|
felicibusbrevis posted:By the way, you mention Beckett and say the unnamable reaches heights of blah blah blah. Well buddy the third volume is a puzzle box shaggy dog joke: a penis has anthropomorphized its back story: he sits leaking from one eye and imagines he used to have limbs but sometimes mahood (manhood) and the worm come to take his place. He is beaten until he vomits and sometimes cast into a dark room, not an ontological nightmare but a puzzle box of socially unnameability because it isn’t polite to say what we really are: a cycle of gonad and adult organism, everything driven to continue so that we can continue: I can’t go on I’ll go on. People write about how the unnameable is ultimately unknowable but it is just a sentient dick. A Wolfe scholar could solve that easily. No depth: a dirty joke that professors masturbate over without understanding it. What.
|
#
¿
Nov 4, 2018 15:42
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 21, 2024 11:35 |
|
|
TheGreatEvilKing posted:I have no idea why you guys are picking this hill to die on. There is nothing that says you couldn't write a good story where people have well defined psionic powers or poorly defined magic. It comes down again to what the authors do with it, which is to throw it in a story willy-nilly with no actual meaning behind it. I think he's also making a strong argument in favor of lemon cakes, though that peters out later.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 26, 2019 06:58
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:My favorite moment in stardew valley was the seduction of Penny, a poverty stricken young woman whose mother is an alcoholic, via throwing diamonds at her once a week. It's like poetry. It rhymes.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2019 01:35
|
|
|
Is Brandon Sanderson really worth critiquing? I only ever read him in the last few WoT books, because I needed some kind of closure, and he was just bad. It seems like he's just real bad, and he writes a lot, I mean nobody is breaking down exactly why Xanth novels are bad, because you know, who cares?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 5, 2019 01:54
|
|
|
Karia posted:Please do an in-depth analysis of how metal engravings are the only trustworthy source of knowledge. The loving angels' name is Moroni. That seems like it's beyond parody.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 5, 2019 03:22
|
|
|
chernobyl kinsman posted:hieronymous fears botl because he knows in his heart that he'll be mod of this subforum one day Well, there's no doubt that Botl is the supreme booklord spoken of in the sacred texts.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 5, 2019 04:02
|
|
|
chernobyl kinsman posted:its a really basic christian allegory and you're way overthinking it. she didnt come back to narnia because she consciously chose, as a rational being gifted with free will, not to go back to narnia. if she chooses to accept narnia - which she knows on some level is real - she can go back to narnia. I guess you don't, like, get it, but Lewis choice of which character failing to enter heaven is part of thousands of years of oppression of women and support of misogyny by the Christian church. Lilith leaves Adam because she has control over her sexuality, Eve causes orginal sin, etc.. Lewis demonification of Susan is just another part and parcel of christianities war on women. It's not a coincidence that it's lipstick and pantyhose and not racehorses.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 9, 2019 07:04
|
|
|
Mel Mudkiper posted:Like, he wanted you to be surprised Mr Wednesday was Odin when his name is loving Mr Wednesday To be fair most people probably don't know the etymology of Wednesday.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 12, 2019 01:05
|
|
|
Mel Mudkiper posted:He literally says "Since today is my day call me Mr Wednesday" Oh well if he says that and you have no idea the derivation, then obviously the knowledge will spontaneously pop into your head.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 12, 2019 01:19
|
|
|
Sham bam bamina! posted:Going by what I've picked up through osmosis/Wikipedia and what's been mentioned in this thread, though, Gaiman seems to treat the pantheon of mythology and folklore as a roster of characters for his epic crossover fic. This is basically true. It's essentially a less interesting less clever Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. That being said it may introduce people to interesting mythological figures and cause them to do their own research. I like American Gods and Sandman, but I don't think they're amazing or anything. Shadow is kind of just an empty vessel through which to view the story, which seems kind of lazy.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 12, 2019 02:07
|
|
|
hackbunny posted:Nah, I bet he's also, like, blind from one eye, or followed everywhere by two crows, or performs runic magic or some super obvious poo poo like that I don't remember him being one-eyed, or having crows, or a six-legged horse, he does know some "charms". It seems like the real criticism of American Gods is that people are ignorant enough that it is a somewhat clever reveal, which is more about the reading public than the book itself.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 12, 2019 02:10
|
|
|
Strom Cuzewon posted:This is why I hate Sanderson so much. He puts so much effort into his magic systems, but then very carefully removes anything that could lead to a novel aesthetic or consequences for his characters. He fails even to be pulpy fun. I haven't really read any Sanderson, but one thing I've noticed about all this world building and magic rule-making it tends to be very anachronistic. These are faux Western Europe medieval cultures, yet somehow they have figured out exactly how magic works. No germ theory of disease, or understanding of chemistry, but a very thought out, cause and effect understanding of magic that is "correct" i.e. they've correctly divined the rules that it operates under, well before any kind of enlightenment or scientific revolution. The other thing that bothers me, there's never any real loving religion. GRRM has a smidgeon, but everyone seems to really be a cynical atheist, in Wheel of Time there's no priests, even though there's a creator and a Dark One, religion barely figures into Rothfuss, and it seems like most fantasy epic societies have a gaping hole where religion usually would be. As if somehow if people could actually do magic they wouldn't instantly be conmen claiming to be doing miracles from god etc..
|
|
#
¿
Feb 16, 2019 06:46
|
|
|
CountFosco posted:Eh, I think that you can use shattered for an object that you wouldn't ordinarily describe as shattered if you're doing it in a poetic sense. For example, a person's mind is neither fragile nor rigid, yet it can still be "shattered." Let's not get too pedantic about word use as we criticize bad writing. It's not wrong automatically, but like is the thing broken into many pieces? Or is something unusual going on? You wouldn't describe a dead goat as shattered unless it.. you know shattered. Even if it was broken into many pieces I'd probably describe it as ripped apart, or something like that. There's nothing wrong with criticizing specific word choice imo.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 17, 2019 06:07
|
|
|
pikachode posted:i never knew how much i wanted this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jESAjKNDNFY
|
|
#
¿
Feb 17, 2019 20:47
|
|
|
Pacho posted:I don't mind The Silmarillion and the later published appendices and notes but they are kinda guilty of making some folk believe that "worldbuilding" is the purpose of fantasy and not a tool. I think GRRM is at least honest (and smart) in putting all of that in actual enciclopaedias It seems like all of Tolkien is guilty of that. He wrote like he was writing screenplays. And it's basically an excuse for massive worldbuilding. I honestly don't really care for the LotR, the Hobbit is somewhat better. It seems like if it came out today and wasn't the classic LotR it wouldn't do that well. Which granted, is impossible since it more or less created the genre but, while I liked it a lot when I was a kid, when I re-read it as an adult I found it often disappointing.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 23, 2019 18:32
|
|
|
TheGreatEvilKing posted:All of Tolkien's world is there to decline and give a sense of loss, as BotL pointed out. Then why do they win? Why do Frodo and Sam survive on giant loving eagles. Why pull your punches? Why let them destroy the ring? Maybe I just don't "get it" but I think the LotR kind of sucks aside from being a sacred cow that invented a genre.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 23, 2019 18:49
|
|
|
BravestOfTheLamps posted:Unfortunately it has a map and is thus disqualified I really like maps. One of the things I don't like about the First Law trilogy is it has no map (at least in the version I have). I'm sure this makes me a bad reader or critic or whatever but I like what I like.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 23, 2019 19:33
|
|
|
Mel Mudkiper posted:Speaking of terrible sci-fi and fantasy The Ayn Rand book? Does it have a map? Also, Ayn Rand is just a terrible loving writer, it goes without saying any book she wrote is terrible. I read the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged when I was younger wanting to see what all the fuss was about and man she's just an awful awful writer, aside from whether her ideas have any merit (they don't).
|
|
#
¿
Feb 23, 2019 19:43
|
|
|
poisonpill posted:History is full of things that you couldn’t put into a novel because they’d come across as too cheesy and improbable. This weirdo’s brick-sized novels were so good they became hailed as the philosophical manifestos of the country’s legislature fifty years later?!?!? I think part of the appeal is they are very simple ideas. They appeal to people who aren't particularly deep thinkers, and who don't deal well with nuance and complexity. "Greed is good" is a simple idea. Also, I think the books are so bad that makes them somehow more appealing as philosophy tomes. I mean if you try to read Thus Spake Zarathustra as a novel you'd be like "this is bad worldbuilding" and "this prose isn't very good" or "it has no map" and "it was a Zoroastrian prophet in three parts". You read Atlas Shrugged and it just hits you over the head with the same ideas over and over. The whole book boils down "just let capitalists do whatever the gently caress they want" but somehow John Galt has a speech that's a novel by itself (it's twice the length of the communist manifesto apparently). You start thinking there has to be something to this if it's so long and difficult (there isn't).
|
|
#
¿
Feb 24, 2019 06:16
|
|
|
A human heart posted:it's true that a small number of rich shitheads and policy wonks like her but i think her influence on, for example, the republican party, is probably overstated. like you don't need to be an objectivist to think that free marketism is cool, and her ideology is weird in pretty specific ways that a lot of free market guys don't seem particularly attached to. Paul Ryan at least has repeatedly talked about her. Ron Paul, Trump, Rand Paul as well. I doubt they really understand Objectivism, they just took the message that capital should be able to do whatever the gently caress what it wants, but they love to cite her as an influence.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 25, 2019 00:05
|
|
|
chernobyl kinsman posted:noted wrong idiot michael crichton's 1992 novel rising sun is really bad about that I don't think it's really fair to single that out and say Crichton was a "wrong idiot". Writing near future stuff is almost always based on "if these trends continue" and the book is in part about how different cultures interacting in business go, and whether foreign direct investment in technology is really good, and what to do when it becomes increasingly difficult to use certain types of evidence, i.e. photographic or video, and we're certainly dealing with the fall out of things like deep fakes today, as well as selling our future to a foreign power (this time Russia).
|
|
#
¿
Feb 28, 2019 05:18
|
|
|
chernobyl kinsman posted:he wrote an entire book about how climate change is liberal fakery Did not know that.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 28, 2019 05:54
|
|
|
chernobyl kinsman posted:then he put a journalist who gave it a bad review into his next book, as a pedophile with a micropenis What New York Times bestselling author amongst us has not abused his position to intimate that a member of the media prefers children and has small genitalia.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 28, 2019 05:59
|
|
|
Mel Mudkiper posted:Theres no reason we have to take this to QCS when all of us are right here, right now. Why not a QCS thread in TBB? Also, I think this latest probate is fair and just. I think Botl makes some hilarious posts, and I sometimes laugh at this shitposts, but they are low effort and he knows the rules.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 28, 2019 22:10
|
|
|
chernobyl kinsman posted:or because discussion in the thread about genre writing has taken an organic detour into video game writing Okay but a detour is totally different than someone repeatedly just single posting the word penis or some variation of that. One is discourse, the other is penis.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 28, 2019 22:19
|
|
|
chernobyl kinsman posted:i'm shitposting but i do actually like this forum and you guys, except for the ones who are my enemies, and i want to be good, and i think we should discuss how to make it good, and also hieronymous should make me mod Can you climb your way to mod on a pile of your own shitposts? Is that the mods journey?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 28, 2019 22:41
|
|
|
chernobyl kinsman posted:if a mod's idea of what a forum should be clashes with that of half the posters on that forum i think there's an issue bubbadoo I don't even think half the posts in this thread agree with you, let alone the sub-forum.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 1, 2019 00:03
|
|
|
chernobyl kinsman posted:please take all discussion about why I'm wrong to FYAD, thanks I'll need you to draw me a fantasy map so I can undertake this quest, good sir.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 1, 2019 00:12
|
|
|
pile of brown posted:Those suck but that's like tossing out blindsight entirely because VAMPIRES Blindsight had, in my opinion, the best take on Vampires ever. I don't know how to use commas.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 1, 2019 21:18
|
|
|
my bony fealty posted:Ahem , VAMPIRES is only one of several reasons to toss out Blindsight Yeah, I'd enjoy reading your reasons. Blindsight is my favorite Sci-fi book, full stop.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 1, 2019 22:12
|
|
|
my bony fealty posted:Chelsea is a meddler who spends most of her on-page time wanting to "fix" him. It's the lazy stereotype of a clingy, overly-involved girlfriend. I don't want to get into a point for point debate, but I think its worth considering sometimes stereotypical people exist. Stereotypes don't arise out of nothing. You've already criticized the book for having too much in it with characters who lack characterization. Then there's a character who is pretty understandable, which you criticize for being lazy, if she was a unique unheard of flower too then you'd criticize him for having another character who you couldn't understand who was unnecessary for the plot. Second, Siri Keeton is the definition of an unreliable narrator. Who knows what Chelsea really is, but Siri Keeton sees her as the overly caring girlfriend trying to fix him.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 1, 2019 23:56
|
|
|
avoraciopoctules posted:I think someone recommended Blindsight to me a few years back. All the human characters came off as smug jerks. I can understand not liking them, but to me, it seems like people who are the best in the world at cutting edge fields and willing to be shot out into space on an experimental ship might be smug jerks.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 2, 2019 03:12
|
|
|
Chuck Buried Treasure posted:This is the worst poo poo in existence and if I could wish one genre fiction thing to disappear forever this would be it. Why? In a broader sense, why are goons so lazy about the whole "thingbad" phenomenon. I get that you think it's a powerful statement when you "thingbad" with no explanation, thus implying that it goes without saying or is implicit but it doesn't and it's not.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 2, 2019 04:10
|
|
|
Milkfred E. Moore posted:why is he called Kaladin Kaladin. Paladin. It's like poetry. It rhymes.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 3, 2019 23:20
|
|
|
Karia posted:According to Reddit you're right, thanks for the correction. That's really dumb, but sure, why not. Worldbuilding! I haven't read it, and I don't want to come across as a Sanderson apologist, but there have been times that people only had one name, and it certainly could be a sign of class or distinction to have two names vs one. This particular bit of worldbuilding might not be that bad.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 3, 2019 23:47
|
|
|
pikachode posted:i've realised i don't actually like sf/f and i'm not sure i ever did You'll fit right in.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 4, 2019 02:42
|
|
|
Cacto posted:On ninefox gambit I thought I liked it until I went and reread it - the concept got me past the prose the first time, but it didn’t last. I liked the concepts and the plot itself but I struggled a lot with the execution. Honestly, I wanted it re-written by Peter F Hamilton.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 4, 2019 09:46
|
|
|
my bony fealty posted:See this just makes it worse for me. You start rules-lawyering your made up evolutionary problems, you get further and further from what's supposed to be a plausible explanation for something mystical. As mentioned the vampires are already a nonsensical, non-fit idea for a predator. Now we have to ask: how perfect do the angles have to be? No, we don't. Like literally nobody is that worried about the exact parameters of the crucifix glitch aside from you. If you actually were worried about them, Watts cites his sources, so you can read the journal articles and research he used as the basis for his ideas. It seems like you just don't like hard Sci-Fi my bony fealty posted:I get the appeal more now. part of my dislike comes from a general low opinion of hard sci fi. Every time someone answers one of your objections (which usually turn out to be, you didn't read the book accurately) you move the goalposts. Why do you feel the need to justify the fact you just don't like hard Sci-Fi? It's kind of funny because you're complaining about rationalizing the universe in hard Science Fiction, while you endlessly rationalize.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 4, 2019 17:02
|
|
|
Sham bam bamina! posted:Hard sci-fi is generally bad, though not as bad as Peter F. Hamilton. Yeah, I don't generally enjoy the sex stuff in Hamilton's work, it seems like he mostly shoves it in there for titillation purposes rather than to advance the plot or characterization much. And the literal Deux ex Machina endings are off-putting. But I think he does the space opera stuff pretty well, telling a story from enough points of view that you get a sense of the impact conflict has on society, and constructs believable worlds based on technological progression.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 4, 2019 17:17
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 21, 2024 11:35 |
|
|
my bony fealty posted:my main criticisms of "the book tries to touch too many ideas to the detriment of any one of them" and "the characterization is bad" remain tall, and you shall not shorten them I do think there's a lot going on in Blindsight, but to me, that's a strength, not a weakness since it rewards re-reads and some thought about the ideas and implications. It's not light reading (like Hamilton, or I guess Sanderson) where you just sort of follow the plot. Because of your objections, I re-read it the last couple of days and I disagree that the characterization is poor. It's fundamentally a book with a very unreliable narrator, Siri is well characterized, but it's inherent to who he is as a narrator that he doesn't characterize others well. Siri is the Chinese Room, and he's a "jargonaut" who interacts with the world through explicitly the surface topology of people. His arc is explaining how he got to be that way then being manipulated and then ultimately forced to become more human. However, I don't think the plot is particularly character-driven, which is think is fairly common amongst hard Sci-Fi.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 4, 2019 17:25
|
|