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Describing Molly's home life as a stifling Christian upbringing is literally correct but also feels a little weird on context because God is literally real, their house is watched by angels, and her dad is a paladin with a magic sword. Also the Dresden Files aren't as gross as many, many, many other fantasy books out there but I'm at a point in my life where I've stopped settling for 'only kinda sexist'. There's only so many times I can read about how horny Harry is for every other woman in a three mile radius. Or his hot brother the sex vampire. Oh how tragic he is, that he's no longer allowed to devour the women who sleep with him! I liked the Dresden Files, I read all of them, but in the five years since the last book I think I lost my taste for it.
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Feb 26, 2020 04:56
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chitoryu12 posted:I'm willing to accept it in this case because Molly is someone rebelling against a stifling Christian upbringing and is suggested to have engaged in a lot of irresponsible sex and drug usage as a teenager. Harry is the first guy that she's actually felt some kind of connection to, but she mistakes their relationship for a romantic one because she has no good examples of proper adult relationships except the parents she's been ignoring. Molly doing it and Harry telling her to cut that poo poo out makes sense when it happens. chitty, why do you keep trying to justify weird writing with in-universe examples? like. . . harry isn't the one writing these books? there's an all knowing, all powerful force who made her strip down and have pierced nipples, someone who could have just as easily conveyed the same emotional impact without using a naked 18 year old, but they chose to use the naked 18 year old regardless. that's a Significant Narrative Choice. we can talk about that separate from the textual justifications for it. VVVV yeah exactly, butcher knows that his audience doesn't approve of his fetishes so he tries putting himself one step ahead of them instead of trying to use his books as a pulpit for justifying his hosed up predilections, as earlier writers would have. PHIZ KALIFA has a new favorite as of 05:18 on Feb 26, 2020 |
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Feb 26, 2020 05:02
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I have to agree that the Dresden books are A Bit Creepy. The fact that 'A Bit Creepy' puts it waaaaaay ahead of 95% of its genre peers is a seperate issue.
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Feb 26, 2020 05:12
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Yeah, I found a "Top 20 sci-fi novels!" Listcle in google, and one of the books suggested included the phrase "raped her until she went autistic" I should dig those up for the thread if they haven't been covered already. Plot goes: ugly space rapist/crim steals 18yo girl from her blown-up family *100 pages of graphic 1-on-1 space rape* three more books of the author's grand literary interpretation of Wagner's "Der Ring Des Nibelungen" I read all of them with my jaw completely slack, unable to turn away. It's really sad, Asimov and Tolkien needed exactly 0 hosed up sex to sell novels. I would also bet that no Author survives an encounter with the erotic without adding at least a wee drop of their own little kink.
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Feb 26, 2020 05:36
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as someone who's written deliberately unappealing smut, anyone who goes hard enough pandering to a fetish is gonna develop that fetish. after writing that story about giving MISSINGNO a beej i can't stop thinking about loving computer glitches. not even anthropomorphic computer glitches, i mean straight flaws in the encoding of the universe. if i figure out how to frameskip IRL i am absolutely finding a way to put it in my rear end, somehow.
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Feb 26, 2020 05:39
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Chuck Buried Treasure posted:I wish his ghost stories took off more, I’ve been big into ghost stories the past few months, especially the Victorian-ish-era ones, and “The Captain of the Polestar” is one of my favorites in the genre Victorians wrote quality ghost stories.
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Feb 26, 2020 05:56
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dresden files more like dreadful piles
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Feb 26, 2020 06:11
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Dabir posted:dresden files more like dreadful piles Don’t sign your posts.
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Feb 26, 2020 06:58
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Dienes posted:IIRC, this is even set up with Molly coming onto him and Dresden dumping cold water on her and telling her its gross and inappropriate. He (the author) created these characters and the whole situation out of whole cloth. "It makes sense in story" doesn't redeem it at all
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Feb 26, 2020 07:19
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So, it's bad that it was in the book, but it's also bad it was him turning her down and not being ultra creepy, but it's ALSO bad if he would have been banging his apprentice. Got it. For the record, dude got a divorce and had some health issues, which is why it's been like 5 years since the last book.
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Feb 26, 2020 07:29
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:So, it's bad that it was in the book, but it's also bad it was him turning her down and not being ultra creepy, but it's ALSO bad if he would have been banging his apprentice. yes lol, these aren't contradictory
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Feb 26, 2020 07:48
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So, if I plug in: A) Female characters who pass the Bechdel test. B) Well written. C) in the genre of Sci-fi/Fantasy. D) No weird sex stuff. My ultra advanced neural net spits out "William Gibson's recent novels" and "Jim Butcher kinda tried" What else should I be looking at?
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Feb 26, 2020 07:55
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Serephina posted:The Ruby Knight ie the first Sparhawk book That's the second Sparhawk book  Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:So, it's bad that it was in the book, but it's also bad it was him turning her down and not being ultra creepy, but it's ALSO bad if he would have been banging his apprentice. yes just don't put it in the book she says, while also posting about Sparhawk books
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Feb 26, 2020 07:56
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Serephina posted:The Ruby Knight ie the first Sparhawk book also, I briefly mistook this as a great username/post combo.
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Feb 26, 2020 07:58
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Elviscat posted:So, if I plug in: Ursula K. Le Guin and Margaret Atwood e: oh, dang, scratch Margaret Atwood off for D I guess. At least The Handmaid's Tale is meant to be transgressive rather than just horny Sagebrush has a new favorite as of 08:04 on Feb 26, 2020 |
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Feb 26, 2020 08:00
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Gideon The Ninth pretty much hits all the marks on that list. Granted it's lesbian necromancers in space, but it's not sexual, if that makes any kind of sense.
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Feb 26, 2020 08:01
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:That's the second Sparhawk book Isn't that the one where the protagonist marries his stepdaughter but she's really a two-thousand-year-old goddess so its ok?
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Feb 26, 2020 08:04
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The Lone Badger posted:Isn't that the one where the protagonist marries his stepdaughter but she's really a two-thousand-year-old goddess so its ok? actually it's the one where the protagonist marries the girl he raised from eight years old but he goes away for a few years and comes back when she's eighteen so it's okay
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Feb 26, 2020 08:06
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The 2000 year old goddess is his daughter, not wife
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Feb 26, 2020 08:29
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:also, I briefly mistook this as a great username/post combo. Also YES not a single drat thing about male/female relationships in those books made sense. I was a teenager and still knew it was bullshit how the men just shrugged and accepted their marital fates. And disgusting. I now recognize it as grooming, and Eddings glorifying it. Its all over his books, it's foul.
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Feb 26, 2020 09:20
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Catherynne Valente does a decent job with genre stuff and usually just has normal sex stuff, like being ordered by twin children who rule as king and queen to kill a man with a huge erection
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Feb 26, 2020 09:44
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Elviscat posted:So, if I plug in: James Tiptree Jr.
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Feb 26, 2020 09:53
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The thing is that nowadays the venn diagram of 'people who are able and willing to sit down for hundreds of hours and write books about wizards and/or spaceships' and 'people who get really horny about weird stuff and not enough outlets for it' is basically a circle. Speculative fiction is not going to get less horny.
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Feb 26, 2020 10:13
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Elviscat posted:So, if I plug in: I liked The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi
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Feb 26, 2020 10:35
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Ugly In The Morning posted:Didn’t he write a bunch of the Hannibal books because the studio was gonna have SOMEBODY write one, whether it was him or not? That's really a damned if you do damned if you don't situation. In another timeline where he said "Fine, I told my story, you do more if you so badly want it.", what do you want to bet he'd be getting raked over the coals for not writing whatever replaced Hannibal/Hannibal Rising?
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Feb 26, 2020 10:37
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Gideon The Ninth pretty much hits all the marks on that list. Granted it's lesbian necromancers in space, but it's not sexual, if that makes any kind of sense. Yeah I'm really looking forward to the second book.
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Feb 26, 2020 10:43
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Elviscat posted:So, if I plug in: Max Gladstone? The Craft series most notably.
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Feb 26, 2020 11:17
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Brandon Sanderson's writing style is, hmm, 'MCU quality' but is almost devoid of any sex stuff at all because he's a slowly liberalising mormon so he wisely took the course of "I shouldn't write it!" He's slowly getting better so his latest books have both homosexual characters as well as two adults in their forties who are horny for each other in a pretty normal way. His writing with the actual voice of women swings pretty wildly though. The women in Warbreaker are all actually mostly pretty good, in Elantris they're dull, in the Mistborn series Vin is decent and Tindwyl in book 2 is pretty good if stereotypical, and in Stormlight Shallan who is a viewpoint character is pretty awful but Jasnah is his attempt at writing an intelligent powerful woman and it's actually real good. Not quite sure not to make of Spensa in his YA Skyward series since it's ahrd to tell how much of her awkwardness is being a YA character.
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Feb 26, 2020 11:28
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bewilderment posted:Brandon Sanderson's writing style is, hmm, 'MCU quality' but is almost devoid of any sex stuff at all because he's a slowly liberalising mormon so he wisely took the course of "I shouldn't write it!" His ability to write the actual voice of any of his characters swings pretty wildly, so at least it's not just a "can't write women" thing. He's witten some clunky male characters, too. I give him props for how well he ties everything together in his books, I actually pay attention to the worldbuilding since a lot of it is usually relevant to how the story ends instead of just being a bunch of fluff.
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Feb 26, 2020 11:36
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nonathlon posted:James Tiptree Jr. one of my all-time favorite authors but if you think her work contains "no weird sex stuff" then I'd like to know who exactly is president in your bizarre parallel universe
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Feb 26, 2020 12:13
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Elviscat posted:So, if I plug in: I was going to mention Banks but then I remembered all the weird sex stuff. Still going to mention Banks though to satisfy Handle/AV/Post combo. (I have to say though, the sex stuff, while weird, manages to be weird on a completely different level. Less horny, more "other societies are exoticising the sexually liberated Culture and that's kind of creepy", which you'll have to admit is a next level can of worms to open)
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Feb 26, 2020 13:27
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Antigravitas posted:I was going to mention Banks but then I remembered all the weird sex stuff. Still going to mention Banks though to satisfy Handle/AV/Post combo. Yeah, there's some weird sex stuff in Banks, but not in the sense of "here's the weird sex stuff the author's into." There isn't the sort of lingering on details you get from an author typing one-handed.
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Feb 26, 2020 13:55
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Pastry of the Year posted:one of my all-time favorite authors but if you think her work contains "no weird sex stuff" then I'd like to know who exactly is president in your bizarre parallel universe That occurred to me as I wrote it but: A. She scores so highly on the other categories, I gave her a pass B. The sex-weirds are infrequent and always justified by plot (e.g. as in "I Woke and Found Myself Here on the Cold Hill's Side")
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Feb 26, 2020 14:02
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:also, I briefly mistook this as a great username/post combo. I just want you to know I got this reference. Also hey at least it’s not having sex with Aphrael, the literal thousand year old goddess in a child’s body. Also also the Ruby Knight was also my first Sparhawk book.
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Feb 26, 2020 14:07
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Konstantin posted:Dan Brown is a good example. All of his books are about his author insert character uncovering a religious conspiracy through interpreting coded messages. IIRC he's just announced a kids' book he's also written the music for. 
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Feb 26, 2020 14:46
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I'm back on my horror anthology bullshit again and am currently reading The Devil and The Deep. It's supposed to be nautical horror stories but so far it's been: - Terrible murder mystery with throw-off lines like, "yeah I sucked him off". A boat is involved. - A monster emerging from the deep and eating a bunch of people is pushed to the back row in lieu of a love story that uses a passage to describe a person drawing circles in the semen on his boyfriend's stomach for fun. - A good story about a strange symbol found carved on a necklace that draws sealife and things lost towards it. A woman gets it tattooed on her arm to remember her dad and people, ocean critters, and the restless, waterlogged dead begin following her. Pretty good. - A fuckin talking skull story not really related to the ocean until the last page. - An actual good one about a Norwegian whaling poo poo sinking and finding an island that the tide keeps mysteriously receding from, revealing thousands of whale skeletons. Turns out it's not an island at all, but a giant whale, and the tide is only receding so far out because the massive whale is raising up to dive back into the ocean. - A story about Comanche horsemanship on the great plains. I think there's still like 10 stories left. I'm gonna power through based on like 2 of the stories so far being good. There are good horror anthologies, I just can't find them. Amazon suggested to me a book called Don't Scream; which is just a collection of 60 of Reddit darling Blair Daniels' creepypastas.
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Feb 26, 2020 14:52
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Elviscat posted:So, if I plug in: Ann Leckie's Ancillary trilogy, if you'll allow "everyone's non-binary" to slip in under (A).
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Feb 26, 2020 14:59
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Antigravitas posted:I was going to mention Banks but then I remembered all the weird sex stuff. Still going to mention Banks though to satisfy Handle/AV/Post combo. What there is is torture porn. Every book in the Culture series has at least one drawn-out extremely creative depiction of violence (and most of the non-scifi stuff that I've read does, too.) As far as I can tell, they're mostly just there to try to make the Culture look good in comparison (which it desperately needs a lot of the time.) Look to Windward had me really excited, since 99% of the book was torture free, then literally the last five pages break out some nasty nanite assassination stuff. They're still good reads, but just remember: if you don't like the opening of Consider Phlebas, that sort of thing keeps happening. How does David Brin's Uplift series stand up? I don't remember any weird sex stuff, but it's been quite a while since I've read any of them. The_White_Crane posted:Ann Leckie's Ancillary trilogy, if you'll allow "everyone's non-binary" to slip in under (A). Yes, this is extremely good.
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Feb 26, 2020 15:04
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Karia posted:
Startide Rising has a dolphin sexually harassing a crewmate.
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Feb 26, 2020 15:21
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Elviscat posted:So, if I plug in: Check out Library of America's anthology "The Future Is Female! 25 Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women, from Pulp Pioneers to Ursula K. Le Guin" https://www.loa.org/books/583-the-future-is-female-25-classic-science-fiction-stories-by-women-from-pulp-pioneers-to-ursula-k-le-guin http://womensf.loa.org/ It's utterly, utterly fantastic and highlights many long forgotten women pioneers of the genre. Also, their just simply good stories. The overview in the first link provides a pretty good idea of the contents.
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Feb 26, 2020 15:28
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