etc. But then they all bogged off to sea and it got boring again.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 20:40
|
|
|
double post
there wolf has a new favorite as of 21:00 on Aug 10, 2017 |
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 20:54
|
|
|
Sham bam bamina! posted:Those tropes are amplified in fanfiction's complete absence of restraint, though, which is why people make the comparison in the first place. Idiot boys write just as much "dark", "badass" fanfiction as idiot men write "dark", "badass" fantasy doorstoppers. Believe it or not, some fanfiction isn't written by lesbians. Everyone has a capacity to write thinly veiled ego trips, terrible sexual manifestos, and adventures of an all-powerful edgelord. But historically, the idiot boys got access to publishers and had their work widely disseminated where it could go on the influence the genre. The doorstopper fantasy epic with terrible sexual politics that came out in 1977 is not like fanfiction, because fanfiction at that point was entirely confined to some gays passing around handmade zines. Please stop using "like fanfiction" as a way to just say "is lovely"; it's really lazy. I think Stranger in a Strange Land has some serious time-capsule value as a sample of what passed for progressive sexual politics back in the day. Like if someone tells you that the sexual revolution benefited men at the expense of women, just go read this book all about sexual liberation being a divine gift that will free us all where the two most significant women female characters literally become interchangeable at the end.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 21:00
|
|
|
Nobody who talks about fanfiction in 2017 is talking about fanfiction as it was 40 years ago, and they're making the comparison to say that the book is lovely in a specific way familiar to people on this website (nerds). There's no reason to turn this into a retroactive battle over civil rights, certainly not given the state that fanfiction has firmly settled into for at least the past 20 years.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 21:04
|
|
|
Sham bam bamina! posted:Nobody who talks about fanfiction in 2017 is talking about fanfiction as it was 40 years ago, and they're making the comparison to say that the book is lovely in a specific way familiar to people on this website (nerds). There's no reason to turn this into a retroactive battle over civil rights, certainly not given the state that fanfiction has firmly settled into for at least the past 20 years. Please stop using "like fanfiction" as a way to just say "is lovely"; it's really lazy.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 21:08
|
|
|
Nobody did that. (And if anything, it's less lazy to make a comparison than to use a simple adjective.)
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 21:10
|
|
|
there wolf posted:Please stop using "like fanfiction" as a way to just say "is lovely"; it's really lazy. This is by far the dumbest thing to derail this thread over, please stop.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 21:14
|
|
|
Like lovely fan fiction, this derail has gone on too long and the editor is handing back our first draft with a shitload of red ink
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 21:41
|
|
|
Serephina posted:Wow, I didn't feel like responding since I'm sure someone else would point it out, but the sex was totally consensual, with Tom ignorant of her parentage (he's been gone for what they feel is 30 years), but Elena knowing fully who her dad was but didn't bring it up. Tom was horrified when he later finds out iirc. The 'rape-as-a-whole-concept' thing was put in very early in the first book, to show Tom as an anti-hero when everyone in the world assumes he's Jesus mkII, and his difficulty handling their expectations with his self-loathing. It's super-jarring, but sexuality is really not brought up ever again of a trilogy so Donaldson get a pass.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 21:51
|
|
|
Sham bam bamina! posted:Those tropes are amplified in fanfiction's complete absence of restraint, though, which is why people make the comparison in the first place. Idiot boys write just as much "dark", "badass" fanfiction as idiot men write "dark", "badass" fantasy doorstoppers. Believe it or not, some fanfiction isn't written by lesbians. there wolf posted:Everyone has a capacity to write thinly veiled ego trips, terrible sexual manifestos, and adventures of an all-powerful edgelord. But historically, the idiot boys got access to publishers and had their work widely disseminated where it could go on the influence the genre. The doorstopper fantasy epic with terrible sexual politics that came out in 1977 is not like fanfiction, because fanfiction at that point was entirely confined to some gays passing around handmade zines. Please stop using "like fanfiction" as a way to just say "is lovely"; it's really lazy. you realize that 90% of the weird fetish books are written by women, right?
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 22:03
|
|
|
ThePlague-Daemon posted:The weird part is whenever I've seen illustrations of the books or the game or whatever, it's just regular fantasy. The trolls are just regular trolls in fantasy clothes, and not wearing the weird gas masks the show has. Seems like a missed opportunity. It is still a fantasy setting, even though it is in the future. Like the fantasy stuff isn't just misunderstood tech, it is literally magic. Brooks did a series where he bridged the gap between modern day and Shanarra and a big part of what changes the world is magic coming back.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 22:07
|
|
|
Cumslut1895 posted:you realize that 90% of the weird fetish books are written by women, right? Because sad middle-aged man found irresistible by vivacious teenager is considered totally normal.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 22:32
|
|
|
Maybe a lot of badly socialized creeps write genre fiction irrespective of their gender? There's as much room in the world for Daughter of the Blood and Kushiel's Dart as there is for Tarnsman of Gor and The Fifth Sorceress.
Sham bam bamina! has a new favorite as of 23:18 on Aug 10, 2017 |
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 23:02
|
|
|
Straight White Shark posted:Yyyeeah, it's probably for the best that you don't. I wouldn't say it's outright terrible and it does have a lot of cool ideas, but a lot of the writing and characterization is cringey as hell (particularly "funny" characters like the baby-talking dwarves or the crazy wizard.) Well I wasn't remembering much of those until you jogged my memory. The kicksey-winsey dwarves right? I liked how it threw some of the established tropes out the window and created 4(5) worlds that were all kind of different from each other, and especially the rock world with the necromancy was interesting. Also wasn't the wizard a crossover from Dragonlance? Also the first four books were translated to Swedish, which is what I read. I obviously can't comment on whether it improved the writing since I haven't read the originals. Wikipedia posted:Weis is a breast cancer survivor. She was diagnosed in 1993 and underwent successful chemotherapy. She kept herself busy writing The Seventh Gate during her treatment.[10] Foxhound has a new favorite as of 23:22 on Aug 10, 2017 |
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 23:16
|
|
|
Sham bam bamina! posted:Maybe a lot of badly socialized creeps write genre fiction irrespective of their gender? There's as much room in the world for Daughter of the Blood and Kushiel's Dart as there is for Tarnsman of Gor and The Fifth Sorceress. It's almost like quote:Everyone has a capacity to write thinly veiled ego trips, terrible sexual manifestos, and adventures of an all-powerful edgelord.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 23:36
|
|
|
I'm glad that this has brought us together.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2017 23:38
|
|
|
ThePlague-Daemon posted:The weird part is whenever I've seen illustrations of the books or the game or whatever, it's just regular fantasy. The trolls are just regular trolls in fantasy clothes, and not wearing the weird gas masks the show has. Seems like a missed opportunity. Serephina posted:The hell? I've read that series and that rings zero bells. Maybe the dwarves in the first book living in the big machine? The really weird part to me is that the entire tone of the book completely changes most of the way through with no warning. The entire first three quarters or so grapples with culture shock and the implications of Valentine's powers, like the morality of using his superpowers to erase criminals, and then bam there's a six-month timeskip with no leadup where they somehow discover that it actually somehow reincarnates the people he zaps, so they go around erasing all the bad guys and have sex parties and Valentine's totally acclimated with no effort. It's like he stapled a completely different book in and thought nobody would notice.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2017 00:03
|
|
|
Maybe Heinlein just got tired of leading up to "the good stuff" ( ) and simply skipped ahead to save himself the trouble. The thing's already like 700 pages as it is.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2017 00:06
|
|
|
Surprisingly, It's actually around 400. I remembered it being even shorter, but that might just have been in comparison to his other novels which are usually longer and much less readable. But in actual content, has anyone read Dan Simmons Hyperion series? I remembered loving it as a teen, and then made the mistake of rereading it. Raul Endymion isn't a strict Mary-Sue author insert, but instead the much more common type of insert that combines the authors aspirational vision of what a hero is with a presumed everyman outlook that's just the author's voice coming straight through.Three books building up the a resolution of great mystery, prophecy and the final conflict between mankind and the AI gods, all see from the viewpoint of an insecure boyfriend obsessing over what his girlfriend did on break. Should have let it all in the nostalgia pile.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2017 02:55
|
|
|
kvx687 posted:The really weird part to me is that the entire tone of the book completely changes most of the way through with no warning. The entire first three quarters or so grapples with culture shock and the implications of Valentine's powers, like the morality of using his superpowers to erase criminals, and then bam there's a six-month timeskip with no leadup where they somehow discover that it actually somehow reincarnates the people he zaps, so they go around erasing all the bad guys and have sex parties and Valentine's totally acclimated with no effort. It's like he stapled a completely different book in and thought nobody would notice. Yeah the abrupt shift from neat sci-fi and culture shock into weird old guy sex fantasy religious bullshit annoyed the poo poo out of me, and I was a goddamned teenager when I read it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2017 03:47
|
|
|
there wolf posted:Surprisingly, It's actually around 400. I remembered it being even shorter, but that might just have been in comparison to his other novels which are usually longer and much less readable. But enough about such well-trodden topics...
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2017 05:24
|
|
|
 The signature in the front of my copy posted:Dear Wendy,  Irregularities in punctuation and capitalization are scrupulously preserved from the original text. Despite what the cover says, the book is sadly not illustrated, although there are sets of maps at both the front and the back. The dedication posted:To my current feline furbabies - 24lb Maine Coon Kai, and 4 yo Bombay lookalike, Orion-who shaped a few characters in this book. The first two sentences, on page 9 because formatting is hard posted:Kutius walked up the road, tail drooping, shoulders hunched with anxiety. His backsack felt like it weighed a hundred octlos. 29 posted:He left the rest of his lunch uneaten. Children ran around the yard playing Shartball in small groups. 85 posted:"My grandmother intervened," Kutius sneered. "She had me reinstated. Such a nice-looking Gathering. To celebrate the new ship. Awwww, how nice, and you two cannot go along! Hahaha! How saaad." 92 posted:"I look good!" he exclaimed, blinking. "Grandmother is right! I hope females like my ice-blue eyes." 182 posted:Her voice strengthened, as she delved into her story, revealing every bit of her research, and the genetic engineering that created the Felakoons out between the stars from aborted zygotes belonging to an alien animal called a Maine Coon Cat! Another insidious silly name, Kutius thought.   Excerpts from the first sex scene of three, 93-94 posted:"You young scamps sure burn sooo hot!" she exclaimed, as he pushed his folo into her.  The second sex scene of three, 208-211 posted:"Will you come with me?" he asked. The sensation of a furnace-hot Pillisk ball stuck behind his sheath intensified.  Excerpts from the third sex scene of three, more or less identical to the second but shorter, 245 posted:"Kutius? What is . . .?" 
Sham bam bamina! has a new favorite as of 21:19 on Aug 11, 2017 |
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2017 05:25
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 17, 2024 18:07 |
|
|
PYF terrible book: His third chybut sack swelled Maybe it's because I'm tired and it's late, but I burst out laughing at that.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2017 05:36
|
|