|
Jedit posted:It's slightly jarring when the first book referred endlessly to tribadism. I assumed that was because lesbianism is named for Lesbos - although General B is welcome to correct me on that. pseudanonymous posted:I was/am still trying to get through it, and I'm confused by there being sodomites and tribadism. i figured these terms were used because they're archaic, and thus convey that Falcrest is hopped up to the gills on weird old Enlightenment-era pseudoscience you use a term that's different from the one you'd use, to convey that the people involved do not think of it the same way you do again its curious we get hung up on things like this specifically with the baru books a trope of Book Barn mythomoteur by this point i suppose quote:I don't know on the issue of using eponyms. It seems like calling some a quisling or a Benedict Arnold would take you out of the setting. But so many words actually come from things like that. as an american reader I don't think quisling would take me out of it, since the original context is pretty remote from me and i think of it as a general-use word before i think of the man or the history behind it whereas with Benedict Arnold the historical anecdote is closer to home, and thus the eponym more directly evokes it possibly (probably?) a norwegian reader would think the other way around navigating the use of appropriate idiom is why translators get paid, i suppose This whole issue reminds me of the time i watched the star trek episode Darmok with a philologist Them yelling "but all specificity in language is derived from layers of references, idiom, and syncretism, why is Starfleet's universal translator suddenly unable to deal with it in this case??" while i wonder whether we should have just watched The Inner Light again PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 13:56 on May 17, 2019 |
#
?
May 17, 2019 13:46
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 20:23 |
|
|
PupsOfWar posted:always been a little weird that the most frequent complaint goons have about the baru books is...vocabulary choice It’s really odd since another frequent complaint goons have about other books (Stephenson’s Anathem and Erikson’s Malazan in particular) is...made up vocabulary for words that exist in English.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 13:50
|
|
|
now you might think "The Best of Both Worlds is such a normie choice for best TNG episode, how boring" thats true, sure but The Best of Both Worlds has never caused me to have to restrain an enraged academic lest my furniture be damaged ulmont posted:It’s really odd since another frequent complaint goons have about other books (Stephenson’s Anathem and Erikson’s Malazan in particular) is...made up vocabulary for words that exist in English. im gonna write some heinrich boll assed Literary Fiction, then replace all of the nouns with the nonsense jargon from Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 14:02
|
|
|
ulmont posted:It’s really odd since another frequent complaint goons have about other books (Stephenson’s Anathem and Erikson’s Malazan in particular) is...made up vocabulary for words that exist in English. I think ultimately it's one of those questions with no right answer. Some readers will like a given replacement with a faux word, others will complain when you use an eponym that is out of the setting. You can't please everyone I guess.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 14:09
|
|
|
pseudanonymous posted:I think ultimately it's one of those questions with no right answer. Some readers will like a given replacement with a faux word, others will complain when you use an eponym that is out of the setting. You can't please everyone I guess. I think it also depends on how obscure the words in question are. Trudi Canavan has that awful habit of giving fictional names to common Earth animals. Fear the scuttling venomous eight-legged Faren! Marvel as nobles gallop by on their Reyna! Put down traps to catch the squeaking Ceryni as they leave their holes! That sort of thing is pointless and weird. On the other hand, if you have magical boxes which keep food cold and you call them "fridges" in your fantasy-renaissance setting, I'm going to be taken out of the moment, because a fridge is a very modern image to me.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 14:14
|
|
|
The_White_Crane posted:I think it also depends on how obscure the words in question are. What'd you think about Martin's "shadow cats and lizard lions"? I kind of liked that. Though it's a bit jarring when basically everything is a normal, normally named animal.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 14:19
|
|
|
ulmont posted:It’s really odd since another frequent complaint goons have about other books (Stephenson’s Anathem and Erikson’s Malazan in particular) is...made up vocabulary for words that exist in English. That'd only be odd if it were the same people. Even then, I think there's a difference between a plausible made-up fantasy word and one that seems like the author never tried to pronounce it out loud.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 14:25
|
|
|
pseudanonymous posted:What'd you think about Martin's "shadow cats and lizard lions"? I kind of liked that. Though it's a bit jarring when basically everything is a normal, normally named animal. I actually can't remember much of Game of Thrones in book form TBH; I haven't read them in over a decade. As a rule of thumb I have more sympathy for that sort of "descriptor-animal" formulation because it seems like a reasonably good way of giving readers a mental image of a creature without coining a word -- I mean, if you say "lizard lion" to me, I think of something quadrupedal, carnivorous, about the size of a lion, probably with a ruff around its neck (maybe frills?) occupying a similar ecological niche to a lion. On the other hand, if you just say "skissrith", then you have to explicitly tell me what it is because for all I know a skissrith is a big plankton-eating squid that your people farm for meat in giant manmade lakes.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 15:03
|
|
|
Brings to mind Brust's Jhereg cycle--some of those sound like Earth animals but generally if it has a fantasy made-up name, it isn't an Earth animal, according to him anyway. One of my mother's friends, another YA librarian, said she found it jarring when teenagers in a medieval-setting novel used words like "okay," which admittedly are incredibly modern but very much reflect the casual nature of teenaged dialogue. I had a friend who disliked the Marvel comic series 1602 because it wasn't written in "authentic" Shakespearean English, but rather an approximation that would be more accessible to modern comics readers. I maintained that the work wasn't bad just for being written in modern dialect intended to convey antiquated speech. In Baru, the terms 'tribade and sodomite' very much conveyed to me that Falcrest was hung up on very prudish and old-fashioned notions about sexuality while priding themselves on being sophisticated and "scientific." That was an aspect of real world science after all--trying to use statistics to measure "racial differences" and other poo poo summed up in The Mismeasure of Man. Basically, 'YMMV' on language use, especially in fantastic settings. I guess it matters more to me that sentences seem to 'flow' properly in a way that doesn't have any logical or rational basis.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 15:12
|
|
|
occamsnailfile posted:Brings to mind Brust's Jhereg cycle--some of those sound like Earth animals but generally if it has a fantasy made-up name, it isn't an Earth animal, according to him anyway. This kind of thing is more important than it might seem I think. 1602 actually does a pretty great job of managing it I think. Even Tolkien messes this up at least once -- he describes Gandalf's fireworks as "like an express train". Better fantasy authors are very careful about it though and it's something you don't notice unless they screw it up, so it's a subtle thing not every author picks up on -- one of the things that sets the professionals apart from the amateurs. I believe i read somewhere that L. Sprague de Camp actually had a style guide for the writers of Conan knock off novels, which even extended to things like appropriate and inappropriate verb tenses and the like. I can' begin to find the source now though.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 15:27
|
|
|
So I sat down and tried to read the first book of the Broken Empire trilogy again after putting it down halfway through in my previous attempt and I didn't even make it that far this time. Man, its just so gratuitously evil and disgusting and somehow it feels like I'm supposed to be rooting for Jorg? Maybe this is too harsh but it really feels like reading some terrible 'dark and gritty' fanfiction with an edgy cool character (leading a band of outlaws at 14?!) doing morally abhorrent things purely for the shock value. I sort of got the fanfiction vibes from Red Sister as well (loved the scifi/fantasy mix of the setting though) so its possible that I really just don't get on with Mark Lawrence's writing style, but I did enjoy what I read of 'The Red Queen's war' so I don't know. In principle I think I find the idea of a dark realistic take on fantasy appealing but a lot of people seem to hold Broken Empire as a gold standard of the genre so perhaps I'm fooling myself.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 15:32
|
|
|
Carrier posted:So I sat down and tried to read the first book of the Broken Empire trilogy again after putting it down halfway through in my previous attempt and I didn't even make it that far this time. Man, its just so gratuitously evil and disgusting and somehow it feels like I'm supposed to be rooting for Jorg? Maybe this is too harsh but it really feels like reading some terrible 'dark and gritty' fanfiction with an edgy cool character (leading a band of outlaws at 14?!) doing morally abhorrent things purely for the shock value. I read the whole trilogy after seeing it referred to as "grimdark" repeatedly, and wondering what that meant. Lawrence isn't able to sustain Jorg's amoral ruthlessness through the whole trilogy. He ends up doing things he regrets deeply. Jorg is the protagonist and intended to be sympathetic, I don't know if that means we're supposed to be rooting for him. I sympathize with your revulsion because a couple episodes of GoT turned my stomach (not the rape scenes but the burning children scenes)
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 15:40
|
|
|
Carrier posted:I sort of got the fanfiction vibes from Red Sister as well (loved the scifi/fantasy mix of the setting though) so its possible that I really just don't get on with Mark Lawrence's writing style, but I did enjoy what I read of 'The Red Queen's war' so I don't know. In principle I think I find the idea of a dark realistic take on fantasy appealing but a lot of people seem to hold Broken Empire as a gold standard of the genre so perhaps I'm fooling myself. I liked the red queen’s war much more than the broken empire trilogy. ...I think Ambercrombie is the better gold standard for the genre, with Erikson or Cook as other good options.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 16:03
|
|
|
The_White_Crane posted:I thought when I was reading it that it was the first book I'd read which was really "In the tradition of Ann Leckie." Personally I'd argue it owes as much to Cherryh, especially considering the similarity between Mahit's situation and Paidhi's. It's not surprising that Martine cites Cherryh in general and Foreigner specifically as a major influence (and I'm pretty sure the bowls of ornately decorated USB-stick-equivalents are a nod to that). OTOH the overall taste of her writing has more in common with Leckie's light and approachable style than Cherryh's often tense and claustrophobic one, and it may be a moot point anyways since Leckie also cites Cherryh in general and Foreigner in specific as major influences on her work. Which makes me happy, but I want to see more people taking inspiration from the Chanur books and Voyager in Night. We already have lots of Foreigner!
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 16:06
|
|
|
Carrier posted:So I sat down and tried to read the first book of the Broken Empire trilogy again after putting it down halfway through in my previous attempt and I didn't even make it that far this time. Man, its just so gratuitously evil and disgusting and somehow it feels like I'm supposed to be rooting for Jorg? Maybe this is too harsh but it really feels like reading some terrible 'dark and gritty' fanfiction with an edgy cool character (leading a band of outlaws at 14?!) doing morally abhorrent things purely for the shock value. FWIW I just read Prince of Thorns a month or so ago, and I had a similar experience, but liked the book a lot more once I passed the halfway point. I agree that Jorg is kind of a turd and it feels like he's supposed to be sympathetic, but that the author kind of flubs that early on. He gets better, and the book improves as you see more of the bizarre aspects of the world. And yeah, the book is a lot better if you just mentally add 2-4 years onto Jorg whenever it's mentioned because LOL at him being 14. I'm not necessarily advocating that you rush back and pick the book back up-- I ultimately enjoyed it, but the first half is definitely a bit of an eye-roll-y slog-- just wanted to say I felt a lot of the same things.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 16:55
|
|
|
PupsOfWar posted:i figured these terms were used because they're archaic, and thus convey that Falcrest is hopped up to the gills on weird old Enlightenment-era pseudoscience It seemed pretty clear to me when reading Baru that GB was deliberate with regards to word choice. I can say that with the words that were different or invented, it was always very clear to me what they meant from context and I think they helped convey the tone and feel of the society in which these words arose. In a book that reads as fantasy — especially as you get into a part of the book where there are more “fantasy” seeming elements than we’ve been confronted with previously — it would be harder to convey that it was literally uranium you’re talking by using another word because it could easily read as some kind of magic or spiritual power that the rock has when no, it’s literally uranium.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 17:05
|
|
|
NoneMoreNegative posted:The new Adrian Tchaikovsky dropped today, looked it up and oh no the first and only amazon review is two stars... Went and dropped a five star on this book because I loved it.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 17:26
|
|
|
Grimson posted:Went and dropped a five star on this book because I loved it. So you'd say it stands up to Children of Time?
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 17:42
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:Haha if you’re after ‘winning the Hugo’ comps it’s also a lot like Ancillary.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 17:56
|
|
|
It’s really hard to find any words that aren’t ultimately contingent on some historical event here on Earth. Sodomite/tribadist are the right choices because they’re slightly archaic, tinged with judgment (at least in sodomite’s case), and refer to physical acts. That captures Falcrest’s weird mix of religious taboo and reductionist pseudo-medical pseudoscience.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 18:17
|
|
|
sapphist is a cool one. I claim that for my fantasy stories.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 18:22
|
|
|
PlushCow posted:So you'd say it stands up to Children of Time? I just finished Children of Ruin and it absolutely stands up. Keeps all of the themes of the original but branches off into new, weird directions and never feels like a retread. Also, octopuses.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 18:25
|
|
|
I just received the Urthus Lexicon in the mail and it's a who's who of neat anachronistic words of this sort. Gene Wolfe's one neat trick for achieving temporal/cultural distance, critics hate it!
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 18:25
|
|
|
Ben Nerevarine posted:I just received the Urthus Lexicon in the mail and it's a who's who of neat anachronistic words of this sort. Gene Wolfe's one neat trick for achieving temporal/cultural distance, critics hate it! As in most things related to words and fantasy/sf, Wolfe does it best. The animal names in Fifth Head for example - "ghoul-bear" and "tire-tiger" and "feign-pheasant" and such.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 18:30
|
|
|
Zoracle Zed posted:I just finished Children of Ruin and it absolutely stands up. Keeps all of the themes of the original but branches off into new, weird directions and never feels like a retread. Also, octopuses. Octopodes, please.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 19:52
|
|
|
ToxicFrog posted:(and I'm pretty sure the bowls of ornately decorated USB-stick-equivalents are a nod to that).  I never thought of that!Administrator by C. J. Cherryh posted:"Nand Paidhi, a message stick for you."
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 21:06
|
|
|
Fallom posted:Octopodes, please. cram it, nerd edit: to make this less of a shitpost, the book's characters have different preferred plurals for octopus, which is a nice way of handling a stupid etymological debate Zoracle Zed fucked around with this message at 21:28 on May 17, 2019 |
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 21:20
|
|
|
The_White_Crane posted:Administrator by CJ Cherryh Poor Atevi are still stuck with 3G wireless. I'd also imagine they would be very unhappy with Windows edition numbering
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 21:36
|
|
|
PlushCow posted:So you'd say it stands up to Children of Time? Uhh, it's not quite as good, but I think it's a worthy successor. It's a pretty parallel story in a lot of ways but has a different alien intelligence at a different technological starting point with a dash (but just a dash) of body horror that wasn't really present in the first book.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 21:46
|
|
|
Grimson posted:Uhh, it's not quite as good, but I think it's a worthy successor. It's a pretty parallel story in a lot of ways but has a different alien intelligence at a different technological starting point with a dash (but just a dash) of body horror that wasn't really present in the first book. Do I need any kind of memory of the first book to enjoy the second? I'm terrible at remembering plot after a year or two.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 21:47
|
|
|
TheAardvark posted:Do I need any kind of memory of the first book to enjoy the second? I'm terrible at remembering plot after a year or two. In broad strokes is good, it kind of obliquely refers to the events of the first book, but I don't think a detailed memory is necessary.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 21:51
|
|
|
The_White_Crane posted:"Apologies Nand Paidhi, but USB 2 was deemed infelicitous." lmao, thank you for this
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 22:10
|
|
|
We’re going on an adventure!
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 23:31
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:I believe i read somewhere that L. Sprague de Camp actually had a style guide for the writers of Conan knock off novels, which even extended to things like appropriate and inappropriate verb tenses and the like. I can' begin to find the source now though. I'd kill to read this, but can find no reference to it. One of the fun parts of writing Sherlock Holmes pastiches is trying to write in not just Victorian English, but the particular style of Victorian English that Conan Doyle employed. I'd really like to see the equivalent for Robert Howard.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2019 02:01
|
|
|
Xotl posted:I'd kill to read this, but can find no reference to it. The closest I can find is this: Science fiction handbook by L Sprague De Camp
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2019 02:55
|
|
|
PupsOfWar posted:im gonna write some heinrich boll assed Literary Fiction, then replace all of the nouns with the nonsense jargon from Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson Thank you.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2019 03:44
|
|
|
Carrier posted:So I sat down and tried to read the first book of the Broken Empire trilogy again after putting it down halfway through in my previous attempt and I didn't even make it that far this time. Man, its just so gratuitously evil and disgusting and somehow it feels like I'm supposed to be rooting for Jorg? Maybe this is too harsh but it really feels like reading some terrible 'dark and gritty' fanfiction with an edgy cool character (leading a band of outlaws at 14?!) doing morally abhorrent things purely for the shock value. The first book is pretty poo poo due to exactly what you mentioned. 2nd and 3rd get better and less dark and edgy. I think it's a plot point that a wizard mind hosed him into being evil without his knowledge or something like that and once he realises that he lays off the gratuitous evilness. Still wouldn't recommend it, though Red Queens War was good. If you want dark realistic fantasy have you tried the first law trilogy? I'm not sure it's any more "realistic" than Broken Empire, but it manages to be dark without wallowing in it.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2019 12:26
|
|
|
Yeah I think I'll leave it for now, at some point maybe I'll force through the first book but theres so much other stuff to read so I doubt it. I haven't actually read First Law though I'm pretty sure I have The Blade Itself sat in my kindle library so maybe thats the next book I'll read. Thanks for the suggestion and I'm glad I'm not the only one that found it a bit much!
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2019 18:29
|
|
|
Those of you who like Children of Time and/or Children of Ruin, I strongly recommend Planet Lion, a short story by Catherynne Valente. It's a super ambitious animal uplift story that really goes for trying to describe an animalistic psychology.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2019 19:08
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 20:23 |
|
|
team overhead smash posted:The first book is pretty poo poo due to exactly what you mentioned. 2nd and 3rd get better and less dark and edgy. I think it's a plot point that a wizard mind hosed him into being evil without his knowledge or something like that and once he realises that he lays off the gratuitous evilness. Dark realistic fantasy is an oxymoron. Actual history is usually much darker than most fantasy. As for the First law, I tend to think of it as the literary version of an action comic with rather obvious stereotypes. However, it is an excellent read in that sense.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2019 19:36
|
|
