Pastry of the Year posted:

I will fight you

quote:

‘This was a world known by so many names in aeons past, whose indigenous life intelligence had evolved through millions of years; through epochs of profound science and technology, through an age when they had mastered space travel; ventured to the far stars and had brought back many alien things. Super minerals and materials, life forms of numerous kinds; thus had created a world of time resilient synthetics; a world of hybrids, of humans; a mixture of countless breeds gone wild.’

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He had heard of the great immortal city; the citadel of mystery and foreboding. It was the fabulous infamous city all outsiders feared to enter. Yet the bold wayfarer became obsessed by its existence, thus he sought to find it. On his far journeys he would confront all evil obstacles, encounter the wizards of science, the wondrous characters; wild and weird communities. He visited the inns and taverns, braved the deep forests, and he relished the damsels. But he knew he must one day find and behold the phenomenon; thence brazenly enter into the citadel of Bilbabalbabul.

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He climbed the hill for to get a better vista

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Thus I reassert you; my house, my ladies, viands and refreshments are yours

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You have style in your mode

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And one room in his grange was said to be filled with a great jumble of curios, antiques, preserved ancient books of wizardry, incantations, and tales of bygone aeons, and everything.

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Gyral was ever vigil with shifty eyes, hand ready with sword. He then heard voices again and saw something shifting among further Orcle trunks. He just kept walking until he came to a clearing. And nothing happened.

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A couple of pigmy beings then came out from a hut, hobbling in that odd swaying simian manner. In fact they looked like pigmy simians.

NLJP posted:

My brother loaned me Ready Player One and good loving lord is that infuriating bullshit of the most childish kind. It was so bad.

Apparently there's a whole thread about it in GBS but no way am I going to go in there. I like dumb escapist fantasy and science fiction, I've read many bad books that I kinda enjoyed but the whole shtick of being a total badass because you know all these obscure 80s pop culture references was just sort of sad. Plus the writing was awful.

The Saddest Rhino posted:

The Saddest Rhino posted:

i forgot to respond to this but yes

quote:

“Whatcha doin', Freak Girl?"
---------------------------
"What does it look like, brainiac?" I shot back, even surprising myself with the force of my jab. "I'll give you three guesses. No, wait. Don't strain yourself. Wouldn't want to hurt your head." I waved a flyer in his face, channeling my inner mean girl. "See these? I'm hanging them...on a...wall!" I spoke the last part slowly, as if addressing a dim-witted child. Which wasn't far off the mark, now that I thought about it. "With tape," I added, waving at the dispenser. "You know-sticky, sticky!”

dpbjinc posted:

The vast majority of visual novels have porn. This is not necessarily because the authors wanted to make porn. This is because the majority of their customers won't buy a visual novel if it doesn't have porn. This might be a clue as to why they suck.

For a more serious answer: One of the big issues is that visual novels are generally from a first-person perspective. In books, that's fine. But in a visual novel, the character you play as essentially acts as your self-insert, and the writers know this. The writers have to balance how much personality they give the main character with how much that personality would conflict with the players. Doing that takes a considerable amount of skill. There are ways around that. You can make something funny or ridiculous like Phoenix Wright or that pigeon dating sim so that you avoid that problem altogether. Alternatively, you could play with that concept in the story itself; Ever17 had a really clever take on this w.r.t. the identity of the protagonists.

That being said, visual novels target the Y.A. market. The Y.A. market is stupid. Nobody is going to spend the money on quality writers when the writing isn't even the focus of the product.

Lunchmeat Larry posted:

I like the part where he adopts a small cute dog and meets a nice girl and the girl brutally + insanely murders the dog in gruesome detail for no reason and neither of these things are ever brought up or made relevant again. A+ book

The Saddest Rhino posted:

I said "tell us what books to read" not "defend your position", good job with the reading comprehension

ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:

Goethe's Faust > Marlowe's Faustus.

I said it. I'll say it again if I have to.