|
Flesnolk posted:So what good authors aren't fascists, if I want to read more Actual Literature but don't want to give human garbage my time of day? Because it sure seems sometimes like the only people who can create good art are monsters of some stripe or another.
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2020 12:16
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 22, 2024 10:28 |
|
|
Sham bam bamina! posted:Postwar French authors are all leftists but also are all pedophiles. I think you'll find that they have, rather, freed themselves from the shackles of bourgeois morality
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2020 12:33
|
|
|
Flesnolk posted:So what good authors aren't fascists, if I want to read more Actual Literature but don't want to give human garbage my time of day? Because it sure seems sometimes like the only people who can create good art are monsters of some stripe or another. flesnolk read ferrante
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2020 20:05
|
|
|
Take the plunge! Okay! posted:Maxim Gorky owns, so does Daniil Harms. Don’t forget that Umberto Eco, Sartre, Camus were all leftists. Really, a ton of good writing on the left. Maybe tell us what you’re looking for and we can be more precise - do you want short/long works, straightforward narratives or meandering ones... While I'm more accustomed to novels, (clarificatory edit: longish, straightforward narratives) I'm willing to try 'em all. And I do have a Calvino novel on my desk a friend gave me for Christmas, so that's nice as a starting point. Thanks for the recommendations, folks. Flesnolk fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Mar 29, 2020 |
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2020 05:50
|
|
|
Dunno if detective books count but Dashiell Hammett was a communist and antifascist, and was sent to jail and blacklisted for refusing to cooperate with the investigations into communist groups.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2020 06:59
|
|
|
C.M. Kruger posted:Dunno if detective books count but Dashiell Hammett was a communist and antifascist, and was sent to jail and blacklisted for refusing to cooperate with the investigations into communist groups. Dashiell Hammett was a legit badass.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2020 08:17
|
|
|
Sham get your rear end in here and tell me if you think a jet fighter can be a dragon
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2020 16:29
|
|
|
Anything can be a dragon, if you believe
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2020 16:47
|
|
|
I have spent the last half hour in deep contemplation of this sentence which I consider to be the greatest sentence of all timequote:The story follows Jane, a changeling girl who slaves at a dragon factory in the world of Faerie, building part-magical, part-cybernetic monsters that are used as jet fighters.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2020 16:48
|
|
|
Working part time at the dragon factory
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2020 21:13
|
|
|
Mel Mudkiper posted:I have spent the last half hour in deep contemplation of this sentence which I consider to be the greatest sentence of all time great I now have this 80s one hit wonder stuck in my head https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0933KDaWATM
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2020 21:34
|
|
|
Mel Mudkiper posted:Sham get your rear end in here and tell me if you think a jet fighter can be a dragon
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2020 05:40
|
|
|
quote:"Limited Time Offer! Spicy Granny Flavour"
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2020 08:32
|
|
|
mods please rename me spicy granny flavor
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2020 13:37
|
|
|
This conversation reminds me of the Zora Neale Hurston sentence about how you can never touch your genitals while working at the salsa factory
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2020 07:11
|
|
|
Sham bam bamina! posted:Been meaning to read that book for a while. There's also an anime about that. ah yes the JSDF vore anime.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2020 10:18
|
|
|
Lindsay Ellis' novel is awful. Like, did even a single editor take a look at this before publishing it? MacMillan must've figured her fanbase was a shoe-in to buy it without concern for quality. It's like some weird fanfiction combination of Transformers (the first Michael Bay film) and Twilight. I had to say it somewhere and I figure this thread is the place for it. It didn't take years to get published because the industry was mean - it took years to get published because it's bad.
|
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2020 15:11
|
|
|
Milkfred E. Moore posted:Lindsay Ellis' novel is awful. Like, did even a single editor take a look at this before publishing it? MacMillan must've figured her fanbase was a shoe-in to buy it without concern for quality. It's like some weird fanfiction combination of Transformers (the first Michael Bay film) and Twilight. I had to say it somewhere and I figure this thread is the place for it. It didn't take years to get published because the industry was mean - it took years to get published because it's bad. That’s too bad, I like Lindsays videos. What was wrong with it?
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2020 21:49
|
|
|
Yeah that’s a bummer! Ellis is pretty cogent in her videos about what makes good and not good genre fiction, and although I wasn’t very interested in reading it, I was hoping her novel would at least be of passable quality. Shame.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2020 21:54
|
|
|
Milkfred E. Moore posted:Lindsay Ellis' novel is awful. Like, did even a single editor take a look at this before publishing it? MacMillan must've figured her fanbase was a shoe-in to buy it without concern for quality. It's like some weird fanfiction combination of Transformers (the first Michael Bay film) and Twilight. I had to say it somewhere and I figure this thread is the place for it. It didn't take years to get published because the industry was mean - it took years to get published because it's bad. I've been avoiding it because I had a feeling. You can tell she has some background in the fanfiction/fandom worlds and that...does not lead to good genre fic.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2020 22:33
|
|
|
I am shocked, shocked, that a novel by a Channel Awesome personality turned out to be bad.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2020 22:39
|
|
|
Milkfred E. Moore posted:Lindsay Ellis' novel is awful. Like, did even a single editor take a look at this before publishing it? MacMillan must've figured her fanbase was a shoe-in to buy it without concern for quality. It's like some weird fanfiction combination of Transformers (the first Michael Bay film) and Twilight. I had to say it somewhere and I figure this thread is the place for it. It didn't take years to get published because the industry was mean - it took years to get published because it's bad. I was kind of disappointed but it's not really that bad. A good chuck of it's problem is "Leaving stuff out for the sequel" and that's a whole different ballpark than the BS Meyer and Bay get up to.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2020 22:41
|
|
|
I haven't read it yet so I can't comment on the quality but aiming a genre novel at the fanfic crowd doesn't seem like the worst choice business-wise. Not that business merit outweighs artistic merit but I wonder if it was at all intentional.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2020 22:57
|
|
|
She seems nice, but her hour long 'whats wrong with the hobbits' video critique is just her reminiscing about how LOTR made her feel! Does she get to the analysis in part 2? I would hope so but who knows lol
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2020 22:59
|
|
|
Relax Or DIE posted:I haven't read it yet so I can't comment on the quality but aiming a genre novel at the fanfic crowd doesn't seem like the worst choice business-wise. Not that business merit outweighs artistic merit but I wonder if it was at all intentional. I don't think anyone said it was aimed at the fanfic crowd. Just that the story was fanfic-qsue in it's mashup It seemed to get her on the NYT bestsellers list so business-wise and not necessarily anything else it worked out. Blood Boils posted:She seems nice, but her hour long 'whats wrong with the hobbits' video critique is just her reminiscing about how LOTR made her feel! I don't 100% recall part 2 but she goes deep into behind the scenes stuff and how peter jackson hate unions. Rockit fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Jul 30, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2020 23:26
|
|
Ccs posted:That’s too bad, I like Lindsays videos. What was wrong with it? It's the actual writing itself. The novel reads like an incredibly rough first draft. One of the first lines includes the phrase 'the car was a manual transmission with a stick shift' - as opposed to what, a manual car without one? The novel is set in 2007 America, but the incredibly rough phrasing leads to a line where the protagonist refers to members of the CIA and FBI like they're ancient stories. 'She'd always heard tales of the FBI and CIA but never met one.' There's mention of a meteor having a contrail which is incorrect, plus the incorrect understanding of them leading to Ellis repeatedly referring to a meteorite as a meteor. For a story that's said to be a combination of Transformers and Arrival, it takes eight chapters for the protagonist and the robot to meet. And I think comparing it to Arrival is in poor form when the human and the robot talk because the robot holds her down and injects her with a substance that allows them to communicate. Then, after interminable chapters where it feels like nothing happens beyond people spouting exposition at each other, the protagonist and the robot-chicken-lizard-Edward Cullen end up together. A friend of mine who read it said it feels like a 'passionless work,' that it feels like it was ghostwritten. I think Ellis claims to have been working on this book for ten years, but it doesn't feel like it because there are so many issues that even a baseline editor should clear up, or that you should fix if you spend so much time working on it. Beyond the issues that an editor should've really cleared up, it's just bland. It's Transformers without the Bayhem, Twilight without the genuine thirst for Edward. It wants to take on ideas like what would first contact mean for our world, the Great Filter, and the difficulties of communicating with an alien species that is nothing like us - and often disregards them as quickly as they come up. Also, there's a bit towards the middle of the book where Cora does some crazy head math to figure out the date the aliens arrived or whatever, and I'm pretty sure the math is dead wrong. Sham bam bamina! posted:I am shocked, shocked, that a novel by a Channel Awesome personality turned out to be bad. It went onto my radar after she put out that video about how difficult it was to get published. I was interested as to whether it might be a gem that was overlooked, but it's just a bad book.
|
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 00:35
|
|
|
Blood Boils posted:She seems nice, but her hour long 'whats wrong with the hobbits' video critique is just her reminiscing about how LOTR made her feel! The best part of her Hobbit video is when she gets into the behind the scenes stuff, it really shines a light on just how much of a nightmarish mess those movies were.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 00:43
|
|
|
I have never seen one of Ellis's videos, so I have no idea if she's a good critic, but even good critics can still be terrible artists. Look at, say, Roger Ebert's scriptwriting, which even he admitted was total dogshit.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 00:46
|
|
|
Blood Boils posted:She seems nice, but her hour long 'whats wrong with the hobbits' video critique is just her reminiscing about how LOTR made her feel! It's been awhile, but I think part 2 is where she gets into the structure of the films and the mess behind the scenes, and talks about the lack of passion going into the movie to the point that they used the ring wraith theme from LOTR as filler when they needed something that "sounds dramatic" for when Thorin is confronting some goblins, completely forgetting that the lyrics in the music are Numenoreans singing specifically about the wraiths. Part 3 was the most interesting one, she actually travelled to NZ and hit some of the filming spots, interviewed local actors and union workers and spoke at length about how the studios worked with the conservative government to gut the industry and workers' rights so badly that it's still a wasteland nearly a decade later. Outside of that, I do generally like her videos - her critiques tend to be fairly shallow but they aren't incorrect. I just finished the book and I... like a lot of the concepts she was working with, it's really obvious she's an Orson Scott Card fan and has read Speaker for the Dead a zillion times. The prose felt weirdly YA and stilted, and it spent way too long setting up books 2 and 3 instead of having even a portion of the character arc complete in the first story. Which is kind of ironic, because one of her biggest complaints about The Hobbit is that by stretching it into 3 movies they weren't able to pace it around appropriate plot beats and so each one feels like it ends either too early or too late. I didn't dislike it enough that I won't pick up the second one, because I thought the aliens were cool and I'd like to see where she takes some of the ideas, but I hope the editing is a lot tighter and things flow more smoothly now that she's spent so much of this book arranging all the pieces on the board. I've read worse debuts from authors who got better, and it was a quick enough read. I saw her video where she talked about working on it for ten years, and it definitely feels like something she spent too long fiddling with and that sucked a lot of the passion out with endless tweaking.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 00:48
|
|
|
I've been working on a novel for just under three years now, and I'm working on the rewrite and second draft, and I'm pretty much ready to move on. I can't imagine tinkering with a manuscript for ten years. Anyway, Axiom's End getting published heralds great things for my insanely stupid idea of Transformers: Greek Creed.
|
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 00:58
|
|
|
Milkfred E. Moore posted:It's the actual writing itself. The novel reads like an incredibly rough first draft. One of the first lines includes the phrase 'the car was a manual transmission with a stick shift' - as opposed to what, a manual car without one? This is the kind of thing that should be caught by editors. So why aren't they? Why are so many of these genre novels not being looked over properly? I'm not buying the 'they just wanted it out the door' excuse anymore.  Bad editing is everywhere.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 03:35
|
|
|
HIJK posted:This is the kind of thing that should be caught by editors. So why aren't they? Why are so many of these genre novels not being looked over properly? I'm not buying the 'they just wanted it out the door' excuse anymore. Or you know, what is it they are catching that this is still there. The lowest hanging fruit is the most delicious.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 04:03
|
|
|
My guess for this one is that someone at MacMillan went 'hey, this Lindsay Ellis girl has written a novel, and she has x amount of followers, if even y% of them purchase it, we can turn a profit with very little work.' Giving it a solid line edit, much less a developmental edit, would escalate their costs. Here's another janky line: 'The monitor to the computer was on, a dull blank light emanating from it, but the computer itself seemed to have been dismantled. It was up and running, but its shell had been removed, and was now on the floor.' It doesn't seem very dismantled to me if it's up and running. But who refers to a computer case or tower as a shell?
|
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 04:19
|
|
|
Yeah that’s a bit odd.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 04:21
|
|
|
"Emanated" is one of my least favorite ways to describe light or sound coming from something.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 04:31
|
|
|
"blank light" is a subtly wrong phrase. I can tell she's trying to be evocative of a blank screen without saying it, but "blank light" is not a concept that makes sense.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 04:35
|
|
|
Milkfred E. Moore posted:My guess for this one is that someone at MacMillan went 'hey, this Lindsay Ellis girl has written a novel, and she has x amount of followers, if even y% of them purchase it, we can turn a profit with very little work.' Giving it a solid line edit, much less a developmental edit, would escalate their costs. Yeah that's almost 100% it. I'm glad to see your thoughts on it, I was curious and read the amazon preview but found it pretty dull. Good to know that first impression was right.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 04:43
|
|
|
Also, I always find 'seemed' to be a really lazy bit of descriptive writing. I feel like it's very 'telling' instead of showing. For example, how and why did it seem like the computer was dismantled? That's the sort of thing that, as a writer, it's your job to convey.
|
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 05:14
|
|
But, I guess description is really hard. Just tell!quote:Demi’s face contorted as though she were about to excoriate Cora or at least demand a better explanation, when the door started shaking. Cora backed away from it, wondering if that thing could be held back by a door and a dresser if it really wanted to get in. She turned and looked at the one small window in the room, wondering if there was a glimmer of hope of getting all four of them and the dog out through the window before that thing broke down the door, when she felt a high-frequency noise ringing inside her head. She tried to say something but fell to her knees. She sensed the dog stop barking, her sister stop crying. The noise was telling her to close her eyes, go to sleep. 'Excoriate.' She felt a noise? She sensed the dog stop barking? Is Cora a deaf telepath? In the chapter I pulled this excerpt from, there are sixteen bits of dialogue. There are four whispereds, two yelleds, one shrieked, one answered, one repeated, one managed, one demanded, one asked, two non-attributed, one 'she heard' and one said.
|
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 05:36
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 22, 2024 10:28 |
|
|
Milkfred E. Moore posted:But, I guess description is really hard. Just tell! "Feeling" is actually not a bad way to describe a high-pitched noise that you can't quite hear. Like a ringing that stabs itself into the depths on your brain but your ears can't quite comprehend. I've experienced something kind of like it once so that part is fine by me. So that's the one part that works for me.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 05:42
|
|