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chernobyl kinsman posted:extremely hard pass my dude Also women pioneered astrophysics, not even joking.
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Jul 17, 2018 02:10
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:My author bio is a drunkenly typed rant where i emphasize that I have nothing against a minority, but must nevertheless share some strong opinions that are commonly held but rarely spoken. The number of typos increases steadily, however, and you sigh in relief as the text becomes illegible. You have been spared.
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Jul 17, 2018 02:32
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i feel it bubbling up under my carapace of self-satisfied white liberalism, the bigotry that i fight against every moment of my waking life t h e f i n n s
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Jul 17, 2018 02:33
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chernobyl kinsman posted:extremely hard pass my dude
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Jul 17, 2018 02:34
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Quick, look at a picture of an otter. 
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Jul 17, 2018 02:35
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More seriously, the dame passage is fatally bad because it's horribly generic. It tells us nothing about the person it's supposedly describing. It fails at the very purpose of description. I'm not just laughing at it to laugh at it. How many hats does a dame own? How much does a dame know about astrophysics? How good is a dame at cooking and cleaning? There's no answer, and the framing itself is sexist. I can enjoy something that is self-aware but cheesy, that doesn't take itself seriously and serves as a vehicle for entertainment rather than deep thought. But that passage gets so busy winking at the stereotype of a hardboiled noir dame that it fails to actually say anything. Even within genre conventions, the character archetype doesn't just boil down to one single person, and all of those things not-actually-described would have radically different answers for different characters that still, somehow, all fit the mold of a femme fatale.
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Jul 17, 2018 02:45
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CestMoi posted:pass Ccs posted:Cool, different tastes. Better to dislike an author's work based on his writing than his author bio.
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Jul 17, 2018 03:04
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Christ, this guy is just a perpetual smug wink.quote:Billie Holiday on vacation, it is said, once happened to meet Billy Vacation, who was on holiday.
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Jul 17, 2018 03:07
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Sham bam bamina! posted:Christ, this guy is just a perpetual smug wink. Death by guillotine
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Jul 17, 2018 03:12
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quote:Billie Holiday on vacation, it is said, once happened to meet Billy Vacation, who was on holiday. 
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Jul 17, 2018 03:42
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PetraCore posted:Quick, look at a picture of an otter. 
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Jul 17, 2018 04:01
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Sham bam bamina! posted:Trying to figure out how one imbibes vindaloo.
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Jul 17, 2018 04:02
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avshalemon posted:drinking just the sauce, no solid ingredients, out of a champagne glass in polite company A round of. very satisfying.
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Jul 17, 2018 04:29
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This thread rules. Do Wally Lamb.
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Jul 17, 2018 05:58
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Death by guillotine
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Jul 17, 2018 12:32
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Lol BoTL just ate a month probe yet again. What a scamp
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Jul 17, 2018 15:03
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font color sea posted:Lol BoTL just ate a month probe yet again. What a scamp Not all heroes wear capes
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Jul 17, 2018 15:05
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Sham bam bamina! posted:Christ, this guy is just a perpetual smug wink. Imagining reading one of this guy's books, saying "How droll" after every sentence.
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Jul 17, 2018 22:12
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hey botl while you're gone read The Book of the New Sun
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Jul 18, 2018 02:27
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chernobyl kinsman posted:hey botl while you're gone read The Book of the New Sun edit: There's no way I can describe my love of Book of the New Sun without sounding like I'm slamming it, and I'm sure BotL will some day go into why is Gene Wolfe is a hack or something, but there were so many parts that are actually funny and Gene Wolfe seems self-aware enough based on other things of his that I have read that I think the book's reputation as "serious sci-fi" belies just how tongue-in-cheek a lot of it is. Shark Sandwich fucked around with this message at 03:24 on Jul 18, 2018 |
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Jul 18, 2018 03:19
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Shark Sandwich posted:Agreed. I want to know his stance on prancing about shirtless in a fuligin cloak. I went looking for some Gene Wolfe critique and found some here: https://www.waggish.org/2007/gene-wolfe-the-book-of-the-new-sun/ https://www.waggish.org/2007/more-on-gene-wolfe/ http://thesometime.com/blog/a-rigor-of-chessmasters-not-of-angels-gene-wolfe-and-literature-as-puzzle/ It boils down to them accusing Wolfe of treating his books as a puzzle, and "subordinates thematic and conceptual integrity to the mere challenge of these games." I think it's more interesting to consider what role religion plays in the story, where Wolfe is presenting us with a seemingly religious universe only for everything to actually be natural and scientifically explained. The same way that the text seems like a fantasy novel and first and is revealed as science fiction. Severian's epiphany about the increate after he just got off a ship talking to time-traveling aliens shows how he misses the point. He can't conceive of a universe without God, even he has just been shown that most of his experiences have been managed by natural beings with near-godlike powers. But people like to focus on the unreliable narrator aspect. Which makes sense since Wolfe must have put a lot of effort into tracking when he reveals certain facts and then when he contradicts those same revelations. Here's a slightly more positive review from a philosophy professor & author, responding to one of the above critiques: http://spurious.typepad.com/spurious/2007/11/i-like-waggishs.html Ccs fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Jul 18, 2018 |
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Jul 18, 2018 03:52
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for real man if you want all that then quit being a loving child and read some real literature
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Jul 18, 2018 04:16
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I just like the adventures of Severian the Torturer claiming he's a badass with his dumb sword while some crazy space aliens are like, "you're a dumbass and this timeline works so that you're a dumb enough sociopath to do Noah 2: Electric Boogaloo and make a new Earth" The reason I'm going to such hyperbole is that Wolfe is tackling a lot of stuff to varying degrees of success but the core is meant to be totally bonkers. That's not excusing anything I'm just mad the core ridiculousness of the concept isn't celebrated a ton since that's what I loved about it.
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Jul 18, 2018 04:53
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chernobyl kinsman posted:for real man if you want all that then quit being a loving child and read some real literature Literature's day is done.
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Jul 18, 2018 06:54
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Ccs posted:It boils down to them accusing Wolfe of treating his books as a puzzle, and "subordinates thematic and conceptual integrity to the mere challenge of these games." Yeah I call this "being too stupid to understand symbolism" - Wolfe's stories aren't puzzle boxes, they just frequently use symbols and allusions to convey info. Combined with important plot beats and characterization being mentioned casually, just once, in a place in the narrative you wouldn't expect it to be. If you wanna call that a puzzle then I guess that's fine. A good example is the scuffle at the gate at the end of Shadow of the Torturer - we are told straight-up what to expect there and then what actually happens there later, but people miss that and think it must be some crazy puzzle with plot significance. My fav puzzle box story is Pale Fire what's yours??
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Jul 18, 2018 14:19
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my bony fealty posted:Yeah I call this "being too stupid to understand symbolism" - Wolfe's stories aren't puzzle boxes Disagree As above, I just finished "The Sorceror's House" and then spent several hours afterwards googling interpretations and was not able to find any two analyses of the basic plot elements that agreed on all major points (what happened, who lived, who died, and who was who). For the Book of the New Sun, he literally had to write an additional fifth book to explain what happened in the previous four because nobody could figure out what the gently caress they had just read with just the four main published works.
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Jul 18, 2018 14:26
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Disagree see normally I would find this level of deliberate obtuseness to be a sign of excellent craft, but having read excerpts of Gene Wolfe I am instead tempted to say he's a real bad writer
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Jul 18, 2018 14:40
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Mel Mudkiper posted:see normally I would find this level of deliberate obtuseness to be a sign of excellent craft, but having read excerpts of Gene Wolfe I am instead tempted to say he's a real bad writer He's both, he's got excellent craft but is also in some ways a bad writer He's in a weird place for me. I've read like 9/10ths of his published works and I still kinda hate him. He's very very good at some things (unreliable narrators, ambiguity, metanarrative, symbolism) and really bad at others (coherency, pacing, non-meta narrative, etc). Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Jul 18, 2018 |
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Jul 18, 2018 15:18
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:He's both, he's got excellent craft but is also in some ways a bad writer Give me an excerpt to convince me he is worth the investment because so far I have seen little to sway my disinterest
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Jul 18, 2018 15:21
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Give me an excerpt to convince me he is worth the investment because so far I have seen little to sway my disinterest I don't really want to carry that particular cross (as above, I kinda hate him) and I'm not sure an excerpt would work because the best thing about reading wolfe is that the second time you read each of his novels, the plot is entirely different from the first time you read it, so it's sort of a gestalt experience Here's a good New Yorker article on the books of his I probably like the most, his Latro historical novels: quote:Gene Wolfe’s 1986 novel “Soldier of the Mist” centers on a Roman mercenary named Latro. Having suffered an injury during the Battle of Plataea, a Greco-Persian War skirmish, Latro has no memory of his past. Each night, he writes the day’s events on a scroll; the next morning he reads the scroll to bring himself current. Latro has to carefully choose what he is going to write down: he is limited by time, because when he sleeps he loses his memory again, and by the medium, because there is only so much papyrus. It is hinted that Latro’s wound was caused by the meddling of the gods, and, like the blind seer Tiresias, whose affliction was also the result of divine vengeance, Latro is given another gift: he can see the gods, and even speak with them. It could be the case, however, that Latro’s wound causes him to hallucinate. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/sci-fis-difficult-genius
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Jul 18, 2018 15:28
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Hieronymous, make Shadow of the Torture BotM for August. Let's just do this ugly thing.
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Jul 18, 2018 15:56
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quote:Gene Wolfe is known as the Melville of science-fiction. Why hasn’t he found a wider audience? Ugghhhhhhhhhhhh God this is the most tedious and constant trope of genre fiction author profiles
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Jul 18, 2018 15:58
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chernobyl kinsman posted:Hieronymous, make Shadow of the Torture BotM for August. Let's just do this ugly thing. I think it's too much book for one month (especially since it's completely WTF unless you read all five volumes). Sorceror's House would be a good one though especially for October.
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Jul 18, 2018 15:59
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Ugghhhhhhhhhhhh "X is known as the Y of Z" you mean, because yeah it's awful. I have noticed a strong correlation with authors bio's comparing themselves to other authors and authors I do not enjoy.
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Jul 18, 2018 16:03
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:"X is known as the Y of Z" you mean, because yeah it's awful. I have noticed a strong correlation with authors bio's comparing themselves to other authors and authors I do not enjoy. No, the "This person is actually super genius even though they are genre why aren't they more popular in this unfair prejudiced world of ours" trope
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Jul 18, 2018 16:11
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Mel Mudkiper posted:No, the "This person is actually super genius even though they are genre why aren't they more popular in this unfair prejudiced world of ours" trope It's really easy to figure out why Wolfe is generally not that popular: his prose is dense and inaccessible, and in terms of plot and story and pacing his stories often seem one small step removed from a William Burroughs cut-up, especially on first reading. That's like the exact opposite of what most genre fiction readers want most of the time, so go figure. He actually does get a lot of critical acclaim, especially from professional writers.
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Jul 18, 2018 16:51
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:He actually does get a lot of critical acclaim, especially from professional writers. I take special note that you said professional and not accomplished
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Jul 18, 2018 17:14
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Are you ever not huffing your own farts?
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Jul 18, 2018 17:50
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Sham bam bamina! posted:Are you ever not huffing your own farts? I have no idea which poster in this thread you're referring to but, just to speak personally, no
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Jul 18, 2018 18:03
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If you don't want to read Wolf the don't read him this isn't that hard
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Jul 18, 2018 18:07
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