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Eugene V. Dubstep posted:The Fifth Season, by either Wallet’s or GEK’s description, is conventional fantasy. Wallet points out that its opening is just The Hobbit with a nuanced conception of race. Anything that can be described succinctly as ‘The Hobbit, but ___’ is fantasy by definition. Pat Murphy's There and Back Again is The Hobbit, but rewritten as SF; the protagonist lives in a hollowed-out asteroid before going on a treasure hunt with a gang of clones and a dodgy cyborg adventurer. That's a terrible definition of fantasy.
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Jan 9, 2020 23:30
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i'm a wizard
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Jan 9, 2020 23:44
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but what if youre not
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Jan 9, 2020 23:53
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what kind of wizard? i'm a half elf dragon wizard who doesn't know his parents but they are actually the Syn and Sion of Shalandracan Citadel and i'll end up being in charge of all magic spells after i defeat the black sorcerer who wants to keep my identity hidden so he can inherit the power instead.
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Jan 9, 2020 23:58
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Runcible Cat posted:Pat Murphy's There and Back Again is The Hobbit, but rewritten as SF; the protagonist lives in a hollowed-out asteroid before going on a treasure hunt with a gang of clones and a dodgy cyborg adventurer. That's a terrible definition of fantasy. okay
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Jan 10, 2020 00:27
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AE Van Vogt's Empire of the Atom is I, Claudius in space, therefore it is historical fiction it's not good dont read it
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Jan 10, 2020 00:36
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my bony fealty posted:AE Van Vogt's Empire of the Atom is I, Claudius in space, therefore it is historical fiction that partial definition of fantasy was wrong and I regret writing it. I failed to account for the obvious counterexample of 'the hobbit, but in a different genre'. please accept my apologies
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Jan 10, 2020 00:38
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Ellison was a big fan of the "speculative fiction" badge, in part because he had a rabid hatred of the term "sci-fi", which inevitably came with science fiction, but also in part because by the 60s there were lots of stories being written that weren't fantasy but certainly weren't science fiction as people traditionally knew it, stories that involved little or no actual science. It's hard to look at something like Jeffty is Five or a lot of what New Worlds was publishing or whatever and unambiguously say "that's sci-fi". I'm not sure whether sci-fi expanded its horizons to encompass what was called speculative fiction, or SF writers (outside the short story venues, where the most creative stuff still gets published) shrank theirs to make a wider term unnecessary. Maybe a bit of both. In either case, it's sort of lost its impetus and original meaning.
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Jan 10, 2020 01:10
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Xotl posted:Ellison was a big fan of the "speculative fiction" badge, in part because he had a rabid hatred of the term "sci-fi", which inevitably came with science fiction, but also in part because by the 60s there were lots of stories being written that weren't fantasy but certainly weren't science fiction as people traditionally knew it, stories that involved little or no actual science. It's hard to look at something like Jeffty is Five or a lot of what New Worlds was publishing or whatever and unambiguously say "that's sci-fi". Genre-wise, alas, it seems that fantasy means "it has wizards", sci-fi "it has spaceships" and horror "it has monsters". Using "speculative fiction" as an umbrella term could help do away with this rather ridiculous categorization. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Jan 10, 2020 |
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Jan 10, 2020 02:12
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anilEhilated posted:You don't even need look that far. Take Ray Bradbury - I sincerely doubt there's a jot of "science" in his entire body of work. And yet he's considered one of the most influential sci-fi writers. Basically yes. Along with (sometimes) horror and other adjacent genres like alt history (because splitting that into books where there's a time travel element and where there isn't is silly), all of which were sharing shelf space and awards categories, etc.
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Jan 10, 2020 03:35
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wtf is with you people and exhaustively categorising genre. stop it!
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Jan 10, 2020 04:21
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talk about something else, anything, talk about terrible sex scenes i don't care just please no more debating exactly where on the science --> fantasy spectrum historical works should be catalogued and why. it doesn't mean anything. it's nonsense
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Jan 10, 2020 04:22
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my bony fealty posted:AE Van Vogt's Empire of the Atom is I, Claudius in space, therefore it is historical fiction I have read this. It has spaceships that land on the battlefield to unload waves of cavalry. I think archers also fire from the ships.
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Jan 10, 2020 04:40
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nankeen posted:talk about something else, anything, talk about terrible sex scenes i don't care just please no more debating exactly where on the science --> fantasy spectrum historical works should be catalogued and why. it doesn't mean anything. it's nonsense
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Jan 10, 2020 06:31
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Speculative fiction as a blanket term is dumb as poo poo. I'm with Atwood.
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Jan 10, 2020 08:49
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nankeen posted:wtf is with you people and exhaustively categorising genre. stop it! We could argue about the definition of literary, instead. That's sure to be fruitful!
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Jan 10, 2020 14:28
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Wallet posted:We could argue about the definition of literary, instead. That's sure to be fruitful! no need: it means 'books that forums poster Eugene V. Dubstep likes'
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Jan 10, 2020 14:44
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I like this crux of "better metaphor people won't read" vs "worse metaphor with explosions".
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Jan 10, 2020 15:38
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Does anyone want to do a roast of Altered Carbon after it came out the author's a terf and the light it puts the themes of the book in?
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Jan 10, 2020 17:43
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i tried to read that, made it most the way through it based on v cool concepts outweighing the incredible douchbag of a character, but when it got to the 'final boss' i just could not be hosed to finish it.
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Jan 10, 2020 17:54
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StratGoatCom posted:Does anyone want to do a roast of Altered Carbon after it came out the author's a terf and the light it puts the themes of the book in? who gives a poo poo lol
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Jan 10, 2020 18:00
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seriously if you get upset about the social politics of genre authors you need to go immediately to the nearest temple and prostrate yourself before the Lord your God Adonai and pray that He raise you out of the Sheol of being a huge dumbass
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Jan 10, 2020 18:02
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StratGoatCom posted:Does anyone want to do a roast of Altered Carbon after it came out the author's a terf and the light it puts the themes of the book in?
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Jan 10, 2020 18:09
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let the genres be more like the French, and celebrate childfuckers
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Jan 10, 2020 18:43
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quit loving a child and read some real literature
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Jan 10, 2020 18:46
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broke: getting mad at the opinions of genre writers woke: getting mad at the opinions of genre readers
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Jan 10, 2020 18:48
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#canceled, #canceled, you're all #canceled
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Jan 10, 2020 18:50
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dear lord gas this thread immediately
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Jan 10, 2020 19:27
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The prose from Jemisin was pretty lacking imo. The politics of her work don't seem to matter much when her prose is so bereft in description or personal character. At least the beastiality dog rape enthusiast from a few pages back could set a scene and his beastiality dog rape enthusiast scenes would be spotted immediately as his, if for no other reason than their content. But the excerpts posted of Jemisin's prose are very generic and could come from any kinky fanfiction writer. She hasn't put any kind of personal stamp on her work, it's interchangeable with any fanfic writer you could read on AO3. And to be fair writing is hard. Making your work stand out and express your own style is hard. But even though Jemisin herself started as a fanfic writer, and even though she's blatently ripping off the Dragon Age franchise with some kinky sex stuff added in, I don't think there's any good justification for putting out something so boring and dry. Especially when you're dealing with issues like racism, oppression, rape/sexual abuse, and systemic oppression. That stuff shouldn't be boring but it is in those excerpts. It's especially galling because there is a top 10% in any fandom that has fanfic writers that are able to write very clearly and recognizably, even with their derivative works. So even fanfic writers have managed to do this. The prose is bad. The ideas don't matter if the prose is bad. If your writing is bad then people will pick over your ideas instead of talking about how your work affected them.
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Jan 10, 2020 19:28
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lol at "genre is so poo poo that if you analyze why it's poo poo you're doing it wrong. also the best way to express you don't give a poo poo about something is to comment on it just to make sure everyone knows you don't. I love good-faith discourse"
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Jan 10, 2020 19:28
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I like "speculative fiction" as a term, because if you're writing sci-fi/fantasy that isn't speculative, what's the loving point of you? Oh look! Wizards and orcs and chosen one(s), whoop-de-doo
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Jan 10, 2020 19:49
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anilEhilated posted:You don't even need look that far. Take Ray Bradbury - I sincerely doubt there's a jot of "science" in his entire body of work. And yet he's considered one of the most influential sci-fi writers. That's a good point. I'm not as familiar with sci-fi history: I never liked old SF as I do detective and weird pulps, so I wonder what the reaction of readers was back in the day when Bradbury's stories started appearing. The letter columns and fanzines would have certainly covered this.
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Jan 10, 2020 20:37
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Jan 10, 2020 20:55
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"Speculative fiction" works as an umbrella term but it's also worthless to someone like me who's often looking for entries in specific subgenres within science fiction for the most part. Heck, that term doesn't even get me to science fiction, and I'm not really interested in fantasy. As long as we're all aware that works of fiction are capable of stretching beyond the bounds of a term, what's wrong with putting things into genres so that at least we have some idea what we're getting ourselves into?
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Jan 10, 2020 20:58
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HIJK posted:beastiality
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Jan 10, 2020 21:10
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Sham bam bamina! posted:You don't want to? I am up to my loving tits in work, and have a FATAL and Friends already in progress.
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Jan 10, 2020 22:59
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Sham bam bamina! posted:Bestiality. Worstiality
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Jan 11, 2020 00:06
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chernobyl kinsman posted:seriously if you get upset about the social politics of genre authors you need to go immediately to the nearest temple and prostrate yourself before the Lord and pray that He raise you out of the Sheol of being a huge dumbass
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Jan 11, 2020 01:00
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you people needed botl to give you direction and purpose, without him you're just fingersnapping aimlessly and making GBS threads on the floor
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Jan 11, 2020 01:03
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i'm beginning to remember why i always had such deep contempt for this subforum. the anime one offers more value to society and culture
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Jan 11, 2020 01:05
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