I’m so over women suffering/treated like shit in books
These days it seems like any book you pickup these days has women suffering in some shape or another. Be it fantasy, thriller, sci-fi, even romance. Can I just get some happiness please?
The thing that brothers me the most is that so many fantasy/ grim dark fantasy will have a very patriarchal society where women are treated like shit, get SAed, have no rights and I’m honest over it. So many people give the argument of its accuracy for the time period. Like seriously? We can have complex magic system, dragons, people coming back from the dead but God forbid women are treated equally the world will stop.
Even thrillers will have a plot of the killer SA his victims or the woman in the book has some sort of substance abuse to make them an unreliable narrator.
Romance is no better understanding the guise of “dark romance” everything seems to fly the romantic love intrest tortured, SAed, stalked the MC but …
Everyone and their mother is praising Andrzej Sapkowski and The Witcher book series, but after reading the whole series, it was a massive letdown. Characters jump in time and space as the plot sees fit and even major events or battles are skiped or skimmed over, just to be casually mentioned after a few pages. The plot itself is sluggish, repetitive, and leans too much on destiny and foreseeing, which wouldn’t be an issue if it weren’t beaten over your head every other sentence.
Literally goes like this:
Geralt meets someone:
G: I think she is dead.
S: She is not dead I have seen it in my dreams.
G: Ok.
Geralt meets someone else in a different book:
G: She must be dead.
SE: No, I know she is alive for I have seen it in the stars.
G: Aight.
Geralt meets someone else in the same book:
G: There is no point in doing anything, she dead bro.
SE: No bro, she’s tight. A tree whispered it in my ear this morning.
G: Gotya fam.
This repeats with multiple characters in …
Mar 29: Thanks so much for the amazing decision. I forgot this was a holiday weekend, so I’ve asked the mods to lock the thread. The discussion below has been outstanding, and I would like it to end on a high note without it needing to be monitored throughout a long weekend.
There was a time when a solid quarter of my Reddit posts were explaining that sexual violence was not necessarily needed in everything, and that “how it was back then” doesn’t actually apply to made up worlds. I have argued that sexual violence is too often used as a shorthand for character development and worldbuilding. I have argued that readers should not be mocked or harassed for refusing to read books with sexual violence. I continue, to this day, to stand by my belief that we need books without sexual violence. I continue, to this day, to believe that books with sexual violence can, and should, be viewed with a critical eye.
However, it’s clear this second part also needs to be said: none of this …
Some common bits and fun I’ve picked up from my past ten years here. Go ahead and share your own! Note: This is all meant in good fun and it has been fantastic enjoying all of these threads
I stop reading and often do not finish a book when a plot is driven by a character withholding vital or important information from other characters because the time or situation is not right, or because of some misunderstanding. Plots built from this premise come across as lazy writing and is a worn out trope.
Not a diehard fan of Brandon Sanderson but I absolutely love Warbreaker, Elantris,the final empire, Way of kings and Words of radiance. Stormlight archive was one of my favourite ongoing fantasy stories until I read Oathbringer and Rhythm of war. I didn’t enjoy these two books as much as the first two. I found serious pacing issues , repetitive plot points and character arcs really bogged down these two books. Kaladin still moping about.. Shallan struggling with multiple personalities in almost every book.. one of our heroes speaks an ideal to power up and save the day when all hope seems lost.. these are some plot beats that are starting to grate. Also the shadesmar of way of kings and words of radiance felt eerie and alien.. turns out it’s mundane. Many seemingly filler chapters really hampered the pacing in the latter 2 books. Worldbuilding is now explored at the expense of fresh and engrossing character arcs. I still don’t care about the Parshendi. This is making me worried about …
One thing I‘ve been seeing a lot on social media lately (especially TikTok) is people posting lists of authors they find problematic and their rationale. For some reason these lists bother me and I can’t entirely pinpoint why. Even if I agree with certain points about certain authors, the entire notion of posting lists like this feels kind of gross to me. I’m sure I will end up on someone’s problematic list for feeling like this.
I understand the importance of being educated about how we spend our money and who we choose to support, and there are authors I wouldn’t support. But these lists seem a lot like virtue signaling and not having actual conversation.
I’m curious about anyone else’s thoughts on this.
Edit: I appreciate everyone’s answers and thoughts! To be clear everyone has the right to post whatever they like on social media. I think I’m also curious about why this is suddenly such a thing I’m seeing. And I do think there is a difference between talking about someone who is …
In August of 2006, I began keeping track of every single book I read. Last month, I finished my 2,000th book. This is what I’ve learned over the years.
Keep track of the books you read - Some people swear by a tool like Goodreads, whereas I’ve found that my own home-brewed Google Docs spreadsheet works best for me. Keeping track solved a few problems for me, including accidentally rereading a book I’ve already read, forgetting where I am in a lengthy series, etc. It’s also gamified the whole experience for me a bit, which really suits me well.
Have a TBR inflow - Curating an inflow of book recommendations has kept the quality of the books I read quite high. I have several book blogs I follow, and I shamelessly pillage tons of “best of the year” books every year for example. Randomly perusing a book store is still one of my favorite hobbies, but I’ve found that it’s also a lot more hit and miss than using trusted recommendation sources.
Keep track of your TBR - I have a few …
Ove read The Fifth Season and I’m halfway through The City We Became and it’s clear she is such a massively incredible talent. Unique concepts, interesting fantasy worlds, and the ability to easily weave between tone and style at the drop of a hat while keeping a cohesive story.
Everyone should read her at least once. She’s one of those authors for me, so good and ubiquitous that while obviously not everyone will like her, not reading g her is doing yourself such a disservice by possibly missing out on something amazing.
So I just finished Deaths End, book 3 of Cixin Liu’s polarizing trilogy, and I’m…not quite sure how to feel? It’s because I can’t remember another series of science fiction novels that I both loved and disliked in equal measure, and where there’s such a huge gap between what the books do well vs what they’re bad at.
In terms of what’s good - the ideas and the concepts are, in all honesty, are pretty mind-boggling and some of most epic and awe-inducing I’ve come across in sf. Liu just goes absolute bonkers here, and it just keeps escalating book by book. It’s the kind of stuff that just makes you go “…whoa”. Admittedly, a lot of the stuff at the end of the series gets a little wacky but as a whole, the amalgamation of the concepts take on a vast, bleak and dark grandeur of the future of humanity. I found it truly mind-expanding.
Now for the bad…and that’s pretty much everything else lol. The characters are all wooden, bland and completely lacking in personality and pretty much just …
That’s it. That’s the post. Greg Egan is the best sci fi writer alive today and I don’t think it’s even close? Maybe there is someone I’ve missed, someone I’ve failed to read? I’m definitely open to suggestions. However, every book I’ve read of Egan’s has blown my mind to such a degree that I’m having a hard time conceiving of a writer that can beat him in terms of not only ideas but the fleshing out of those ideas. I know this whole post is disgustingly hyperbolic but I still can’t think of anyone I’ve read that holds a candle to him? I’ve now read Permutation City, Diaspora, Quarantine, the Orthogonal Series and I’ve got Axiomatic, Incandescence, Distress, Zendegi as well as quite a few anthologies with short stories of his cued up on my kindle ready to go. To be honest, I first wanted to write a post like this after reading Permutation City but then I got distracted reading the next book of his I could get my hands on.
Also just want to say I might never have gotten around to …
Lots of sci-fi uses alternative visions of society to explore various themes rather than trying to be a realistic extrapolation of our future. (and these are good books, many of my favourites such as Asimov’s stories fall into this category).
But which books do offer a realistic vision of our future? Which ones do you think are the most probable?
She stood and walked to another freight drop, humming “Royal Garden Blues.”. She climbed the leg of the drop and rubbed the crust of red dirt off an engraved manifest on the side of the big mental crate. One John Deere/Volvo Martian bulldozer, hydrazine-powered, thermally protected, semi-autonomous, fully programmable. Prostheses and spare parts included.
She felt her face stretched in a big grin.
I like the little details in this. The moment Nadia first lands on Mars, she begins walking and humming an old Jazz standard which famously begins with the lyrics: “No use to talkin’, no use to talkin’, you’ll start dog-walkin’ no matter where!” […] “Can’t keep still, it’s against my will, my feet they can’t refuse!”
Everyone else is gawking at the landscape, and fretting, but Nadia’s an engineer who just loves walking to the next mundane technical problem that needs solving (indeed, the first …
“I had an angel in Christopher Nolan, who did not care about that and gave me one of the most beautiful roles I’ve had in one of the best films that I’ve been a part of.”
“I haven’t been so successful, like some friends who can barely walk down the street or made so much money that they can’t count it.”
Dev Patel here. Excited to chat about my directorial debut MONKEY MAN, opening in U.S. & UK cinemas on April 5th, and anything else you’d like! Ask me anything…
Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqa3YTtwvaU
Get Tickets – http://www.monkeyman.movie/tickets
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**GUYS I have to go into another interview. BUT I deeply appreciate the love and time. I really hope I don’t let you down with this film. Put my all into it. Sorry I couldn’t answer every question, hopefully THIS answers a few more! Bless your cotton socks all of you. Big love as always, Dev xxxxx**
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