First up, there’s no justification for SA or abusers.
But let’s talk about it when it’s a plot point in fantasy.
Considering something like 1⁄3 women are survivors of it, and I personally live my life conscious of it when making everyday decisions, why do I see so many people criticizing SA as an event in books?
This obviously isn’t defending books that make you fall in love with the abuser, take sadistic or voyeuristic pleasure in it, or attempt to write it off as irrelevant. Nor is it meant to defend poor writing.
But I read a bunch of criticism of Uprooted by Naomi Novik. (minor spoilers ahead)
The female protagonist initially fears that her abductor will commit SA. He doesn’t and she gradually realizes he has a lot of personality problems, but that she doesn’t have to fear SA.
The criticism I’ve read is is: Why does the female character need to fear SA? Can’t fantasy writers skip it?
My genuine question is: Why …
I´m asking this because i´m currently reading Way of Kings and while Kaladin is obviously a good person, I find him to be complex.
Perhaps, i´m changing my perception about what it means for a character to have depth.
Let’s say they announce themself tomorrow and are unequivocally real. Which god from Fantasy would you choose to step into the Mortal Plane?
STORIES SO FAR
ANACRONISTIC ARTIST
PAST RAP SHEET
FLAMING EMBARRASSMENTS …
Just to start an example. Like Rand Al thor being locked in a metal box in the heat and broken, or raistlin magere being cursed with hourglass eyes so everything he see decays and falls apart in his view.
I know folks love books, but this story from Metro Denver is about a woman whose Little Free Library in front of her house was completely cleared out of all its books. Why do people do that? It isn’t in the spirit of the initiative to take all the books. You take a couple, and maybe when you’re done, you bring them or another book back. You don’t just take everything. That one woman even asked, “Well, why do you put the books out there if you don’t want them taken?” That’s not the point. The point is that it’s a resource for the community. It’s like if you had some free produce; you take a little and leave the rest for others. Why are people so greedy? They ruin fun, nice, positive things for everyone else!
Thoughts?
A previous post mentioned this book. The writer, Jon Bois, was recommended by someone at New Scientist. Just to say I’m really enjoying it, although I’m not sure if i should be posting about it here, because it’s not really print. It’s an online novel - which is a form i usually don’t like - but this is well worth making an exception for
Depending on how deep I go down the Zelazny rabbit hole (creatures of light and darkness is a mindblowing mini-epic work of genius imho) I may try to read everything he wrote. Only other sf author I’ve done this with is Ian M. but I think Z man may merit a body-of-work read through.
To me he’s a little like if you streamlined Steven Erikson’s Malazan series (amazing but majorly bloated imho) and mixed it with some of Glen Cook’s awesome stuf like The Dragon Never Sleeps (so good but ~2⁄3 through it feels like he’s just pushing characters around- to me at least). A tiny bit of the over the top space opera of the deathstalker series without the goofy cheesiness.
I read Lord of Light first and I didn’t really “get” it. Now am reading Creatures and yeah, I get it.
Mytho-poetic far future scifi where tech and magic are nigh indistinguishable. Tons of characters just bristling with power and when shit goes down it freakin goes down. He doesn’t spoon feed you and it takes some …
So did anyone genuinely not think Frodo would make it back to the Shire?
Or Neo wouldn’t prevail over The Matrix? I enjoyed the journeys but I knew the endings.
I want a novel in which the author is so brutal and sadistic that I’m scared my main character might not make it to the last page and I end up being proved right.
Thank you
Recently I picked up Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein after rewatching the 1997 adaption (if you can really call it one) and I’m about 90% of the way through. I’ve read that some people believe this is actually a deadpan satire/critique of militarism and, unless there’s some big gotcha in the last part of the book, I really don’t see it.
I haven’t read anything else by Heinlein, so maybe I’m missing something here?
I’m still really enjoying the book, even if I strongly disagree a lot of the points made. I think the ideas he explores offer an interesting perspective, though sometimes they feel lacking in critique, but that could be my own bias speaking. I guess people’s perception on war and the military would’ve been completely different in 1959, not long after WW2 and before the US was significantly involved in the Veitnam war.
Blindsight quickly established itself as one of my favourite sci-fi books. I appreciated the tone, the themes and the speculations about the evolution of Humanity.
Some time ago I saw the excellent essay by Dan Olson “Why It’s Rude to Suck at Warcraft”. The mechanisms of cognitive load management were fascinating. The extensive use of third party programs to mark the center of the screen, to reform the UI until only the useful information remained, the use of an out of party extra player who acted as a coordinator, the mutting of ambient music…
In a way it reminded me of the Scramblers from the book by Peter Watts. The players outsource as many resources and processes as possible in order to maximise efficiency. Everything is reduced ot the most efficient mechanisms. Like . And the conclusion was the same: the players who engaged in such behaviour cleared the game quicker, and we’re musch more efficient at it than the ones who did not.
It has to be more than 20 years old.
By “short” I mean “anything too short to be a novel.” I know that length requirements can be squishy. I guess you can talk about fantasy too, but I wonder if that’s going to turn out to be easier than science fiction (it would include any supernatural horror).
I think there needs to be some wiggle room on “no film adaption,” but I’m not going to set a hard rule. Youtube videos made by high school students don’t count. I’m willing to be anglo-centric and say that something made for foreign language TV that was extremely obscure in the U.S. is at least a candidate. An episode of an American TV show, even if it is not well remembered, should count as a film adaption, but you can make your case if you want: for example if it aired once in the late ‘30s (there actually was TV back then, but barely anybody had access to it).
If a film adaption is unfaithful, it still counts.
My …