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Some evil cannot be destroyed by death.
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Mar 20, 2022 15:27
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I was today years old when I noticed how Eragon is just... DRAGON with an E instead of a D.
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Mar 20, 2022 15:29
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It's one letter grade worse imo
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Mar 20, 2022 15:59
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DicktheCat posted:There are a few times the editor didn't catch that Sturm's name was spelled wrong as "Strum" and it got to print. This explains why my brother and I had been referring to him as Strum for a couple decades.
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Mar 20, 2022 16:13
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Internetjack posted:The one good takeaway is that Otik's spiced potatoes inspired me to start experimenting in the kitchen. There was a tie-in cookbook which had an actual recipe for this and, iirc, it is the blandest thing imaginable. You can tell Mormons were involved. Assuming this is the same thing, well - https://dragonlance.fandom.com/wiki/Otik%27s_Spiced_Fried_Potatoes A pound of potatoes, and 'one to two dashes' of cayenne, don't add more than that or there might be harmful flavour!
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Mar 20, 2022 17:30
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Atopian posted:The usual problem is "Grunts". I found Grunts! absolutely amazing when I first read it in high school, if only because it was fascinating to have a look into the workings of the Dark Lord's army. It sort of falls apart at the end, but I can't help but love the ridiculousness of the Dark Lord giving up at conquering the world in the normal way and just running an election instead. The lampooning of fantasy elves and the sheer grossness of the creepy hobbits was just icing on the cake. It definitely has problematic stuff in it here and there, but it's unique enough in what it tries to do that I'm willing to give it a pass. Ash is great although Ilario, its side-novel, isn't quite as good, I think. I will say that The Black Opera was a very unique story as well. Getting back to plain old bad fantasy, while I loved the Pern books when I was younger the later ones got really one-dimensional with villains who were just evil for the sake of evil, and the one book of her son's I tried to read was so egregiously awful I stopped something like two chapters in.
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Mar 20, 2022 17:43
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TGG posted:I'm not sure how much it still holds up but when I was younger I was a big Fred Saberhagen fan. I never read his Empire of the East series but I read The Book of Swords which was a sequel series and I remember enjoying it, though I remember some vaguely porny scenes based in some like porn temple group. I enjoyed the idea though, a pile of gods create 12 magic swords with different abilities and hand them out to people at random to see who will collect them all and rule the mortals. Some of the swords were rather neat, one made you super lucky but would vanish from you at random and help your enemies. One sword guided you to whatever you wanted but it took the hardest possible route. One made you immune to any weapons but if a dude came at you barehanded the sword did nothing and you essentially auto-lost in a fight against anyone unarmed because you couldn't drop the sword in a fight. I remember my favorite being a sword that would make you an unstoppable berserk fighter who could defend any area but it didn't give a gently caress about the wielders health, so until every enemy is dead you can't die but the sword does nothing to prevent you getting injured so you win the battle but you are not going to live. Empire of the East is fun with some neat ideas. I'd defintiely read it if you enjoyed the Swords books.
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Mar 20, 2022 18:12
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I read a small portion of the Dragonlance books, the ones that were named after seasons. It was confusing for multiple reasons, mainly that I had no clue at the time how D&D mechanics or the world worked, so the things about the classes, the races, the different colors of dragons, all flew over my head. The second reason was the person I was borrowing the books from had a mixed collection of the "teens" release and the "adults" release, and the chapters overlapped in places. I tried going back to the series years later picking up a bunch from a used bookstore for like a dollar each, and never read any of them. Pern was my jam though, somehow I was able to parse all the terminology and understand it and still own my set of books. Stopped reading it when the writer's son took over because I grew out of the series. The Acorna series was also good but that's more sci-fi.
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Mar 20, 2022 20:47
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Jack-Off Lantern posted:I was today years old when I noticed how Eragon is just... DRAGON with an E instead of a D. My friend insists this book is just shy of a masterpiece. I refuse to read it because I am sure it’s not. e: vvv I knew the first part. The second part would explain a lot though .random fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Mar 21, 2022 |
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Mar 21, 2022 00:55
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Wasn’t it written by like a twelve year old and his dad owned the publishing company?
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Mar 21, 2022 00:56
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Moreover I think I recall it being a pretty cut and dry Joseph Campbell style story by way of Star Wars complete with the farmboy meeting an old man who teaches him magic but the old man is soon killed by the dark lord of the evil empire or something. Also his farm burns down.
Sourdough Sam fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Mar 21, 2022 |
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Mar 21, 2022 01:06
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Mad Hamish posted:Getting back to plain old bad fantasy, while I loved the Pern books when I was younger the later ones got really one-dimensional with villains who were just evil for the sake of evil, and the one book of her son's I tried to read was so egregiously awful I stopped something like two chapters in. That almost seems inevitable. I've noticed that with a lot of super long running series. If your story is about defeating a great evil that threatens the world, and the heroes win, then the obvious way to continue the series is to have a new great evil arise, and then another, and another. I liked Mercedes Lackey's Heralds of Valdemar series when I was younger. Magic horses, misunderstood kid who becomes a hero, queer friendly, what's not to love. But eventually each mini-series starts to feel like a retread. The setting of Valdemar itself is in near stasis, because it is defined as a good country run by good well-meaning people so it doesn't grow. The last few I read felt like the author was phoning it in, bored with the series but trapped writing more books because that's what sells. Surely it is the books that have changed, I haven't just become too old and cynical. I think the only long running series I read that managed to stay fresh was Discworld. It never got stuck in the repeating trilogy treadmill.
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Mar 21, 2022 03:50
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Mad Hamish posted:Getting back to plain old bad fantasy, while I loved the Pern books when I was younger the later ones got really one-dimensional with villains who were just evil for the sake of evil, and the one book of her son's I tried to read was so egregiously awful I stopped something like two chapters in. Some other SF writer once wisely commented that the good guys in Pern are so unassailably impeachably good, that it leaves the villains with nowhere to go and no arguable motivation. So they end up just being evil.
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Mar 21, 2022 13:08
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The fact pern continued as a series is bizarre as hell considering there was a book that was clearly meant to be the series finale where they destroy the source of the main threat forever and have all the mysteries of the past revealed to them. I got sucked into those books as a teenager, and I gotta say I'm surprised more authors don't do YA tie-in novels to attract more readers like McCaffrey did.
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Mar 21, 2022 13:30
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With the recent news (how the hell did this take 20+ years to come out?) that the author of the Empire of the Petal Throne was a complete Nazi supporter (including being editor of Nazi-Monthly-Magazine), if you go back through his works, are there any hints or things that stand out as "oh THAT explains it"? I've never read any of the (rule)books, I just heard it used a lot of non-western European background, which was very radical for s long time.
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Mar 21, 2022 13:47
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Comstar posted:With the recent news (how the hell did this take 20+ years to come out?) that the author of the Empire of the Petal Throne was a complete Nazi supporter (including being editor of Nazi-Monthly-Magazine), if you go back through his works, are there any hints or things that stand out as "oh THAT explains it"? david eddings managed to hide his step son whipping for iirc 50 years, and marion zimmer bradley kept her pedo poo poo hidden for decades too
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Mar 21, 2022 14:46
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poisonpill posted:Wasn’t it written by like a twelve year old and his dad owned the publishing company? Paolini started writing it around age 15 and after a couple years his family published it via their own little publishing house and traveled around giving talks at bookstores and schools (in costume). The author Carl Hiassen happened to be on vacation in one of the towns Paolini had been to and his son picked up Eragon from a local bookstore and loved it and showed it to Hiassen. Hiassen brought it to a real publishing house and the rest is history. I want to say Paolini was actually 18 or 19 when the book got picked up.
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Mar 21, 2022 14:50
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Comstar posted:With the recent news (how the hell did this take 20+ years to come out?) that the author of the Empire of the Petal Throne was a complete Nazi supporter (including being editor of Nazi-Monthly-Magazine), if you go back through his works, are there any hints or things that stand out as "oh THAT explains it"? quote:Muhammad Abd-al-Rahman Barker (born Phillip Barker,[2] November 3, 1929 – March 16, 2012) was an American linguist who was professor of Urdu and South Asian Studies and created one of the first roleplaying games, Empire of the Petal Throne. He also wrote several fantasy/science fantasy novels based in his associated world setting of Tékumel, and at least one white supremacist/Neo-Nazi revisionist novel, Serpent's Walk. I had to read this several times. That's quite a bio.
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Mar 21, 2022 14:52
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ChubbyChecker posted:david eddings managed to hide his step son whipping for iirc 50 years What the gently caress  Not what I was expecting to find out in the Bad Fantasy thread. I lived his books when I was a kid. What a piece of poo poo.
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Mar 21, 2022 15:11
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Hakkesshu posted:I had to read this several times. That's quite a bio. He was also a board member of the most notorious Holocaust denial publication.
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Mar 21, 2022 15:14
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RaspberrySea posted:https://twitter.com/spacetwinks/status/967567775265886209 Kneel before Zod.
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Mar 21, 2022 15:42
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Facebook Aunt posted:That almost seems inevitable. I've noticed that with a lot of super long running series. If your story is about defeating a great evil that threatens the world, and the heroes win, then the obvious way to continue the series is to have a new great evil arise, and then another, and another. I liked Mercedes Lackey's Heralds of Valdemar series when I was younger. Magic horses, misunderstood kid who becomes a hero, queer friendly, what's not to love. But eventually each mini-series starts to feel like a retread. The setting of Valdemar itself is in near stasis, because it is defined as a good country run by good well-meaning people so it doesn't grow. The last few I read felt like the author was phoning it in, bored with the series but trapped writing more books because that's what sells. Surely it is the books that have changed, I haven't just become too old and cynical. Yeah, I stuck with the Valdemar books for awhile, and Mercedes Lackey reached the point where she seemingly ran out of new evil villains to introduce and threaten the heroes with, so she started going back and writing prequels and midquels that fill in backstory about supporting characters from early books that aren't nearly as good as the early titles. Oh, and she introduced a self-insert character, "Herald Chronicler Myste". 
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Mar 21, 2022 15:54
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Contributing to the thread pile-on on Piers Anthony, I remember reading the Immortality book on Death, and going 'well, his thinking about death is kind of amateurish, I mean what does 'compassionate death' mean in a world with Tarantula Hawks that create life by paralyzing a spider and letting it's young eat it from inside out while it's alive and feels everything'... but they seemed fun. And the first extended author's note (from memory as a kid, mind you) was an odd, refreshing view from the inside. Then, uncomfortably weird stuff kept popping up in the writing, and the author's notes got longer and longer and more disquieting. Then, in one book (I forget which) the protagonist was in the abyss, rescuing some women, and they had to get them across with a boat that had to be shared with demons. But, at no time could the demons outnumber the women in the boat, or else they would be raped! Oh boy! The plot point was one of those childhood logic puzzles, but dresses up in rape! And that protagonist, hoo boy, was so good to women for single-handedly (without input or help from any of these women) helping them navigate that corridor of demons and rape. It was a weird mix of juvenile and obscene. I skipped ahead to the author's note, and the way he was talking about his perspectives on sexual politics...my disgust instinct kicked in and I noped the gently caress out. In hindsight, reading his author's notes felt like being groomed.
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Mar 21, 2022 16:00
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Comstar posted:With the recent news (how the hell did this take 20+ years to come out?) that the author of the Empire of the Petal Throne was a complete Nazi supporter (including being editor of Nazi-Monthly-Magazine), if you go back through his works, are there any hints or things that stand out as "oh THAT explains it"? In a world of fantasy that was basically minor variations on Tolkien, Petal Throne / Tekumel was something very different and strange. In a way, it was a hindrance because the world was so weird and it's own thing. How Barker got from Urdu and converting to Islam to white supremacy is anyones guess. nonathlon fucked around with this message at 16:19 on Mar 21, 2022 |
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Mar 21, 2022 16:11
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thoughts and prayers posted:Contributing to the thread pile-on on Piers Anthony, I remember reading the Immortality book on Death, and going 'well, his thinking about death is kind of amateurish, I mean what does 'compassionate death' mean in a world with Tarantula Hawks that create life by paralyzing a spider and letting it's young eat it from inside out while it's alive and feels everything'... but they seemed fun. And the first extended author's note (from memory as a kid, mind you) was an odd, refreshing view from the inside. You want groomed feelings, try reading piers Anthony’s “letters to Jenny”, a collection of letters he wrote to a 12 year old fan who had been hit by a drunk driver as she recovered from near total paralysis It feels super creepy, knowing how obsessed he is with kids around that age loving.
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Mar 21, 2022 16:48
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nonathlon posted:Some other SF writer once wisely commented that the good guys in Pern are so unassailably impeachably good, that it leaves the villains with nowhere to go and no arguable motivation. So they end up just being evil. Well, the author thinks they're unimpeachably good, at least. Reading them again as an adult, loving eep. Pern is a shithole filled with horrible people. And rape. So much rape....
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Mar 21, 2022 17:14
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Vampire Panties posted:What the gently caress It's extremely bad, yeah. Luckily he's dead, so you don't have to worry about any money going to him anymore, but it does really put a damper on returning to his works.
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Mar 21, 2022 18:03
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Comstar posted:With the recent news (how the hell did this take 20+ years to come out?) that the author of the Empire of the Petal Throne was a complete Nazi supporter (including being editor of Nazi-Monthly-Magazine), if you go back through his works, are there any hints or things that stand out as "oh THAT explains it"? what in the goddamn gently caress
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Mar 21, 2022 18:08
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rotinaj posted:You want groomed feelings, try reading piers Anthony’s “letters to Jenny” Jenny and her in universe elf counterpart and the overall creepiness of it all is what really started making me realize how bad he was when I was younger.
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Mar 21, 2022 18:11
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Mr.Chill posted:I remember enjoying the heck out of The Black Gryphon by Mercedes Lackey (no one ever brings her up when discussing fantasy, which is weird because she was quite prolific and not a bad writer), mainly because of how different it was. Hey! I read that one! I really enjoyed it. I liked Lackey. I remember reading quite a few of her books. There was a set about elves that had really complex (at least for a middleschooler) society where elves took over and treated humans as particularly intelligent pack animals. There was a lot that was said about sexism, as their society was really male-oriented. Like, the dude elves kept harems of humans, but it was framed as a mega hosed up thing that isn't sexy or cool, and is fact a bad thing. The main character of the first book (Elvenbane?) was a rare half-elf born from a human concubine who was dumped in the desert after a rival hosed up her birth control. She was then raised by dragons because they are good and cool in this series. There was a lot of nuance, though, bc while the elven society was a den of snakes, there were still decent elves that were just regular people mixed in with the mega rich assholes. One character is actually an elf noble who was a very "weak" mage and couldn't do combat magic, but she found she could do much more subtle magic than any combat mage that was actually insanely useful, like altering the structures of living things creating new plant breeds and such. Even with the harem thing, I don't recall anything overtly egregious, as with any male writer at the time.
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Mar 21, 2022 18:37
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Arven posted:The fact pern continued as a series is bizarre as hell considering there was a book that was clearly meant to be the series finale where they destroy the source of the main threat forever and have all the mysteries of the past revealed to them. Reminds me of the original Oz books where Baum made a pretty explicit end to the series with the sixth book which has all the bad guys currently in Oz defeated and a magic charm placed on the country that makes it invisible to outsiders and impossible to enter. Of course the real world doesn't care for such things and when Baum found himself in financial need all of a sudden there were more Oz books.
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Mar 21, 2022 21:01
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DicktheCat posted:I liked Lackey. I remember reading quite a few of her books. Yeah, she's cool (afaik). A long-running series can have problems even if the author isn't awful. Valdemar has 46 books now. To me it feels like after 20 or 30 she'd said all she wanted to say about magic horse people.
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Mar 22, 2022 00:48
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I can't imagine there's 40+ books of things to say about them.
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Mar 22, 2022 11:05
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Comstar posted:With the recent news (how the hell did this take 20+ years to come out?) that the author of the Empire of the Petal Throne was a complete Nazi supporter (including being editor of Nazi-Monthly-Magazine), if you go back through his works, are there any hints or things that stand out as "oh THAT explains it"? I also haven't read any of the actual rulebooks, but I did read some online materials about it a while ago, because the world seemed fascinating. So now I went back and read those materials again. And...the world is all about authoritarian empires that are in endless wars against each other, and barbarian tribes, and non-humans. Slavery is normal Each human nation gets a description with average height, hair color, nose shape (?) etc. Tsolyani, the default "starting location" for the RPG is an authoritarian empire where "everyone knows their place in the social order" and a lot of the other nations are described in terms of whether the Tsolyani think they are ugly or not. There's a desert tribe nation that practices democracy, but the other nations consider this ridiculous. Most of the non-human races live in their own small enclaves, and many of them have a "neuter" sex in addition to males and females. A couple of the non-human races are Always Evil since they hate humans for invading their planet. So yeah, a bit of "oh that explains it".
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Mar 22, 2022 17:02
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I hate humans for invading this planet, so I must be evil.
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Mar 22, 2022 20:56
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So, what have we learned from reading this whole thread? 1) Don't be a paedophile (does this REALLY FREAKING NEED TO BE SAID? Fine, I'll say it anyway). 2) Don't put rape in your books. Just don't. You're not qualified to use it in any way that could be considered remotely good in any way. 3) Don't try end runs around this with stuff like "well she's actually 1000 years old!" or 'Some plot device aged her up from 12 to 22!' or 'They're emitting incredible lust rays!'. 4) Seriously. Just. Don't. Even IF you're normal and trying to do commentary on the most extreme deviances of relationships in the vein of Lolita, that book said it best and it's STILL skin crawling with how easy it is to emphasize with the narrator when all you see is what he sees. You won't succeed. Just don't. 5) Don't put sex in your books either. At best, do some joking commentary or a strip and embrace and then fade to black. 6) If you're having trouble with the above, jack off. Then resume writing. 7) Try and realize just what the concept of a whole race behaving in a singular way was a sublimated expression of. 8) Seriously, MAKE ALL YOUR drat LOVERS MEET AS ADULTS OR NEAR ADULTS, NO drat MEETING WHEN ONE IS 11 AND ONE IS 28 LIKE REED RICHARDS AND SUE STORM ONCE DID, no idea if that's still canon. If you're gonna do large age gaps, make one of them at least in their freaking late 20's. 9) There's a tricky line between worldbuilding and character development and pointless spinning of wheels. It seems even supposed good authors constantly cannot parse it, so uh...just keep looking and good luck. 10) Be honest with yourself. If you deny aspects of yourself, it WILL end up coming out in your work, in one way or another. And it'll make you look a lot worse. 11) Terry Goodkind needed to be punched in the face a lot more in his life than he did.
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Mar 25, 2022 08:06
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While it has been done well very occasionally, fantasy literature as a whole would be better if no-one put sex scenes in their books beyond a fade to black. Even when it doesn't hit any particular landmines, it seldom adds much.
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Mar 25, 2022 10:15
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People wanna read about beefswelling and climbing walls bringing Neyla to orgasm.
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Mar 25, 2022 10:27
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smut is good actually
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Mar 25, 2022 10:32
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I read bad fantasy books for bad fantasy sex! It’s all I have!
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Mar 25, 2022 15:09
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