Bonfire of the Genres: Critical Looks Sci-Fi and Fantasy

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > The Goodmine > Bonfire of the Genres: Critical Looks Sci-Fi and Fantasy

«‹›150 »

my bony fealty: Oct 1, 2008

ShinsoBEAM! posted:

I don't really like Thomas Covenant series at all, but wasn't the entire point of it was to take a giant poo poo on the fantasy genre and have the protagonist be a huge unlikable rapist/rear end in a top hat/insert bad thing here.

Ah yes, a remarkably original idea to have the protagonist be the opposite of a hero...an "anti-hero" if you will

# ? Jan 6, 2019 21:18

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 3, 2024 13:40

anilEhilated: Feb 17, 2014; But I say fuck the rain.; Grimey Drawer

ShinsoBEAM! posted:

It's almost like this is why most even genre fans don't like these books. Just the people who like them tend to be more vocal than the crowd who doesn't.

Obviously, but the point is that trying to "take a giant poo poo on the fantasy genre" does in no way constitute a valid excuse.

# ? Jan 6, 2019 22:04

avshalemon: Jun 28, 2018

there is no way donaldson wrote the covenant books ironically, they're just too overwrought to be anything but sincere. he just made that up when people started saying mean things about him

# ? Jan 7, 2019 00:09

TheGreatEvilKing: Mar 28, 2016

ShinsoBEAM! posted:

I don't really like Thomas Covenant series at all, but wasn't the entire point of it was to take a giant poo poo on the fantasy genre and have the protagonist be a huge unlikable rapist/rear end in a top hat/insert bad thing here.

Nope

Donaldson Interview posted:

SFFWRTCHT: Where did the idea for Thomas Covenant the leper/Halfhand hero come from?

SRD: I�ve told this story so often that I can�t bear to repeat it in detail. The short version: I had conceived the ambition to write a fantasy novel about a �real� character who rejected the fantasy experience (no doubt partly in an attempt to answer my own questions about why fantasy matters); and it occurred to me one day that if I wanted my character to have any true substance, he would have to be someone with very personal reasons to prefer fantasy (a leper, in this case)-someone for whom integrity is more important than convenience or easy gratification. And, of course, integrity is a journey. We don�t simply have it. First, we have to discover it. Then we have to earn it.

SFFWRTCHT: You made a tough choice with Covenant early in Lord Foul�s Bane where he rapes a young girl. A lot of readers have struggled to overcome that. I think Covenant�s redemption journey is pretty amazing, despite his flaws. But why take such a risk with your hero? As I recall, he was one of my first encounters with an antihero archetype.

SRD: First I have to say that I never thought of Thomas Covenant as an �antihero.� To my way of thinking, he�s an unformed hero, a hero-in-the-making (the journey of integrity). The formation process isn�t always pretty. Maybe it�s never pretty. But the themes are different than those that adhere to the antihero.

Second, I like to observe that there are really only three character archetypes: victim, victimizer (antihero), and rescuer (hero). And since the essence of a good story is that people change (without which there can be no real drama or suspense), it follows naturally that in a good story the archetypes all assume each other�s roles. Well, Covenant begins the story as an unalloyed victim; and I knew that if I wanted him to be taken seriously-as either a potential surrogate or a potential opponent for the Despiser-I had to get him out of his starting role. But recasting him directly as a rescuer seemed entirely unconvincing to me: in my experience, victims are much more likely to become victimizers. To my mind, the rape of Lena was a necessary step along the road of Covenant�s formation; I wrote it without hesitation; and I stand by it.

I believe this trilogy of victim/victimizer/rescuer is also stated as the inspiration for the first book of the Gap series with the rape spaceship mind control and then they all trade places (before it became Wagner IN SPACE).

Bonus Donaldson quote:

Donaldson posted:

�I encounter quite a bit of knee-jerk intellectual prejudice against the kind of work I do because it�s perceived as being popular and commercially successful. Therefore, it cannot have merit

�I learned by studying Conrad and Faulkner and Henry James, but the same people who admire them automatically brush me aside simply because the subject matter that my imagination offers me to work with.�

Also, per this Washington Post article is to be believed, Lord Foul's Bane actually brought fantasy back into public consciousness, along with Sword of Shannara (which is merely bland derivative trash). Someone else can do Shannara if they really want to but my perception is that even diehard genre fans consider Shannara bland derivative trash.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 00:22

poisonpill: Nov 8, 2009; The only way to get huge fast is to insult a passing witch and hope she curses you with Beast-strength.

That�s a LOT of pseudo-intellectual nonsense to justify a strained choice. Yes, a classic staple of literature is CLEARLY that all characters are always rapists, rape victims, or rescuers of others from rape? He says protagonists must have an arc, and the best arc he has (so good he used it over and over) was from rapist to... repentant rapist? He focuses over and over on the shame or anguish that his protagonists feel, the Covenant character cries after committing his crime. And yet the author also constructs these elaborate fantasies that justify or mitigate the severity of the crimes. There are mind control chips that the victim ultimately begins to enjoy and use personally, or some stupid magic, or any other �9,000 year old demon� fake justification. I�m not going to speculate on the psychology of a (living) author, but all of this guy�s works strangely coincide with the exact same types of normalization works that abusers and real rapists actually use to desensitize victims and the vulnerable into normalizing their aberrant behaviors.
:smugdon:

Also even without that this is the kind of stupid power fantasy people would be making fun of if it were internet fanfic, complete with the all-powerful hero that can wipe out an army with a wave of his hand but also doesn�t because he�s toopowerful, and he�s afraid of his own :tinsley:

# ? Jan 7, 2019 17:39

Lex Neville: Apr 15, 2009

"victimizer = anti-hero" (or the other way around) speaks volumes in its own right

# ? Jan 7, 2019 18:04

Jaxyon: Mar 7, 2016; I’m just saying I would like to see a man beat a woman in a cage. Just to be sure.

He also wrote a different series about someone falling into a fantasy world that I actually did get through when I was a kid, and it had mirrors and a woman with low self esteem, and it also had rape.

I'm thinking that maybe Donaldson may not be a good person.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 20:11

porfiria: Dec 10, 2008; by Modern Video Games

I don't get why, if the conceit is that the protagonist thinks he's in a fantasy so he can do whatever he wants, the go-to mortal crime is rape and not, you know, murder.

Actually, nevermind, I do get why.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 21:11

avshalemon: Jun 28, 2018

TheGreatEvilKing posted:

Also, per this Washington Post article is to be believed, Lord Foul's Bane actually brought fantasy back into public consciousness, along with Sword of Shannara (which is merely bland derivative trash).

yeah donaldson was a great choice for this thread, the books are woeful but apparently they were a big deal back when they were first published (which i think was late 70s, early 80s?) and are one of the sff things that pretty much everyone i've spoken to over the age of 30 has read or is at least familiar with. obviously i am in australia which is a peri-apocalyptic hellscape populated by criminal slimes, but donaldson's always been held on the same tier as lotr and dune by the ageing nerds i talked to, which he does not deserve at all

# ? Jan 7, 2019 21:34

my bony fealty: Oct 1, 2008

quote:

Everyone stared up at the fires and the thunderheads.

For some reason this particular line sticks out as especially atrocious. It just feels so...amateur.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 21:58

Wheat Loaf: Feb 13, 2012; by FactsAreUseless

my bony fealty posted:

For some reason this particular line sticks out as especially atrocious. It just feels so...amateur.

Maybe it's the "the" before "thunderheads"?

# ? Jan 7, 2019 22:54

porfiria: Dec 10, 2008; by Modern Video Games

I'd never really thought about it but "everyone" is a weak, kind of informal feeling word. "Stared" is the wrong verb for what's being described. Not sure what the parallel construction of the fires and the thunderheads is accomplishing, yeah.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 23:12

Lex Neville: Apr 15, 2009

There's a whole bunch of phrases there where his intended eloquence misses the mark - or he just plainly doesn't actually know how to word what he hopes to convey. I picked a few of them out but didn't end up posting them because it felt nitpicky, but here's some anyway:

quote:

A real man - real in all the ways that we recognize as real -

As opposed to real in the all the not-real ways? Surely, he meant "real in all the ways in which real is recognized", or some such.

quote:

Power seemed to explode in Covenant's chest.

"His chest seemed to explode with power"? If not, how does an abstract notion like power seem to explode?

quote:

With a roar as if the air itself were burning

This is plain terrible, but it's made worse by the incongruity between a roar being instantaneous and burning being a lasting phenomenon. "Were set ablaze" would alleviate that a bit, but you'd still be left with the completely unimaginative burning air.

quote:

The old man was tall with power.

This one might make sense in the book, but as someone who hasn't read it, it's comical to me.

quote:

�All this I will give you,� he said, �if you will bow down and worship me."

Double "will" in a conditional phrase is just clumsy.

Anyway, yeah, nitpicky, but grating nonetheless.

Lex Neville fucked around with this message at 23:41 on Jan 7, 2019

# ? Jan 7, 2019 23:33

EmptyVessel: Oct 30, 2012

avshalemon posted:

yeah donaldson was a great choice for this thread, the books are woeful but apparently they were a big deal back when they were first published (which i think was late 70s, early 80s?) and are one of the sff things that pretty much everyone i've spoken to over the age of 30 has read or is at least familiar with. obviously i am in australia which is a peri-apocalyptic hellscape populated by criminal slimes, but donaldson's always been held on the same tier as lotr and dune by the ageing nerds i talked to, which he does not deserve at all

Late 70s is when I picked up the first three books (75% off cos the bookshop was closing down so seemed a bargain to high school me :corsair:

). There wasn't that much competition for "new" fantasy stuff back then (John Norman anyone?) though I never stooped as low as Swords of Shannara. Got rid of them a few years later, no regrets.

# ? Jan 7, 2019 23:49

poisonpill: Nov 8, 2009; The only way to get huge fast is to insult a passing witch and hope she curses you with Beast-strength.

EmptyVessel posted:

Late 70s is when I picked up the first three books (75% off cos the bookshop was closing down so seemed a bargain to high school me ). There wasn't that much competition for "new" fantasy stuff back then (John Norman anyone?) though I never stooped as low as Swords of Shannara. Got rid of them a few years later, no regrets.

If you sold them to a secondhand bookshop then you went from victim to victimizer

# ? Jan 7, 2019 23:54

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

avshalemon posted:

yeah donaldson was a great choice for this thread, the books are woeful but apparently they were a big deal back when they were first published (which i think was late 70s, early 80s?) and are one of the sff things that pretty much everyone i've spoken to over the age of 30 has read or is at least familiar with. obviously i am in australia which is a peri-apocalyptic hellscape populated by criminal slimes, but donaldson's always been held on the same tier as lotr and dune by the ageing nerds i talked to, which he does not deserve at all

This will date me in a very specific way, but I remember seeing the Thomas Covenant books recommended by Inquest (InQuest? whatever) magazine as important fantasy novels to read, alongside LotR and Wheel of Time (and Dune on the SF side), back when I was a kid reading CCG magazines. These things were definitely mainstream American nerd lore as late as the '90s.

# ? Jan 8, 2019 00:17

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
plz notice me trunk-senpai

Can every idiot fucker mod in this incredibly stupid forum please stop banning the best posters???? JESUS!

# ? Jan 8, 2019 01:04

hackbunny: Jul 22, 2007; I haven't been on SA for years but the person who gave me my previous av as a joke felt guilty for doing so and decided to get me a non-shitty av

I don't even find BotL controversial. He has high standards for books and movies and the discourse around them and he wants us to have higher standards too, and it's bullshit that it should be considered trolling

e: I didn't need his posts to realize that most of what's discussed (and how it's discussed) in TBB or CD is artless and unappealing, but now I can almost articulate why. Between this thread and the literature thread, I feel I've grown a lot as a reader in a short time: I'm no longer alienated from literature, and I don't need to torture myself with dull non-fiction as I used to (no joke, I once read the official catalogue of the Dublin international exhibition of 1865, cover-to-cover, all 400-odd pages of it)

hackbunny fucked around with this message at 01:25 on Jan 8, 2019

# ? Jan 8, 2019 01:09

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
plz notice me trunk-senpai

hackbunny posted:

I don't even find BotL controversial. He has high standards for books and movies and the discourse around them and he wants us to have higher standards too, and it's bullshit that it should be considered trolling

It's insane. It wouldn't be a problem if the mods didn't enforce bans over people posting angry things at him.

# ? Jan 8, 2019 01:10

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
plz notice me trunk-senpai

Like just because an against the grain posting style provokes an army of clueless dweebs to write "uhhh arrogant much?" doesn't mean you solve the problem by siding with the dweebs.

# ? Jan 8, 2019 01:11

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
plz notice me trunk-senpai

Please contribute to my "unban bravestoflamps" campaign.

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3879112

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Jan 8, 2019 01:19

my bony fealty: Oct 1, 2008

BotL getting another monther for arguing about the comic movie is funny tho, the level of pissed-offness in that thread rules

porfiria posted:

I'd never really thought about it but "everyone" is a weak, kind of informal feeling word. "Stared" is the wrong verb for what's being described. Not sure what the parallel construction of the fires and the thunderheads is accomplishing, yeah.

Yeah. There's so many ways that passage could have been written without using bland words like "everyone," it just feels low effort. Everyone in context like that is a word you expect to see in a middle schooler's fanfics, not a fantasy book ostensibly written for adults. All the rape means it's for adults, right?

# ? Jan 8, 2019 01:24

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
plz notice me trunk-senpai

my bony fealty posted:

BotL getting another monther for arguing about the comic movie is funny tho, the level of pissed-offness in that thread rules

The idiots getting mad at him are funny, those idiots getting backed by a mod is not.

# ? Jan 8, 2019 01:25

porfiria: Dec 10, 2008; by Modern Video Games

Amethyst posted:

The idiots getting mad at him are funny, those idiots getting backed by a mod is not.

The idiots getting mad at the idiots are hilarious, however.

# ? Jan 8, 2019 01:29

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
plz notice me trunk-senpai

hackbunny posted:

(no joke, I once read the official catalogue of the Dublin international exhibition of 1865, cover-to-cover, all 400-odd pages of it)

lol that's cool.

# ? Jan 8, 2019 01:29

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
plz notice me trunk-senpai

porfiria posted:

The idiots getting mad at the idiots are hilarious, however.

I wouldn't be mad if a mod wasn't banning good posters for bad reasons.

# ? Jan 8, 2019 01:32

porfiria: Dec 10, 2008; by Modern Video Games

Amethyst posted:

I wouldn't be mad if a mod wasn't banning good posters for bad reasons.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

# ? Jan 8, 2019 01:44

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
plz notice me trunk-senpai

porfiria posted:

Be the change you want to see in the world.

I am trying. Please contribute to my qcs thread.

# ? Jan 8, 2019 01:48

Jaxyon: Mar 7, 2016; I’m just saying I would like to see a man beat a woman in a cage. Just to be sure.

I just read the most recent probe for BotL and it's pretty well deserved

# ? Jan 8, 2019 02:37

poisonpill: Nov 8, 2009; The only way to get huge fast is to insult a passing witch and hope she curses you with Beast-strength.

Jaxyon posted:

I just read the most recent probe for BotL and it's pretty well deserved

I agree with his points but they�re always delivered in the most obnoxious, self-satisfied possible way. He�s the Bill Maher of the forums

# ? Jan 8, 2019 02:39

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
plz notice me trunk-senpai

Jaxyon posted:

I just read the most recent probe for BotL and it's pretty well deserved

Why?

# ? Jan 8, 2019 02:40

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
plz notice me trunk-senpai

poisonpill posted:

I agree with his points but they�re always delivered in the most obnoxious, self-satisfied possible way. He�s the Bill Maher of the forums

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when I read posts like this. How is his style obnoxious in a forum where snippy little posts like this one:

nine-gear crow posted:

No one cares. Did you listen to to the Christmas album?

From a moderator, in response to a detailed critical post from BoTL, is the norm?

# ? Jan 8, 2019 02:43

Jaxyon: Mar 7, 2016; I’m just saying I would like to see a man beat a woman in a cage. Just to be sure.

Amethyst posted:

Why?

It is a mystery, perhaps someday you may understand. I suggest you read copious amounts of genre fic until you attain enlightenment.

# ? Jan 8, 2019 02:44

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
plz notice me trunk-senpai

Jaxyon posted:

It is a mystery, perhaps someday you may understand. I suggest you read copious amounts of genre fic until you attain enlightenment.

Gahahahahah! LOL!

# ? Jan 8, 2019 02:44

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
plz notice me trunk-senpai

God drat, I'm glad BOTL is banned so I can enjoy funny posts like that one in peace.

# ? Jan 8, 2019 02:44

porfiria: Dec 10, 2008; by Modern Video Games

Ummmmm, anyway, how do we feel about Neuromancer? I read it a long time ago and while it's certainly prescient in many ways I also remember the story being dull and the characters being rather thin?

Thoughts?!

Edit: The opening sentence is an all-timer though!

# ? Jan 8, 2019 03:03

poisonpill: Nov 8, 2009; The only way to get huge fast is to insult a passing witch and hope she curses you with Beast-strength.

Love it. It definitely smacks some of being a �first novel� but it�s wild

# ? Jan 8, 2019 03:06

hackbunny: Jul 22, 2007; I haven't been on SA for years but the person who gave me my previous av as a joke felt guilty for doing so and decided to get me a non-shitty av

Amethyst posted:

lol that's cool.

The most memorable part was an article about an Italian school for the blind that (I think?) exhibited the creations of their pupils. The school not only gave blind children an education, but also helped them find employment: girls were trained as seamstresses, boys as church organ tuners (you gotta admit a blind organ tuner - eyes milky white, ancient, a relic from before the great wars - is an amazing mental image)

Then there's bizarre details. For example, for most exhibitors it lists not only the price of their wares, but the daily pay of the employees as well. I don't understand why it merited inclusion (reminds me of how newspapers used to include the full name and address of all people that were mentioned in articles) and the figures are meaningless as I never found an inflation calculator that could be set to 1865, but it was interesting to see how ridiculously underpaid women were - even less than underage boys, and like half the pay of men

# ? Jan 8, 2019 04:14

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
plz notice me trunk-senpai

Now I want to read it

# ? Jan 8, 2019 04:25

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 3, 2024 13:40

A human heart: Oct 10, 2012

porfiria posted:

Ummmmm, anyway, how do we feel about Neuromancer? I read it a long time ago and while it's certainly prescient in many ways I also remember the story being dull and the characters being rather thin?

Thoughts?!

Edit: The opening sentence is an all-timer though!

check this out: it's bad, and the opening sentence is an all time clunker. phew!

# ? Jan 8, 2019 05:51

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > The Goodmine > Bonfire of the Genres: Critical Looks Sci-Fi and Fantasy

«‹›150 »