The ending of Lord of the Rings is very, very obviously about PTSD (though that was not the term at the time)
“Are you in pain, Frodo?’ said Gandalf quietly as he rode by Frodo’s side.
‘Well, yes I am,’ said Frodo. ‘It is my shoulder. The wound aches, and the memory of darkness is heavy on me. It was a year ago today.’
‘Alas! there are some wounds that cannot be wholly cured,’ said Gandalf.
‘I fear it may be so with mine,’ said Frodo. ‘There is no real going back. Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same; for I shall not be the same. I am wounded with knife, sting, and tooth, and a long burden. Where shall I find rest?’
Tolkien fought in WW1, he is talking about trauma from war, it is not subtle.
I wanted to open up a discussion about racial coding in fantasy, particularly regarding non-human characters like elves and tieflings, and share a recent conversation that left me quite frustrated.
In a recent discussion with a friend, the topic of black elves and tieflings came up. We were talking about how we’re hype for patch 6 of baldur’s gate 3 and I told him about how I’m excited to romance karlach again. Eventually we got on her original appearance where she was depicted with more African features. Basically if she wasn’t red she’d be black. He didn’t get it and kept saying he’s tired of this being shoved at him which led to a conversation where My friend, who is white, couldn’t grasp the idea that these fantastical races could be portrayed as anything other than white. He argued that since these beings aren’t human, they shouldn’t exhibit human racial traits, particularly those associated with being black. This …
And I will never forgive them for it. I’m only in the middle of the first book and I feel insulted. I loved ASOIAF because of its deft prose, inversion of tropes, complicated characters, dynamic worldbuilding, and varying perspectives. This book is just a guy jerking himself off. It’s a blatant power fantasy about an edgy dark hero with a dark past and a doomed romance. Its giving jaime lannister but without any of the inner turmoil and emotional growth. Fans say that its supposed to sound like that because the protagonist is narcissistic and hyping himself up, but if i wanted to listen to a narcissist I’d just talk to my mom smh. This book is supposedly renown for its worldbuilding, but in ASOIAF the world feels ALIVE, it evolves and changes. This world feels elaborate, but static.
I totally respect that it’s super popular and a lot of people like it, but can we stop calling a chicken a duck? This book isn’t nearly as revolutionary, people hype it up way …
I always see a lot of people on here talk about the magic school/academy trope. I hated school, but love books with magic school settings. I know it’s in a fantasy setting which implies escapism from the real world. But I was just thinking about how ironic it is that we not only read, but also greatly enjoy someone else doing tasks in a setting that most people hate in the real world
It’s literally so hilarious. Especially Glokta the inquisitor.
In the 90’s, you’d always see one of his books on shelves at the bookstore, grocery store, airport. And a new movie or show was always coming out, with his name attached. I was more into detective books for most of my life. But after watching the Jack Ryan TV series, I figured I’d try the books.
This is sort of a multi-book review, sorry, it’s long.
For a first novel, The Hunt for Red October really was a banger. The inside of a sub is a weird, claustrophobic setting, and makes for some interesting built-in tension… You’re in this huge, slow-moving whale of a ship, which can’t reasonably dodge attacks, and if you get hit, everyone on board dies a horrifying death. The level of detail really sells it, you’d swear Tom Clancy spent half his life in a sub, but he was never in the military (except for going into the ROTC and being dq’d for eyesight). Before writing books, he sold insurance.
Clancy goes into the circumstances that …
I have come across so many posts on the internet saying that Niccolo Machiavelli’s the Prince is sarcastic. This couldn’t be further from the truth. If you read the book more than once, you’d notice that Machiavelli regularly backs his statements with reason. His logic at no point seems ridiculous or sarcastic.
For this can be said of men in general: that they are ungrateful, fickle, hypocrites and dissemblers, avoiders of dangers, greedy for gain; and while you benefit them, they are entirely yours, offering you their blood, their goods, their life, their children,…when need is far away, but when you actually become needy, they turn away.
He that is good at all times will come to ruin among the man masses that are not good
It cannot be called virtue to kill one’s fellow-citizens, betray one’s friends, be without faith, without pity, and without religion; by these methods one may indeed gain power, but not glory.
The book overall makes very …
This book was authored in 1980 and I have always hated near term sci fi written in the 1980s, especially when it starts to reference political themes. Without a doubt the authors almost get 100% of the political elements wrong and it just throws me off. Dragon’s Egg started like this but I was very pleasantly was only the initial setup for the book and was quickly discarded for the very hard, crunchy sci fi.
The basics are that an expedition is set out to study a rogue neutron star that is passing through our solar system. Most of the book follows the evolution of life of a celestial body that has gravity 67 billion times that of Earth.
I am a lover of the crunchiest of sci fi and this scratched that itch for me. I am always looking for recommendations for hard sci fi and thought I would give my two cents for the masses.
Recently reading the manga Blame! reminded me how much I’ve always liked stories of people exploring big ol’ strange places, back to Rendezvous With Rama (and Jack Kirby comics). Novels like Kali Wallace’s Salvation Day and Madeleine Roux’s Salvaged were good for scratching some of the itch, but now I’d like more. Please suggest some others!
Is it a failed Space Opera? A parody of his own Space Opera leanings? A brilliant but ungerminated seed for a Culture-alternative series?
Amusingly, my first attempt to post this was almost instantly euthanised by a bot, claiming it “lacked context.” There’s something that might get the Lustrals in kill-mode, eh?
I discovered Tim Powers with The Anubis Gates and readily devoured everything he put out On Stranger Tides, Expiration Date and so on. I love his mix of historical fantasy and wild supernatural/sf ideas.
But that brings us to the elephant in the room with Powers. I was making my way through his most recent book My Brother’s Keeper and my wife asked me what it was about. I did an “ummm it’s about Emily Bronte the author and a werewolf and …. I honestly don’t have a clue what it’s about.”
Which brings me to the increasing issue with Powers book is that they are so packed with wild, off-the-cuff ideas that they become this conceptual sieve of things floating around in the air without coalescing into any coherent sense.
Enough of this being disavowed or framed by some mole within or someone higher up and then going rogue from the organization half the movie. It just seems like every movie in recent years it’s the same thing. Eg. Bond is on the run, not doing an actual mission, but his own sort of mission (perhaps related to his past which comes up). This is the same complaint I have about Mission Impossible actually.
I just want to see Bond sent on a mission and then doing that mission.