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nankeen posted:fantasy, science fiction, horror, magical realism, "young adult", all of these terms are just insulting and unnecessary attempts to define the indefinable, and from now on i will make it my mission that if i hear any man invoke these terms, i will slay him Death to the author
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Jun 1, 2019 12:56
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nankeen posted:fantasy, science fiction, horror, magical realism, "young adult", all of these terms are just insulting and unnecessary attempts to define the indefinable, and from now on i will make it my mission that if i hear any man invoke these terms, i will slay him Fantasy! Science Fiction! Horror! Magical Realism! Young Adult! By your powers combined I am Captain Genre!
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Jun 1, 2019 16:30
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I'm reading the old thread in its entirety for fun and I'm actually learning a lot. For instance, I read The Way of Kings a few years ago and enjoyed it for the most part. The aspects I didn't like were: weird eyebrow people, major characters having similar names (I know Gavilar, Kalladin and Dalinar are characters but gently caress me if I remember who is who), the ~magic system~ and spren poo poo, and a few others. I did genuinely like how different it seemed from other "fantasy" literature in a lot of aspects, though. The setting reminded me of Morrowind to an extent because things were just different somewhat. Thing is, I've since learned that there's very little original in WOK other than the particulars of the worldbuilding. And I've since learned the flaws of autist-level worldbuilding as represented in WOK. Now I no longer feel compelled to read the rest of the series because I am certain Sanderson isn't going to make up for all the schlock with more battles involving the use of dozens of ladders to scale massive chasms on the battlefield (seriously, it's the only element I can recall two years later that I enjoyed as unique, and even the purpose for the chasm-battlefield is contrived). As an aspiring writer, the advice I see most often is Always Be Reading. However, I almost feel like if I want to write SF/F (god help me), I should mostly ignore the genre and read other poo poo. It seems like so much of fantasy lit is aping people who were aping Tolkien, and I, fortunately, have read very little SFF to date (which is probably why WOK seemed different to me). I feel like if I read a bunch of SFF just so I could say that I've "read the genre," the tropes and crutches of other authors like Sanderson et al will poison the well, so to speak. Is that fair?
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Jun 1, 2019 20:55
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If you have this distaste for cliché in the first place, I don't think that you have to worry about your imagination being polluted like that. Read what you want to. Write what you want to. I think that you're more likely to discard bad ideas (after finding out that you've reinvented the wheel) than to pick them up.
Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Jun 1, 2019 |
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Jun 1, 2019 21:07
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Disillusionist posted:I'm reading the old thread in its entirety for fun and I'm actually learning a lot. For instance, I read The Way of Kings a few years ago and enjoyed it for the most part. The aspects I didn't like were: weird eyebrow people, major characters having similar names (I know Gavilar, Kalladin and Dalinar are characters but gently caress me if I remember who is who), the ~magic system~ and spren poo poo, and a few others. I did genuinely like how different it seemed from other "fantasy" literature in a lot of aspects, though. The setting reminded me of Morrowind to an extent because things were just different somewhat. I would definitely say read at least some non-genre fiction even if you want to write genre fiction. There are also better and worse bad writers. I'd say Sanderson is pretty far down the bad writer path. Personally, I'd recommend Leguin, Abercrombie, Martin, Gaiman, Pratchett and Mieville. If you like sci-fi then Watts, Hamilton, Reynolds, Robinson, Banks, Simmons, Gibson and Stross are the ones I'd say are the better half of genre fiction, though none of them are flawless.
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Jun 1, 2019 21:27
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Eugene V. Dubstep posted:Just what the Book Barn was missing: a thread for video games. technically it's a visual novel
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Jun 2, 2019 03:36
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pseudanonymous posted:I would definitely say read at least some non-genre fiction even if you want to write genre fiction. There are also better and worse bad writers. I'd say Sanderson is pretty far down the bad writer path. How can you recommend leGuin for fantasy and not for scifi? All of her best novels are scifi novels. Also, half the writers you just quoted are garbo af. The answer to all your SFF woes is to just read leGuin. She's probably the best SFF writer that there ever was.
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Jun 2, 2019 03:52
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Pacho posted:I understand "show, don't tell" from a scriptwriting perspective, but from a literary perspective it doesn't really make that much sense because everything is "tell" unless we are talking about a writter being overly descriptive or lacking nuance which seems like generic bad writer problems. Also, I think extracting emotional labour from the reader is kinda the point of literature, isn't it? 
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Jun 2, 2019 19:01
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Alright thread, since the best part of the previous Bonfire were the reviews, I've decided to take a stab at one. I have a decent TBR pile of cheap ebooks I've logged on Kindle over the past few years and I'm sure some of them are awful. Pick one of the following and I'll read it and give my review: Fantasy: A Promise of Fire - Amanda Bouchet Duskfall - Christopher Husberg All the Birds in the Sky - Charlie Jane Anders Twelve Kings in Sharakhai - Bradley P. Beaulieu Science Fiction: Revenger - Alastair Reynolds Revelation Space - Alastair Reynolds Too Like the Lightning - Ada Palmer Eon - Greg Bear Aurora - Kim Stanley Robinson Some of these might not be that bad compared to some of the other junk in the previous thread, so if there's a book or author on here you know is crap feel free to make me read them for your own amusement.
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Jun 2, 2019 21:05
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Disillusionist posted:Some of these might not be that bad compared to some of the other junk in the previous thread, so if there's a book or author on here you know is crap feel free to make me read them for your own amusement.  Americans and  Soviets have to use their Expensive Machines to figure out a very complicated Space Thing. I ate Rendezvous with Rama up when I was a teenager but bounced right off this one.
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Jun 2, 2019 23:40
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The only Greg Bear I've ever read was Blood Music, which was a pretty serious trip for my twelve-year-old self. I have no idea how it holds up, and God knows the premise makes precious little sense if you know anything about biology, but the loving ending, goddamn!
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Jun 2, 2019 23:54
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Disillusionist posted:Alright thread, since the best part of the previous Bonfire were the reviews, I've decided to take a stab at one. I have a decent TBR pile of cheap ebooks I've logged on Kindle over the past few years and I'm sure some of them are awful. Pick one of the following and I'll read it and give my review: Do that one. Otherwise I can.
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Jun 3, 2019 01:46
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I'm reading through the Mass Effect Andromeda tie in novel Annihilation, which I picked up mainly because it's written by one of my favorite contemporary sci-fi/fantasy writers, Catherynne Valente. It's...interesting so far, mainly because I can absolutely tell which plot beats were given to her by corporate, and which she came up with herself. The prologue, for instance, is about someone contracted to install a secret program on a space ship before it goes on a long trip. That's what she had to write; the fact that the program plays a cheesy lullabye when everyone wakes up is Valente's. Likewise, the part in the first chapter that discusses a heated political argument over the floral arrangement on the ship is also very much her. On the other hand, it makes it crushingly obvious how boring Mass Effect's world is. And honestly, I like Mass Effect. It's a very good sci-fi world for a video game. But for books it's dull and utilitarian, especially when you compare it against the stuff in Valente's other books, like Radiance and Space Opera.
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Jun 3, 2019 01:52
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Do Revelation Space I liked that a lot a few years ago (the series drops precipitously in quality as it goes on tho) If you want to write SFF you definitely need to read SFF but also read other stuff like mentioned. Read the classics, read some modern lit fic, read a lovely romance novel, read a graphic novel, read everything. Read lots of well-regarded prose writers like Hemmingway or Cormac McCarthy or Toni Morrison or whoever seems interesting to you.
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Jun 3, 2019 02:38
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to hop in on the Read More chat: if you're gonna write in a genre and you wanna get published, read the stuff that's getting published now i like to pick up w/e grabs my eye from the new section in the library when i'm there
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Jun 3, 2019 11:53
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my bony fealty posted:Do Revelation Space I liked that a lot a few years ago (the series drops precipitously in quality as it goes on tho) I have a Master's in English Lit, so fortunately I've read some books. Mostly classics. The problem I have is that I've read very little fiction published since like 1950. In fact, the only non-genre fiction by a living author I've read is The Road. TheGreatEvilKing posted:Do that one. Otherwise I can. I've decided to do Sharakhai first. Although it's longer than Eons I read fantasy more quickly than sci-fi so it should take less time. Then I'll move on to one of the spaceship books. I read the first chapter this morning. It seemed fine compared to Sanderson, the Ruin of Kings and the Medieval Navy SEALs book from the old thread. This review may end up more a review of themes than a dissection of terrible prose, but we shall see.
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Jun 3, 2019 13:22
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when i lived in the city near a functional library i would choose ten books at random with my eyes shut. usually eight of those would be crap but there were always one or two gems, and because i picked them randomly they came from all sorts of genres and contexts, some of which i never would have chosen to read. (it was a very gay-proud area so i ended up with a lot of outright porn, some of which did very interesting things with narrative and characterisation in between the squirting) that is dependent on the quality of the library and its curators of course, i'm in a rural area now and if i tried the old trick i'd end up with nine large-print bloodless english mysteries from 1965 and something called "great australian farmhouses of the golden age", plus i'd probably get arrested
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Jun 4, 2019 02:46
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Speaking of library books and genre fiction, mystery is a genre and I just finished reading Agatha Christie's mystery novel set in ancient Egypt. The plot was okay, pretty stock mystery stuff; I was mostly reading it because my field of study was Egyptology, and it's pretty well-researched aside from a few eye-rolling bits of racist anachronisms (they keep mentioning the "black slaves" the estate has) and a few small slips where one character mentions "the devil" or something. The characters were probably the most interesting part; some of them are a bit caricatured, but they were varied and felt real enough to get invested in them. What made me think of it just now though was that I'd gotten the book from the library, and someone had gone through the book in pen and struck out words that they thought were grammar errors to write in their own corrections. And not like printing errors but full on schoolmarm level nitpicking. Like I get that I'm reading Agatha Christie books, I'm going to run into those kinds of people, but chill the gently caress out about the subjunctive.
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Jun 4, 2019 04:01
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Post pics
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Jun 4, 2019 09:30
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My favourite part of Christie mysteries are how all the characters, when quizzed by the detective, can say things like "I heard a loud bang at 5:47, and saw a dark figure running away at 6:13." So precise!! (That and trying to work out from context what a counterpane or an antimacassar is.) nankeen posted:that is dependent on the quality of the library and its curators of course, i'm in a rural area now and if i tried the old trick i'd end up with nine large-print bloodless english mysteries from 1965 and something called "great australian farmhouses of the golden age", plus i'd probably get arrested Oh, you've visited my town then? Tree Bucket fucked around with this message at 09:44 on Jun 4, 2019 |
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Jun 4, 2019 09:40
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Tree Bucket posted:My favourite part of Christie mysteries are how all the characters, when quizzed by the detective, can say things like "I heard a loud bang at 5:47, and saw a dark figure running away at 6:13." So precise!! I like Christie as light reading in general, but it can be argued a major attraction of the novels these days is historical, looking at Christie's version of the "modern" British culture of her time. There are other 20th-century mystery novel series written in then-contemporary settings that have the same appeal; IIRC, someone in the mystery novel thread read the Nero Wolfe novels in original chronological order and commented that they're sort of a rolling snapshot of American life from the '30's to the '70's, albeit through the eyes of characters who never age.
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Jun 4, 2019 09:55
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Antivehicular posted:I like Christie as light reading in general, but it can be argued a major attraction of the novels these days is historical, looking at Christie's version of the "modern" British culture of her time. There are other 20th-century mystery novel series written in then-contemporary settings that have the same appeal; IIRC, someone in the mystery novel thread read the Nero Wolfe novels in original chronological order and commented that they're sort of a rolling snapshot of American life from the '30's to the '70's, albeit through the eyes of characters who never age. One of the great appeals of watching silent cinema is getting a sense of the culture and street-life of those times. I love movies which show street scenes from that era. Harold Lloyd has some great ones for this.
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Jun 7, 2019 02:45
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Disillusionist posted:Alright thread, since the best part of the previous Bonfire were the reviews, I've decided to take a stab at one. I have a decent TBR pile of cheap ebooks I've logged on Kindle over the past few years and I'm sure some of them are awful. Pick one of the following and I'll read it and give my review: I'll toss in a vote for Too Like the Lightning.
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Jun 8, 2019 05:20
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I'd like to see Revelation Space done, I remember really enjoying reading it in my teens
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Jun 8, 2019 06:34
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Disillusionist posted:Alright thread, since the best part of the previous Bonfire were the reviews, I've decided to take a stab at one. I have a decent TBR pile of cheap ebooks I've logged on Kindle over the past few years and I'm sure some of them are awful. Pick one of the following and I'll read it and give my review: Oh god please do All the Birds in the Sky, it's a disaster.
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Jun 8, 2019 06:54
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If you happen to have a lot of knowledge of enlightenment philosophy or literature I'd be especially interested in your thoughts on Too Like the Lightning, but it's a book that you either love to bits or wish to tear a new rear end in a top hat so either way it'd be fun.
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Jun 8, 2019 08:28
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whowhatwhere posted:If you happen to have a lot of knowledge of enlightenment philosophy or literature I'd be especially interested in your thoughts on Too Like the Lightning, but it's a book that you either love to bits or wish to tear a new rear end in a top hat so either way it'd be fun. Too Like the Lightning is Renaissance, not Enlightenment, iirc, although there's obviously going to be some overlap n the thinking.
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Jun 8, 2019 09:55
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whowhatwhere posted:If you happen to have a lot of knowledge of enlightenment philosophy or literature I'd be especially interested in your thoughts on Too Like the Lightning, but it's a book that you either love to bits or wish to tear a new rear end in a top hat so either way it'd be fun. I wish I knew more about that era. I might write something up anyway, when I have some free time. That's an interesting book that misses by being about all of the uninteresting parts. Does anyone actually want a critical look at Dune?
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Jun 9, 2019 17:05
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Fell Fire posted:I wish I knew more about that era. I might write something up anyway, when I have some free time. That's an interesting book that misses by being about all of the uninteresting parts. It's kind of a sacred cow, so it could be quite interesting to see. For all its strengths I would say Dune is a deeply flawed novel.
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Jun 9, 2019 17:07
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Fell Fire posted:
Yes, please!
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Jun 9, 2019 18:51
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Fell Fire posted:I wish I knew more about that era. I might write something up anyway, when I have some free time. That's an interesting book that misses by being about all of the uninteresting parts. Yes. I'm working on Sharrakhai but the "problem" I'm having so far is that it isn't that bad. In the first three chapters there's a gratuitous sex scene (which may or may not be gratuitous if there turns out to be narrative implications for it later) and an overpowered protagonist but otherwise the prose is decent. I'm hoping that White Author Writes Middle Eastern Fantasy Story provides something interesting to critique.
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Jun 9, 2019 19:03
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:Yes, please! I've started reading through it again, I'll see what I can put together. Just the first chapter has a lot of issues from a modern view.
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Jun 11, 2019 20:54
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Fell Fire posted:Does anyone actually want a critical look at Dune? yes. i picked it up because of its reputation, read ~50 pages, then put it down again, in part because i was underwhelmed, and in part because of its prose style. i intend to read it eventually, but hearing discussion about it from people itt might finally get me to do it
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Jun 14, 2019 20:20
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Finicums Wake posted:yes. i picked it up because of its reputation, read ~50 pages, then put it down again, in part because i was underwhelmed, and in part because of its prose style. i intend to read it eventually, but hearing discussion about it from people itt might finally get me to do it Same. I've actually managed to read it whole but boy, was it a chore
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Jun 14, 2019 21:05
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Finicums Wake posted:yes. i picked it up because of its reputation, read ~50 pages, then put it down again, in part because i was underwhelmed, and in part because of its prose style. i intend to read it eventually, but hearing discussion about it from people itt might finally get me to do it it's not very good, the reputation of basically any sci fi or fantasy book means nothing.
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Jun 15, 2019 06:57
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herbert's prose should be banned under the geneva conventionsquote:Paul sensed his own tensions, decided to practice one of the mind-body lessons his mother had taught him. Three quick breaths triggered the responses: he fell into the floating awareness ... focusing the consciousness ... aortal dilation ... avoiding the unfocused mechanism of consciousness ... to be conscious by choice ... blood enriched and swift-flooding the overload regions ... one does not obtain food-safety-freedom by instinct alone ... animal consciousness does not extend beyond the given moment nor into the idea that its victims may become extinct ... the animal destroys and does not produce ... animal pleasures remain close to sensation levels and avoid the perceptual ... the human requires a background grid through which to see his universe ... focused consciousness by choice, this forms your grid ... bodily integrity follows nerve-blood flow according to the deepest awareness of cell needs ... all things/cells/beings are impermanent ... strive for flow-permanence within.... his ellipses, not mine
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Jun 15, 2019 20:20
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chernobyl kinsman posted:herbert's prose should be banned under the geneva conventions One thing about Dune and it's sequels that always struck me... I mean the prose is not great... but who reads fantasy... for prose. But the characters just ... sort of lecture each other. I mean... they're obviously talking to the reader... but it's just weird.
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Jun 15, 2019 20:57
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pseudanonymous posted:One thing about Dune and it's sequels that always struck me... I mean the prose is not great... but who reads fantasy... for prose. But the characters just ... sort of lecture each other. I mean... they're obviously talking to the reader... but it's just weird. There's a lot of intellectual masturbation in Dune about prescience and the Ubermensch. Maybe I should get off my rear end and write another review, but I've been busy lately, sorry goons. On an unrelated note my mother and I were coordinating Father's Day gifts and she got him The Ruin of Kings. I should have spoken up sooner. Apparently the Wall Street Journal gave it a good review? I'm not sure I read the same book as this guy.
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Jun 15, 2019 21:37
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chernobyl kinsman posted:herbert's prose should be banned under the geneva conventions wait thats not only published but also a genre classic? care to post what comes after?
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Jun 15, 2019 23:12
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Lex Neville posted:wait thats not only published but also a genre classic? care to post what comes after? People say the quality falls off. After the first book. Falls off. After. Though I actually like Dune.
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Jun 15, 2019 23:42
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