SF & F Mega-thread: I had to google 'spock pirate depilatory'

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Nigmaetcetera: Nov 17, 2004; borkborkborkmorkmorkmork-gabbalooins

a foolish pianist posted:

It helps quite a lot to imagine that Kvothe is a sad old drunk bullshitting in the tavern in exchange for free beers. Like, he�s going to finish his story about being magical sex king then puke on somebody�s shoe and go sleep in the bushes outside.

I bet he�s loving Bast. I have no evidence but I�m 100% sure.

# ? May 24, 2022 02:08

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# ? May 20, 2024 09:46

silvergoose: Mar 18, 2006; IT IS SAID THE TEARS OF THE BWEENIX CAN HEAL ALL WOUNDS

There's Dreadnought, I mostly liked that one.

# ? May 24, 2022 02:10

SurreptitiousMuffin: Mar 21, 2010

Harold Fjord posted:

BotL was ultimately banned but he had some real good posts about Rothfuss'writing. I'm gonna go find one.

These?

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

LET�S READ THE KINGKILLER CHRONICLE CRITICALLY

Summing up, part 1 � What the gently caress is The Name of the Wind about?

The Name of the Wind is a story set in another world, of sorcerers and demons. It�s about Kvothe, adventurer, sorcerer, musician, assassin, a legend living in hiding as a simple innkeeper. But as premonitions of catastrophe threaten, Kvothe finds himself recounting his life story to an intrepid scholar, from how he grew up in a band of performers only to lose his family to a supernatural tragedy, and how entered a school of sorcery to discover the truth of what had happened. It�s a story about understanding and learning, centred on the figure of Kvothe, and the reader is privy to the truths he holds.

No wonder then, that the story is so hollow and without purpose or meaning.

It�s hard not to be stuck how any reviewer of The Name of the Wind struggles to say what the book is about beyond its plot. Donna Bowman at the Onion AV Club tells us that it�s �a thoroughly adult meditation on how heroism went wrong�, even though most of the book only has bare hints about how heroism went wrong. Grady Smith from Entertainment Weekly says that it�s about �a fiery-haired arcanist on a lifelong journey to understand a tragedy that befalls his family�. The novel is only passingly concerned with dealing with tragedy, and it�s insight into the nature of knowledge and understanding prove lacking.

The staff of Publishers Weekly say that �this outstanding debut fantasy chronicles the formative years of an orphan boy who starts his career as an actor in a traveling troupe of magicians, jugglers and jesters�. That�s just part of the plot. Even authors seem to stumble: Orson Scott Card assures us that it�s �a bildungsroman -- the story of the childhood, education, and training of a boy who grew up to be a legendary hero�. Again, that is the plot and not the whole story.

Getting straight answers out of the fans is like pulling out teeth, so let�s forget about asking them. What about simple product descriptions? Amazon.com tells us that The Name of the Wind is �The riveting first-person narrative of a young man who grows to be the most notorious magician his world has ever seen�. Again, just part of the plot.

What does Patrick Rothfuss�s website tell us about The Name of the Wind?

Do you see what I have to work with here? But one thing is clear: everyone knows that the book is singularly Kvothe's story.

_{Image by �Skadivore� via the Kingkiller Wikia.}

Nothing in The Name of the Wind happens without him being involved, no one acts without him taking part. But the great irony of The Kingkiller Chronicle is that despite this story being so utterly focused on the character of Kvothe, he�s ultimately very poorly defined. A character is nothing but a storytelling device, but Kvothe has no real story no matter how much Rothfuss writes.

It�s why he keeps shifting through different roles: actor boy, genius prodigy, mental paragon, street urchin, thief, encyclopaedic wit, university student, sorcerer, angry young man, assertive upstart, virginal suitor, investigator, caring protector, dragonslayer, figure of terror, middle-class liberal, crotchety recluse, etc. What�s remarkable is how these roles do not clash when they logically should. His most consistent characteristics are his omnicompetence, his pride, and his touchiness, and even those come and go. You never see Kvothe�s touchiness affect his courting of Denna. He�s a mental titan whose instincts have been honed on the streets, yet he mainly pals around with the most boring, whitebread characters in the University. He appreciates the common man yet looks down on the parochial and the religious.

It�s certainly not a depiction of how multifaceted people can be, because there is no realism to a prickly teenage genius prodigy polymath penniless gypsy middle-class musician apprentice artisan wizard. And it�s no post-modern statement on the artificiality of identity, even with some nods to some of these being roles in the performative sense.

Easy enough a syllogism: the story is about Kvothe, but Kvothe is nothing, and therefore the story is about nothing. But is it really that simple? There�s always a choice of reading The Name of the Wind as satire, but the sheer bulk crushes any hope of that. There�s simply not enough satire to justify the page count. It�s an exercise in the aggrandisement of a fictional character, expressed through a featureless fantasy world.

It�s a story about how exceptional Kvothe is.

That�s it.

Next: How (badly) The Name of the Wind reads.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

LET�S READ THE KINGKILLER CHRONICLE CRITICALLY

Summing up, part 2 � How (badly) The Name of the Wind reads

This has been unquestionably the hardest part of this read-through to write, hence the delay. It�s just hard to sum up all the tangents I�ve gone onto in a satisfactory manner. And sometimes it feels like they're a way of coping: the reader is compelled to see more than there is rather than face how boring this stupid book is. So I�ll try to be straight-forward. Here are the principal issues with the writing of The Name of the Wind.

It reads almost like an overwritten first draft

In spite of all the time Rothfuss purportedly spent on The Name of the Wind, it�s remarkably unpolished and poorly edited. And despite its length, the book is quite thin in content. There�s a lot of pointless faffing about to it, including most of its story. The book is longer than Herman Melville�s Moby Dick, but there�s nothing challenging or ambitious to it, not even a proper story arc. A legendary hero living in obscurity explains how his family was murdered, and how it took him months to discover that a library was badly organized.

Early on our hero explains how his childhood training gave him prodigiously accurate memory, which is presumably the reason why his life story is ground down with pointless detail. Rothfuss insists on describing the story's happenstance in all of its extended, utterly boring, and completely unnecessary particularity . The poor editing and thin content come together iin this, as evidenced in the inseparable pair of the book�s most aggravating structural elements: the frequent and dull long dialogues, and the over-described and ridiculous emotions that always accompanies said dialogues. Rothfuss�s characters speak long and often, yet end up saying very little. And they cannot speak without nodding, shaking their heads, sighing, giving meaningful looks, smiling, or some other complicated series of gestures and expressions. Often these are repeated as to make them more ridiculous. When describing a maiden on the verge of crying, Rothfuss gives her eyes that are "luminous with the beginning of tears� twice, mere paragraphs apart.

But even if the book were competently edited, only so much can be done to fix the poor writing...

The prose is just bad

No way around it. For all the praise given to Rothfuss�s prose by critics and some readers, actually producing any good prose for examination has proven to be an impossible task. Rothfuss�s is a very consistently bad writer, and in purely stylistic terms, his principal weaknesses form a triumvirate: there�s the arduous detail, the limp flatness of the prose, and the Rothfussian Attribute. The first has already been discussed, and the second deserves demonstration. Here is one illustrative excerpt, from the beginning of Chapter 61:

Every sentence has a stretched out limp rhythm, and each segues smoothly into the next. This makes the prose easy to read but without any force or substance save for facile self-contentment. When a chapter opens with a long prose segment, it�s almost a rule that it ends on a pointedly flat note such as above. The dreary �Again� is as indicative as anything of the book�s plodding imagination. For poor rhythm, one needs only to observe the third sentence of the final paragraph:

Why �came to the deep realization� when it spreads the sentence too thin? What makes this realization so �deep�? Not only is the pacing off, but it presages the last of the triumvirate, the Rothfussian Attribute. The Attribute (or Conceit) is an instance of Rothfuss employing a metaphor, simile, or some other descriptor so broad and fanciful that it distracts from how absolutely nonsensical it is. A silence is as deep and wide as autumn�s ending. A sword is like an alchemist had distilled a dozen swords into one. A character sings powerful lines like the branches of a tree. Emotion touches the edges of a voice like a hint of sunset against slate-grey clouds. In the face of such sheer clunkers, the reader mistakes their incomprehension for fascination.

And fascination is fleeting in this book...

The fantasy is dull

As is common with genre authors, Rothfuss thinks that the trappings of the fantastical are fantastical in themselves. There�s nothing enchanting about magic in itself, even less so when it�s reduced to comic book/RPG superpowers. The book is named after a secret of magic, yet that secret is nothing more than Summon Wind (costs X Magic Power). And �fantasy� is not limited here to the strictly supernatural elements, but to the whole imagined world of The Name of the Wind. The Four Corners of Civilization are without any character to them. The world is simply there, bare and static.

Perhaps nothing illustrates this better than Rothfuss�s choices in the central setting of the book: the great academy known simply as the University, which Rothfuss has seems to have based on his own college years in the Midwest US, with only the garnish of vague ancient mysteries and corporal punishments to flavour it. It�s hard to overstate how safe and staid the University is: Rothfuss�s meek and colourless student body wouldn�t last a minute in an old Sorbonne brawl. Even the Hogwarts kids would eat them alive. Like the University, Rothfuss�s world does not feel like anything, not even barren. There are things in it, like aristocracy and religious dogmatism, but they have only the weight of stage props.

_{The problems with Kvothe�s character, explored in the last entry, also apply to the world of Kingkiller. Rothfuss describes many things in it, but never decides what the world is like.}

And when creatures of myth stroll the scene in all their glory, they�re quickly and decisively deflated, such as a petulant fairy prince threatening to string a fiddle with a man�s guts. The monsters are treated as if they were from a RPG supplement, and the demonic villains speak in comic book clich�s. Rothfuss suggests that his principal villain wants to destroy the world, and perhaps only suggests it so that he can backpedal smoothly away from such a supremely hackish and juvenile device. And speaking of juvenile...

It�s all-around embarrassing

The Name of the Wind is shameful. The book is an extended paean to its main character, and despite fleeting hints at satire, never escapes its hero�s teenage mindset. Practically nothing significant happens in the world of the story without Kvothe being involved. He is of course a master of music, learning, magic, wit, thievery, and so on, and whenever he fails Rothfuss is very keen to underline how despondent and pained he is. Everything�s about Kvothe. He�s exceptional because he�s exceptional, not because he embodies any virtue or values. Men envy him, women want him.

Women deserve a section of their own, but in interests of brevity let�s simply note that in a cast of hundreds, female characters with names and voices are outnumbered about 7-to-1 by their male counterparts. While lopsided enough, all the significant female characters are young and in some way striking (the exception is the hero's mother, who is presumably slighty matronly and beautiful instead of young and beautiful), with painstaking detail reserved for illustrating the delicate mannerisms of the child-like Ophelia of the novel. The men receive no favours either. Rothfuss has a whole platoon of aging mentors, with a meaningful glint in their eyes and a mischievous smile on their lips, paraded on the page to share their practical wisdom. The antagonists with most page-time are Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy from J.K. Rowling�s Harry Potter series, and remarkably none of their nuance survived the transition from mediocre children�s adventure to mature fantasy epic. The counterpart to Draco is involved in one of the clumsiest duels of wits that have ever escaped a writer�s trash bin.

And yet there�s still so much reason to shake�s one head at in the book, such as the idiotic anachronisms sprinkled throughout or Rothfuss�s typical liberal elitism. But as conclusion, it must be noted that book�s stated philosophy of stories is embarrassingly wrong. The Name of the Wind is a story about stories, but does not understand them: characters often tell stories or recount songs, and they�re false save for the occasional nugget of truth hiding in them. That the truth of stories is in the narratives and aesthetic instead of hidden trivia goes almost completely unrecognized. Similarly, fans of the Kingkiller series comb the narrative for clues and theorize what the truth of it is, and are thus too distracted to recognize the mediocrity staring them in the face. And with that, one question remains...

Next: Why does anyone like this garbage?

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

LET�S READ THE KINGKILLER CHRONICLE CRITICALLY

Summing up, part 3 � Why does anyone like this garbage?

They like it because it�s bad.

Too simplistic? Hardly. All the broad faults I illustrated in the last entry are exactly what attracts people to the series. There are readers who have seen nothing wrong with the disastrously poor editing, the very bad prose, the boring fantasy, or the sheer juvenility of it all. In fact, they parse them as strengths because they like bad writing. There are readers who even defend these books as progressive. There are the reviewers, too, who declared The Name of the Wind a significant genre novel. But one does not need to read reviews of The Name of the Wind for long to notice how callow their criticism is, with professional reviewers barely able to state what the book is about. The most ambitious review must be Hannah Strom-Martin�s Quixotic assay:

Take a moment to appreciate how laboriously Strom-Martin explains the concept of a destitute person (�a penniless man forced to live without food, shelter, or warmth for long periods of time�), or weaves in clich�s like how the book is both poignant and hilarious. Yet this is one of the better reviews of The Name of the Wind. There�s really nothing ultimately remarkable over a bad or mediocre work in any medium being subject to critical (or fan) adulation. The Name of the Wind presents a veneer of boldness but beneath hide only the same clich�s. This is the appeal. When a damsel in distress is saved, she is told by her rescuer (a man) how she was not a damsel in distress but a strong woman perfectly capable of handling herself. That she afterwards wants to gently caress him is simply natural.

Rothfuss�s trafficking in clich�s is always transparent because there is nothing genuine behind them. Reviewers might admit to some banalities, but generally pass over them in silence. As always, what one does not say is just as important as what one does say. So-called fans (in truth I am one of the few Rothfuss fans) are obviously no better, but the fannish enthusiasm is remarkably indistinguishable from supposedly professional work:

This recalls Strom-Martin�s disaster of a review:

Notice how both find the banal utterly important: it is pleasing for both the critic and the reader that the fantasy be �plausible�, in that that magic and legend are suitable restrained and properly explained. This is not a contradiction, but a vital aesthetic-ideological concern for fantasy readers. They demand that the fantastical be banalized to a degree. Psychological realism, plausibility, the minutiae of �world-building�, pulp shock, and modernist cynicism thus have primacy. This is why Rothfuss�s strives for such �objective� realistic detail. George R.R. Martin�s A Song of Ice and Fire is the pinnacle of this development (incidentally, it does not resemble Tolstoy�s War and Peace very much). Even beyond the Rothfussian Attribute, the book�s dull faux-realism is undoubtedly its greatest stylistic asset. Fandom wants to consume, and Rothfuss�s unceasing pedantry is perfect for that. The fans and amateurish critics cannot recognize or understand good prose, let alone how that prose communicates the book�s story or aesthetic goals (all the praise the fan can muster for the prose is that it�s readable and communicates meaning!). Certainly none can recognize the driving psychological or ideological force of the The Name of the Wind. This force is tentatively illustrated by one blogger:

While not everything above is accurate, it is based on an astute observation that makes all the pieces of the puzzle come together: The Name of the Wind is a fantasy of the white liberal middle-class American experience. This explains many baffling elements. The contradictory portrait of Roma, as both highly-educated liberals and as a marginalized minority, exemplifies many white progressives� simultaneous anti-racism and discomfort with anything outside of their liberal bubble. The anti-religious bigotry is the province of liberal atheism. That the hero cannot escape financial insecurity in spite of his genius exemplifies the uncertain future and economy that defies the middle class's perceived self-importance. The absence of real communities and their actions reflects suburban atomism. The hypocritical feminist sentiments are just that. The world entirely revolving around the protagonist is the narcissistic legacy of the �Me� Generation. And so and so on. The Name of the Wind is true hipster fantasy.

If the dull faux-realism is the form that attracts readers, the liberal middle-class fantasy is the substance. Reviewers and self-proclaimed fans are blind to this as they are to the book�s editing goof-ups, because fannish enthusiasm inhibits insight and understanding (some are politically partisan or merely uncritical, and thus unable to see or question Rothfuss�s shallow liberal sentiments). One finds many fanboys with theories about the secret identities of characters and foreshadowed plot points, but who are unable to describe the prose or themes (in fairness�s sake, I have proven the latter to be an impossible task). Amateur critics similarly compensate in enthusiasm what they lack in discernment. But in the indomitable phalanx of genre enthusiasts, one stalwart warrior will always slip up and admit that they think their genre of choice is inferior, limited, or juvenile.

In this instance it�s that phrase from Hannah Strom-Martin: that The Name of the Wind is �the David Copperfield of fantasy�. Not the David Copperfield of literature, but the David Copperfield of just genre fantasy novels! Why is there need for such a distinction, if not to avoid genuine and honest comparison? To truly compare David Copperfield to The Name of the Wind is to admit that the latter is unquestionably worse. Thus, there is need to categorize and divide so that true comparison does not happen, leading to the implicit admission that to be genre is to be deficient and that it is not "real" literature (How many genre critics even dare to use the word �literature� without a backhanded qualifier like �fantasy�?). The Name of the Wind is recognized merely as king among genre works.

The punchline, of course, is that The Name of the Wind is not even good compared to other genre works. It�s poo poo.

But that�s what we love about it, even the ones in denial.

Next: Slouching towards Wise Man�s Fearr

# ? May 24, 2022 02:11

Benagain: Oct 10, 2007; Can you see that I am serious?; Fun Shoe

Once you hear Kvothe as Zap Branigan you can't hear him any other way.

# ? May 24, 2022 02:15

Everyone: Sep 6, 2019; by sebmojo

MartingaleJack posted:

Her assertion that she would sell less copies if her protags were trans...I don't think it's a bigoted statement. She specifically says she's in this for the money, so she's prioritizing income over everything else, and maybe research into her fanbase led her to that conclusion. There are other authors I know who specifically switched to writing about trans and lgbtq stuff because they thought there was a gap in the market they could break into, but as an established author it makes less sense financially for her to take risks. It's not like she said no one should write trans protag novels because they're inherently disgusting or something.

Honestly, I think as an established author, she'd be in a better position to take a few risks because she's an established author. That said, as someone who's written a few things (mostly fan-fiction) I wouldn't write a transgender protagonist or major character because I don't think I could do them justice. I think my version of a trans character would come off as one or more of trite, cheap, stereotyped and just plain unauthentic. It would be very little signal, mostly noise and probably insulting noise at that.

Meanwhile, as a straight, white CiS-gender male, I'm about to drop a few bucks re-acquiring Lila Bowen's Shadow series whose protagonist shares very, very few of my identifying traits.

# ? May 24, 2022 02:24

Beefeater1980: Sep 12, 2008; My God, it's full of Horatios!

Kalman posted:

Between Two Fires ain�t that far off. (And is actually good.)

Between Two Fires is both a pro read and basically that Darklands RPG from the early 90s, novelised.

Saying that, I realised I now want to read a Mork Borg novelisation. In the mood for some grime.

# ? May 24, 2022 02:34

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Wait, Between Two Fires is Darklands? poo poo, now I have to play it.

# ? May 24, 2022 02:42

Beachcomber: May 21, 2007; Another day in paradise.; Slippery Tilde

Someone once posted that when reading the Name of the Wind, you can practically see the account balance in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

Which is what I liked about it. I like books where things get built up from smaller things. That kind of rpg progression tickles the right nerves in my brain, apparently.

If there are other sf/f books that do that, let me know, please.

# ? May 24, 2022 02:54

AARD VARKMAN: May 17, 1993

Beachcomber posted:

Someone once posted that when reading the Name of the Wind, you can practically see the account balance in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

Which is what I liked about it. I like books where things get built up from smaller things. That kind of rpg progression tickles the right nerves in my brain, apparently.

If there are other sf/f books that do that, let me know, please.

The SF/F Kindle Unlimited thread is a good resource for this kind of thing because progression fantasy is a gigantic genre in self publishing. The ultimate shortlist in my brain though

Cradle by Will Wight (westernized version of Chinese progression fantasy known as Cultivation)

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman (litRPG with literal stat screens, but funny and pageturning and just, you know, good)

# ? May 24, 2022 03:02

Larry Parrish: Jul 9, 2012; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

FPyat posted:

I've been seeing some speculation as to why there are so few superhero novels, and the answer some of the users settled on was that superhero stories are focused on action and will not appeal to a novel-reading audience who want character development and plot. Consider me skeptical.

it's because publishers who want to appeal to existing fans just make comics op. but yeah, the idea of people with what is basically magic doing weird kayfabe and smashing each other and the city up is cool, but there's not much to read in this department. memoirs of a d-list supervillain and I Am Invincible is pretty much it as far as ones I'd recommend. i am invincible is really melancholy and regretful, I liked it a lot. d-list supervillain is standard genre fiction, but it's not bad, which makes it like a 10 in the KU tier.

# ? May 24, 2022 03:02

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

AARD VARKMAN posted:

The SF/F Kindle Unlimited thread is a good resource for this kind of thing because progression fantasy is a gigantic genre in self publishing. The ultimate shortlist in my brain though

Cradle by Will Wight (westernized version of Chinese progression fantasy known as Cultivation)

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman (litRPG with literal stat screens, but funny and pageturning and just, you know, good)

These are both good recs. Cradle is probably the best progression fantasy that plays it straight, so to speak, while DCC is more nihilistic and darkly comedic.

# ? May 24, 2022 03:16

Stupid_Sexy_Flander: Mar 14, 2007; Is a man not entitled to the haw of his maw?; Grimey Drawer

Keith r candido (spelling might be mangled on that) has a pretty great series called super cops or something like that. It's basically a csi/cop investigation for super criminal stuff. They are normal people though, not super heroes. That's my jam. CSI/Cop procedure novel based in sci fi or fantasy? Gimme.

# ? May 24, 2022 03:39

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Larry Parrish posted:

it's because publishers who want to appeal to existing fans just make comics op. but yeah, the idea of people with what is basically magic doing weird kayfabe and smashing each other and the city up is cool, but there's not much to read in this department. memoirs of a d-list supervillain and I Am Invincible is pretty much it as far as ones I'd recommend. i am invincible is really melancholy and regretful, I liked it a lot. d-list supervillain is standard genre fiction, but it's not bad, which makes it like a 10 in the KU tier.

I always recommend Tom De Haven's It's Superman!, so here's another recommendation for it.

Finished a couple of very short novels recently. First, Doris Lessing's The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 from her "Canopus in Argos" series, about an alien civilization dying out as their once temperate planet experiences a climate shift and slowly freezes over. Grim and moody as you might expect; Lessing says she was inspired by Robert Falcon Scott's journals from his failed Antarctic expedition.

And then there was Myke Cole's The Armored Saint: Joan of Arc-esque lesbian protagonist in steampunk power armor leads rebellion against repressive theocracy. Not particularly deep, and honestly it felt more like a setup for the real story, but it was a fun read and left me wanting to continue with the series, so job done.

# ? May 24, 2022 03:49

neongrey: Feb 28, 2007; Plaguing your posts with incidental music.

Everyone posted:

Honestly, I think as an established author, she'd be in a better position to take a few risks because she's an established author. That said, as someone who's written a few things (mostly fan-fiction) I wouldn't write a transgender protagonist or major character because I don't think I could do them justice. I think my version of a trans character would come off as one or more of trite, cheap, stereotyped and just plain unauthentic. It would be very little signal, mostly noise and probably insulting noise at that.

i assure you this sort of concern has never stopped her before

# ? May 24, 2022 04:03

Blastedhellscape: Jan 1, 2008

Copernic posted:

BINGO!

I know I'm asking for it but why is Frank Herbert on that BINGO card? I know about the issues with every other author there, but as far as I know Herbert seems like a guy who just threw every wild psycho-sexual idea or hallucinogen-inspired thought he had onto the page, but ultimately comes off as a wild pervert with his heart in the right place.

Am I wrong? Hopefully he didn't beat his wife or something.

Edit: Whoops, didn't see that Asamov was already on the list.

Blastedhellscape fucked around with this message at 04:10 on May 24, 2022

# ? May 24, 2022 04:07

habeasdorkus: Nov 3, 2013; Royalty is a continuous shitposting motion.

Megasabin posted:

There was one narrative beat in this trilogy I did not love. Kennith raping Aletha. It felt really out of left field for his character, happened way too late in the plot of the book, and became this overpowering force that trod on a lot more interesting conflicts that were set up in the previous two books. For example. the trilogy somehow managed to sidestep one of the main conflicts it was setting up across all 3 novels-- Althea and Wintrow vying for the Vivica. Althea's entire character (understandably) changes after the rape and they are simply able to solve 3 book's worth of tension with her hand waving away her claim to the ship in a throw away sentence. It could have lead to some interesting psychological and interpersonal distress with Wintrow and Etta, which they hinted at briefly, but since it all happened in the 2nd half of the final book it never got time to breathe or develop.

I felt like it worked from a story and character perspective, and Kennit's shittiness is wrapped up in his repeating the same abuse he suffered, but you're right about it derailing one of the central conflicts of the story.

# ? May 24, 2022 04:16

habeasdorkus: Nov 3, 2013; Royalty is a continuous shitposting motion.

Blastedhellscape posted:

I know I'm asking for it but why is Frank Herbert on that BINGO card? I know about the issues with every other author there, but as far as I know Herbert seems like a guy who just threw every wild psycho-sexual idea or hallucinogen-inspired thought he had onto the page, but ultimately comes off as a wild pervert with his heart in the right place.

Am I wrong? Hopefully he didn't beat his wife or something.

IIRC Herbert was very lovely to his gay son and lovely about gay people in general (including in his fiction). It's one of the milder faults compared to some of the writers on that bingo card as far as I'm aware, tho.

# ? May 24, 2022 04:18

Hel: Oct 9, 2012; Jokatgulm is tedium.
Jokatgulm is pain.
Jokatgulm is suffering.

Cicero posted:

Far from certain here, but maybe it's that superheroes are dominant in the comic space? So people who want to tell superhero stories tend to go there more, because the audience is already there.

They aren't really, unless you are talking about a very limited slice of the American comic space.

And I'd say the fact that it's actually not as big as people think it is is probably more of a reason why it doesn't find enough fans in other media(except movies and tv) than anything inherent in the medium.

# ? May 24, 2022 05:49

Leng: May 13, 2006; One song / Glory
One song before I go / Glory
One song to leave behind

No other road
No other way
No day but today

Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:

CSI/Cop procedure novel based in sci fi or fantasy? Gimme.

So newts didn't post it in this thread but she has TWO cop procedural urban fantasy novels out. Both are in KU and the second one just came out not long ago:

newts posted:

The Night City is really a mystery/police procedural, but it’s set in an AU world with two species of humans, one of which is psychic.

newts posted:

And now the sequel is up The Nocturnum Files

Both books are on KU, and the first book is free until May 6th. Give them a shot if you dare read something that’s completely goon-produced (my writing group + cover designer are all SA members too)

Disclosure: I am in newts' writing group and I do not normally read cop procedurals, that said I really did enjoy both books.

# ? May 24, 2022 06:06

mllaneza: Apr 28, 2007; Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952

Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:

Keith r candido (spelling might be mangled on that) has a pretty great series called super cops or something like that. It's basically a csi/cop investigation for super criminal stuff. They are normal people though, not super heroes. That's my jam. CSI/Cop procedure novel based in sci fi or fantasy? Gimme.

Charlie Stross' Halting State and Rule 34 are calling you by name.

Selachian posted:

Finished a couple of very short novels recently. First, Doris Lessing's The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 from her "Canopus in Argos" series, about an alien civilization dying out as their once temperate planet experiences a climate shift and slowly freezes over. Grim and moody as you might expect; Lessing says she was inspired by Robert Falcon Scott's journals from his failed Antarctic expedition.

I've got the omnibus of Canopus in Argos. It's loving huge. It's also one of the most poignant examinations of the human (and cat) conditions you'll ever find. These aren't the books that won her the Nobel for literature, but they show why she earned it. Highly, highly recommended.

# ? May 24, 2022 06:29

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

FPyat posted:

I've been seeing some speculation as to why there are so few superhero novels, and the answer some of the users settled on was that superhero stories are focused on action and will not appeal to a novel-reading audience who want character development and plot. Consider me skeptical.

Not a lot of costumed superhero novels maybe, but there's been plenty of sf protagonists with superpowers. They just don't usually wear skintights and capes because what's the point when nobody's drawing your perfect physique.

I mean, come on, try telling me Slan isn't an X-Men precursor for starters. The Green Lantern Corps was an explicit knockoff of the Lensmen.

# ? May 24, 2022 11:01

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

FPyat posted:

I've been seeing some speculation as to why there are so few superhero novels, and the answer some of the users settled on was that superhero stories are focused on action and will not appeal to a novel-reading audience who want character development and plot. Consider me skeptical.

Kinda-sorta. I feel like there's something to be said for that it's easier to establish a superhero in a visual medium -- here's their powers, their look, and so on. And I think there is something to be said for the expectations of readers and audience. But I think the actual reason is more that superhero stories are very narrow, and the more you develop them outside of their narrow genre confines, the more you just end up with a story that could be told better as a sci-fi thriller or something, where the superhero parts of it are weighing it down in some way. So you might as well just write that.

Like, what makes a superhero story? Where is the line drawn between, say, Spiderman and something like Heroes? Is the Tom Cruise adaptation of Edge of Tomorrow a superhero story? I've seen arguments made by people that Snyder's Man of Steel isn't a superhero film but a sci-fi film because the focus is more on Clark Kent's psychology and choices and angst than Being Superman. When I think superhero story, I think of something with rather indistinct 'kitchen sink' worldbuilding, costumed heroes and villains that somehow don't really exist 'within' society, a focus on heroic individuals that minimises anyone who isn't and/or structural issues, and a lack of really pulling at the threads of the whole tapestry. Like, Tony Stark invents clean, cheap power and then just kind of sits on it and everyone lets him -- but you better not offer up any commentary on that! Heroes and villains just kind of run around doing their thing and everyone just sort of lets them.

There's also the business side of things. While I've been querying my own "post-superhero" novel, I've been surprised at the number of SF/F agents who noted "no superheroes, please" or something along those lines in their submission notes. I feel like there simply hasn't been a smash hit superhero novel but I'm also not entirely sure what one would even look like. Personally, I've not enjoyed any I've read to the extent that I'd argue Wildbow's Worm is perhaps the best in class. Maybe it's because so much superhero stuff feels like it's only in conversation with the genre and itself, I don't know. Maybe it's because there's a distinct impression that Marvel and DC have a stranglehold on what a superhero story is (and, along those lines, I've talked to people in the industry who are worried about even publishing a superhero novel because of the big two and possible litigation.)

And even Worm, even though what I've just said about it, it has this real thread of "This isn't how it'd work, dad" running through it where worldbuilding choices only really exist as commentary on the author's take on the genre. Why would the authorities have a prison like Arkham where it feels like everyone's always escaping from? No, they'd have a super-prison built inside a vacuum within a mountain overseen by a benevolent AI. Does one supervillain summon an army of ghost clones? No, he summons fragments of his ego laced with psychic energy -- there's no such thing as ghosts or magic! Why do we even have this game of costumed cops and robbers? Well, there's an eldritch conspiracy to have the world play costumed cops and robbers. Is any of this actually going to matter, in the sense that it concerns the real meat of the story, the protagonist and her personality and fall? No, not really -- so, ultimately, you've got this story about a young woman's descent into evil broken up by gruelling infodumps. A new character shows up? Here's a paragraph on what their name is, what they look like, and how their powers work.

I don't know. It's odd. I consider my little novel more of a sci-fi thriller set in a near future where superheroes are a defined construct because, well, how else is the world going to try and organize people with crazy superpowers? They don't just exist because it's a superhero work which is the feeling I get from just about every other bit of superhero fiction I've read. I think It's Superman! even copped negative reviews from people saying that, like, he didn't punch Lex Luthor enough and so therefore it wasn't a superhero novel.

So, in conclusion: :shrug:

Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 11:06 on May 24, 2022

# ? May 24, 2022 11:04

Larry Parrish: Jul 9, 2012; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

it's kind of just window dressing and barely there but it was cool in worm when the cops and robbers poo poo had a vaguely ideological bent to it and it was like the world was so awful that people literally gained magic to destroy it one way or another. like even to the people without powers the only truly worse option was the status quo. but it kind of never did anything with that actually cool idea and instead decided to do basically what you said for 14,000 pages or whatever.

# ? May 24, 2022 14:41

Non Krampus Mentis: Oct 17, 2011; Scrungus Bungus from the planet Grongous

Sax Solo posted:

Below the fold:

I'm okay with, "I only write cis people because I'm cis", but "Body transformation? That's modern/sci-fi stuff, not fantasy!" is wild.

It�s astonishing to me that a fantasy author doesn�t have the imagination to conceive of a fantasy society that has a place for transition-related magic. You�re going to ask me to believe that a dude can fall in love at first sight with a magic horse* or a sorcerer father can use his daughter as a magical battery, but trans people just can�t do anything with magic to improve their lives?

*I think this was a Lackey book

# ? May 24, 2022 14:51

Happiness Commando: Feb 1, 2002; $$ joy at gunpoint $$

Non Krampus Mentis posted:

It�s astonishing to me that a fantasy author doesn�t have the imagination to conceive of a fantasy society that has a place for transition-related magic. You�re going to ask me to believe that a dude can fall in love at first sight with a magic horse* or a sorcerer father can use his daughter as a magical battery, but trans people just can�t do anything with magic to improve their lives?

*I think this was a Lackey book

The big bad in her Mage Winds series is literally a disembodied consciousness that takes over bodies. It's really just a lovely old TERF opinion

# ? May 24, 2022 15:05

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Non Krampus Mentis posted:

It�s astonishing to me that a fantasy author doesn�t have the imagination to conceive of a fantasy society that has a place for transition-related magic. You�re going to ask me to believe that a dude can fall in love at first sight with a magic horse* or a sorcerer father can use his daughter as a magical battery, but trans people just can�t do anything with magic to improve their lives?

*I think this was a Lackey book

God knows how many books out there where people can change into wolves and hawks and dragons and naked mole rats and bags of prawn cocktail crisps and whatever, but into themselves but a different gender? Inconceivable!

# ? May 24, 2022 15:07

Stuporstar: May 5, 2008; Where do fists come from?

Runcible Cat posted:

God knows how many books out there where people can change into wolves and hawks and dragons and naked mole rats and bags of prawn cocktail crisps and whatever, but into themselves but a different gender? Inconceivable!

Not to mention how many fantasy books have female protagonists dress in men�s clothing and pass as male to get by. Sure a lot of those women were not expressly meant to be trans male, but a more general feminist trope, but its based on historical precident where you can�t possibly prove that none of them were trans male. And if you write a character who passes as a man and wants to stay that way, you�ve basically written a trans male character.

E. Also I read a book as a pre-teen (can�t remember the title) about a cat who got magically turned into a man and decided he wanted to stay that way, and reading transness into these kinda stories is already a thing. So stripping away the metaphor and writing about a girl who grows up in men�s clothing and searches for magic to actually become a man isn�t a stretch at all. These stories already exist in different clothing, yet here was Mercedes Lackey freaking out at the idea of writing a story where a boy seeks magic to become a woman instead

Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 15:56 on May 24, 2022

# ? May 24, 2022 15:39

Thranguy: Apr 21, 2010; Deceitful and black-hearted, perhaps we are. But we would never go against the Code. Well, perhaps for good reasons. But mostly never.

More fantasy settings should look like Varley's Nine Worlds gender-wise, sufficiently high magic implies affordable, perfect, and reverseable gender changing.

# ? May 24, 2022 16:00

AARD VARKMAN: May 17, 1993

score another point for The Culture there

# ? May 24, 2022 16:04

MartingaleJack: Aug 26, 2004; I'll split you open and I don't even like coconuts.

The Culture is basically the perfect trans friendly universe. You can be anything. Even an orbital weapons platform.

# ? May 24, 2022 16:14

Jedit: Dec 10, 2011; Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

AARD VARKMAN posted:

score another point for The Culture there

They lose it again for believing that strictly cis people are weird, though.

# ? May 24, 2022 16:14

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Stuporstar posted:

Not to mention how many fantasy books have female protagonists dress in men�s clothing and pass as male to get by. Sure a lot of those women were not expressly meant to be trans male, but a more general feminist trope, but its based on historical precident where you can�t possibly prove that none of them were trans male. And if you write a character who passes as a man and wants to stay that way, you�ve basically written a trans male character.

E. Also I read a book as a pre-teen (can�t remember the title) about a cat who got magically turned into a man and decided he wanted to stay that way, and reading transness into these kinda stories is already a thing. So stripping away the metaphor and writing about a girl who grows up in men�s clothing and searches for magic to actually become a man isn�t a stretch at all. These stories already exist in different clothing, yet here was Mercedes Lackey freaking out at the idea of story where a boy seeks magic to become a woman instead

Well, yeah. There seem to be a lot more girls disguised as boys than boys disguised as girls, but you do run across the latter occasionally - Philip Reeve's Here Lies Arthur's Peredur, for instance. And Jane Gaskell's 60s-pulp-A-F Atlan Saga has the heroine escape from a farm in borrowed boys clothes and later run into one of the farm boys who's repaired the girl clothes she left, run away to the city wearing them and become the mistress of one of the military officers there...

Hell, Ozma of Oz originally showed up as a boy, and there's no telling whether she was actually physically male as Tip or whether her transformation was just a bath and a pretty dress.

# ? May 24, 2022 16:21

moonmazed: Dec 27, 2021; by VideoGames

Everyone posted:

CiS-gender

this is an exciting new spelling!

# ? May 24, 2022 16:22

90s Cringe Rock: Nov 29, 2006

MartingaleJack posted:

The Culture is basically the perfect trans friendly universe. You can be anything. Even an orbital weapons platform.

And yet that poor man was unable to achieve his goal of one hundred penises.

# ? May 24, 2022 16:30

Spime Wrangler: Feb 23, 2003; Because we can.

I have a personal theory that Rothfuss hasn't finished his series because he's grown as a person and can't bring himself to execute his original vision anymore, and yet his rabid fans demand nothing less.

On a related note, if you want more Kvothe, definitely pick up the Empire of Silence/Sun Eater series by Christopher Ruocchio. It starts out feeling like a pastiche of bestseller SF and has this awesome character arc where the gifted but perfectly tormented protagonist learns to reject his liberal mores and embrace fascism to become Time Jesus, the Inevitable (?) Emperor.

Most critical reviews I've seen seem to stop with the plagiarism in book one and never get to the mask-off communist caricatures who use the Space Communist Manifesto to mind control their population, who they secretly sell as food to the Space Orcs that only want to kill God and Eat Babies (in Space).

It has its qualities if you want to read more Rothfuss (in Space), but it's also a prime candidate for reading the wiki plot summary and smugly rejecting for thoughtcrimes and plagiarism and being the self-insert power fantasy of a 20-something catholic kid, if that's your thing.

# ? May 24, 2022 16:46

Haystack: Jan 23, 2005

AARD VARKMAN posted:

The SF/F Kindle Unlimited thread is a good resource for this kind of thing because progression fantasy is a gigantic genre in self publishing. The ultimate shortlist in my brain though

Cradle by Will Wight (westernized version of Chinese progression fantasy known as Cultivation)

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman (litRPG with literal stat screens, but funny and pageturning and just, you know, good)

Two other decent progression series that come to mind are the Mage Errant series by John Bierce and the Arcane Ascension series by Andrew Rowe.

# ? May 24, 2022 16:57

ToxicFrog: Apr 26, 2008

FPyat posted:

I've been seeing some speculation as to why there are so few superhero novels, and the answer some of the users settled on was that superhero stories are focused on action and will not appeal to a novel-reading audience who want character development and plot. Consider me skeptical.

Yeah, I've read no shortage of SF/F pulp that is entirely focused on cool action setpieces with little to no character development and just enough plot to string the action scenes together. There's definitely a market for superhero prose stories in the same vein, and they do exist (e.g. the Ex-Heroes series), but it seems to be a very small niche.

And conversely, there are superhero books (and comics!) that put a heavy emphasis on plot and character.

Runcible Cat posted:

Not a lot of costumed superhero novels maybe, but there's been plenty of sf protagonists with superpowers. They just don't usually wear skintights and capes because what's the point when nobody's drawing your perfect physique.

This is true, but I think what makes it a "superhero" story isn't the superpowers but the whole social context around them.

Thranguy posted:

More fantasy settings should look like Varley's Nine Worlds gender-wise, sufficiently high magic implies affordable, perfect, and reverseable gender changing.

Two recent series I read in that vein:
- in the Tensorate, children are not gendered until they intentionally choose a gender for themselves. Wizards provide the magical equivalent of puberty blockers, HRT, and/or surgery as needed.
- in Inthya, divinely powered gendershifting magic is temporary, but cheap and widely available; there's a cultural expectation that everyone will try it out at least once. Sometimes people try it out and it never wears off because the new shape fits them better than the one they were born in.

The latter series is also the one where one of the books had me going "hmm, the poo poo this werewolf is going through with her malfunctioning transformations seems like it could be an allegory for The Trans Experience" and then like a chapter later the author went "subtext is for cowards, watch this: the werewolf is trans".

Everyone posted:

CiS-gender

What do people think "cis" stands for? I'm going crazy here trying to figure it out.

# ? May 24, 2022 17:09

DurianGray: Dec 23, 2010; King of Fruits

I've been scouring my recent reads (about 220 books over the past 2.5 years or so, mostly SFF and Horror), and I'm sort of surprised by how few fantasy books explicitly deal with magic-based transitioning, or even that have explicitly trans characters. From the stuff I've read at least, it's way more common to see trans characters in SF by a WIDE margin.

The ones that have both explicitly mentioned magic transitioning:

The Four Profound Weaves by R.B. Lemberg (at least one culture that's trans-affirming has a magic weaving technique/spell that can trans your gender)
The Tensorate Series by Neon Yang (which ToxicFrog mentioned right before I was about to post, yeah, is not super specific as to the method, but it's established that at least for people who can afford it, magical puberty blockers are common and so is magic transition once you've decided to declare your gender formally)

And then Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee has a culture with an established third gender (mostly demarcated by specific clothing/hairstyle) but that is much more of a social thing than something medical/magical.

I almost included Broken Earth Trilogy by Jemisin, but then remembered that the methods Tonkee uses to transition are pretty explicitly scientific from my recollection at least (which makes sense since most of the magic limited to earth/seismic stuff). There's also She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan which has a pretty trans main character, but at least the first book it's more of a 'I'm just pretending to be a dude so I can lead this army... but actually, maybe I am a dude?' trajectory so far and the magic/supernatural angle is kind of ambiguous overall.

I think I need to add the Inthya series to my TBR if it's got trans werewolves though, that sounds rad.

# ? May 24, 2022 17:18

DACK FAYDEN: Feb 25, 2013; Bear Witness

moonmazed posted:

this is an exciting new spelling!

I always assume it's autocorrect for the capitalization but the hyphen really got me

# ? May 24, 2022 17:26

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# ? May 20, 2024 09:46

Haystack: Jan 23, 2005

David Brin's Kiln People mentions in passing that people use the book's central "stick your brain into a short-lived synthetic bodies then meld their experiences back into yours later" technology to change up their gender (and general body identity).

# ? May 24, 2022 17:36

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > SF & F Mega-thread: I had to google 'spock pirate depilatory'

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