I don’t think this a popular opinion amongst fantasy fans, especially with cartoons and animated shows having a rap as being childish, but I think a lot of fantasy series adaptations would be better from this.
Not only could the budget be utilized in different ways creating really cool animations, but with an animated TV show there is more room to tell the story, like in Harry Potter. For example, there could be more of the every day life at Hogwarts that drew people in to begin with, along with the coziness and with a more fleshed out plot than what was possible in the movies. Plus, they could give Harry his mother eyes!
This leads into another point: presentation. A show like GOT is good for this. Due to budget reasons and the constraints of live action, things like the scope of the Wall, the castles, the landscape, world, and characters had to have changes to be adapted to live action. This is one of the many reasons why asoiaf fans want an animated show when—or if, given GRRM’s …
Man, I just finished Uprooted. What a blast!
Having read her other books in the past, the Scholomance and Spinning Silver, I need to firmly put her in my “favorite authors” list. Her characterization, prose, and worldbuilding are all amazing and leave me at awe, to say nothing of the fact that I still find myself learning words from her books every once in a while, which as an avid reader is a rare treat for me (Missish, for example).
But really, her writing is amazing. I love how she writes magic and myths into her world, how she describes it just enough so that you can understand it, but leaves enough room for your imagination and to make it still feel magical. I like how she writes her characters, and overall think she’s a top-notch author.
If you haven’t yet read any of her books, I heartily recommend it!!
Since I got back into reading a few years ago I swore off Brandon Sanderson books, not because I thought they were terrible, I had them described to me as the Marvel of fantasy so decided that wasn’t for me.
I’m six chapters into The Final Empire and it’s great, sometimes being wrong about something turns out to be a good thing.
That was an incredible two-month long experience. I never thought I would be willing or able to finish a 600+ page book, but Sanderson made it possible. Even more amazing since this is the first novel I’ve read for leisure since middle school. I am still shocked about what happened in the climax, and I have so many thoughts, questions, and a few nitpicks.
Strengths:
Or any of the other similar ones “now streaming on prime video” “now a major motion picture”
They completely ruin my desire to purchase a book. They look ugly, even if they make the effort to make them fit the colour palette of the artwork (which they usually don’t); and in 20 years, when looking at my book collection, I don’t want non-removable stickers about some adaptation that I never watched on my nice book cover!
I’m not even slightly a “book collector” but I at least don’t want some garbage tacked onto a product I’m going to buy.
Edit: I am specifically talking about those non-removable “stickers” that are physically printed onto the cover. Removable stickers are totally fine to me
When I was 15 I was looking around the YA section of my local library looking for any paranormal books as it was my favorite genre at the time. I came across Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott and thinking it was a ghost story or something I picked it up and took it home. (I never read what the book was about bc I liked to be suprised.) Turns out it was a very, very detailed story of a child abduction victim getting too old for her abductor and is forced to find someone to replace her. Very heavy on the sexual abuse and very scarring for my 15 year old mind.
Like, obviously, technology is 40 years more advanced and it isn’t the Soviets anymore, and it’s a limited engagement in Ukraine instead of worldwide total conventional war.
BUT.
In Red Storm Rising, the Soviets try to break up NATO by claiming that West Germany carried out terrorist attacks against Soviet citizens, but was found out by US intel.
In real life, Russia tried to limit European and NATO support by claiming Ukraine was harming people in Donbass, and also that Ukraine attacked first. This was also thwarted by US intel.
In Red Storm Rising, the Soviet leaders didn’t tell anyone what they were planning and asked for a bunch of different feasability assessments of different things, and the KGB was surprised when a war actually broke out and Soviet leadership was surprised when their ad hoc plan didn’t work.
In real life, Putin asked for feasability assessments but everyone thought he was just threatening to invade, and told him he could take Kyiv …
I just did a road trip and downloaded a few audiobooks for the journey. One of them was Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. I had read and enjoyed Heart of Darkness before and I wanted to revisit it. This is a very popular text to adapt, and I had many narrators to chose from. I chose Kenneth Branagh’s narration since he’s a stage actor and I thought it sounded promising. I started listening to it and after several hours I began noticing that this version sounded different beyond simply the voice. Then it struck me; the version I was listening to was censored. The racial slurs had been removed and replaced with generic descriptors such as “African” and “native.” I was frustrated by this because Heart of Darkness is an essential text in the European part of colonial critique literature. The book is about the barbarism and madness of colonialism. Further more, the decision to withhold racial slurs creates this bizarre situation where the book is describing how the Congolese are worked to death …
He discussed how many of the people & events in the book were inspired by his real experiences and the people he met in Vietnam, what he intended with the homosexuality flip-flopping in the book, how the sci-fi genre has changed over time, making money as a writer, and his favorite sci-fi books by other authors (Vonnegut gets the #1 shoutout).
The Forever War has been one of my absolute favorite sci-fi novels for so many years, and it was so wonderful to discover that he’s a smart, down to earth, very funny guy who doesn’t take himself too seriously, despite all the success. My favorite quote from the interview: “[The military] doesn’t want [soldiers] to be too trained, intelligent, and competent, because they might get the idea we should not be doing this. What are we shooting at each other for? Because the sergeant said we had to. Well f*** that!”
YouTube link if you prefer video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TuxYQ_x9K4
Or for audio only …
I started reading this book the other day, and after having seen it mentioned in toplists numerous times I though I was in for something good, but I’m eleven chapters in and I’m seriously considering dropping it… Bland characters, world building practically nonexistent, not a lot of environment descriptions… And so far absolutely ridiculous aliens. Does it get better? What about this book do people like?
Idk if I have my bar set a bit high after having read really good books; Iain M Banks, Peter F Hamilton, Alastair Reynolds, Ann Leckie, Dan Simmons… This is the stuff I really like. Where to I turn for more of that?
I am seeking sci-fi books/plot-lines that are rooted in our modern “reality” rather than in the distant future, in some colonized version of space or in a galaxy far far away, in a dystopian alternate version of reality, “in a world where blah blah blah”, on this other planet, etc. Things like Blake Crouch books (Dark Matter, Recursion) and Andy Weir and stories like Arrival/Story of Your Life sort of hit this mark. For example one of the things I enjoyed about Project Hail Mary was the character in that book experiencing many wild things for the first time, and reading their reactions.
Characters, or the wider world at large, are experiencing things for the first time and are shocked/surprised/horrified. For example, “aliens visit earth and a series of events unfolds” as opposed to “in a world where aliens are living on earth alongside humans and blah blah blah”.
What other books are like this? And is this a genre? …
Wow, this book blew me away. It’s just what I wanted thick, real, cerebral and engaging sci fi. I compare it favourably to the Egan I have read and Blindsight.
I know it’s pretty specific, re there any other books or authors that incorporate philosophy into their stories the way Stephenson has?
Cheers!
The Lighthouse is a weird film and Dafoe’s character is even weirder. But does Dafoe do a stupendous job in selling his character. From the sailor speak to his accent to delivering lengthy monologues seamlessly and displaying an artillery of expressions, Dafoe hits each scene perfectly.
Robert Pattinson is not far behind as he does a great job too. It’s just that Dafoe’s character is more interesting and Dafoe just takes it many notches up. Even in some serious scene I was smiling as to how entertaining the character was.
I think it was a snub for Dafoe, deserved a supporting act nomination for that performance.