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TheGreatEvilKing
Mar 28, 2016





Kchama posted:

wait what wait what

I cover it in more detail in my LP Thread. It's weird scifi psychic bullshit for everything except the creeper (who believes he has a right to the woman because he raised her from the dead) but its described in terms as "violation" and "forced me".

Tides of Numenera is a bad game.

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pseudanonymous
Aug 30, 2008

When you make the second entry and the debits and credits balance, and you blow them to hell.

Daric posted:

I mean, it's obviously been said before, but Sanderson is right up there with Abercrombie too. It's hard to go "Oh, well, writing is tough and putting out a trilogy is hard. If it takes 13 years, that's ok" when Brandon Sanderson is putting out 300, 500, 1k page novels every year and short stories/novellas on top of it. It's obvious who takes writing as a career seriously and who doesn't.

It's incredibly loving insulting to compare Abercrombie to Sanderson.

Daric
Dec 23, 2007

Shawn:
Do you really want to know my process?

Lassiter:
Absolutely.

Shawn:
Well it starts with a holla! and ends with a Creamsicle.
Yeah, it’s not, but go off I guess

Doctor Faustine
Sep 2, 2018
I’d be pretty insulted to be compared to Mormon Automaton Brandon Sanderson.

Democratic Pirate
Feb 17, 2010

The wheel of the thread turns, and pages come and go, and we once again come into the page of the ‘Sanderson writes a lot and is poo poo’ discussion.

Evil Fluffy
Jul 13, 2009

Scholars are some of the most pompous and pedantic people I've ever had the joy of meeting.

Tree Dude posted:

I have so much respect for Abercrombie and often point to him as a counter to the Rothfuss and Grrms of the scene.

Since 2006 the dude has finished a trilogy, wrote 3 standalone books in the same universe, wrote an unrelated trilogy then returned to the universe that made him famous for another trilogy that I have no reason to believe won't conclude next year.

And they're all pretty good at worst!

NotW came out in 2007 and we all know how that's going.

First Law was pretty whatever to me, especially since a lot of the ending was pretty obvious early on and there are few characters to care about. Maybe his later books are an improvement, but First Law is mediocre at best.

Strom Cuzewon
Jul 1, 2010

TheGreatEvilKing posted:

I cover it in more detail in my LP Thread. It's weird scifi psychic bullshit for everything except the creeper (who believes he has a right to the woman because he raised her from the dead) but its described in terms as "violation" and "forced me".

Tides of Numenera is a bad game.


I'm only halfway through it, but I'm really enjoying the LP. Especially the skewering of the pretentious, bloated writing. Dear god, so many unneccesary words.

It's similar to this poo poo:

Ccs posted:

I was contemplating the success of this book again and the reasons it’s prose gets praise and came across this bit about its most famous passage:

Is the end of a season typically measured in depth and width?
Are river-smooth stones heavier than rough ones?
Are cut flowers patient?

Does poetic license mean throwing out meaning so things can sound a certain way? Because on the face of it the three silences paragraph makes no sense.

In that the writing spends more time and effort on being clever than it does on being good. It's tripping over itself trying to pile in more metaphors, more disjointed imagery, that any actual emotion or tone gets completely garbled. The only bit of dialogue that had any emotional impact on me is with the kids selling songs:

quote:

"Why are sad songs cheaper than happy songs?"
"Because there are more of them"

It's not a stunning insight, but that kind of laconic, adult answer coming from a street urchin tells me much more about the kid of trauma and struggle the kid's had than reams of turgid descriptions.

Look at the Animorphs thread - the writing is pretty simplisitc, but it trusts that the character's emotions and conflicts are enough to keep your interest (and it's characters actually have conflicts and emotions). Some of the best bits of say, Abercrombie or Erikson are when they stop trying to copy Joss Whedon and/or Jack Vance and give the reader room to actually feel something (like the sacrifice of Weakest, or Malazan's many scenes of mourning)

Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


I’d say Sanderson, Abercrombie abs Rothfuss’ writing has more in common than we’d like to admit. Abercrombie is the only one I still excitedly read though. I would actually be excited for another Kingkiller book if it ever came out but I doubt it’ll happen, just to see how all the setup gets an attempted payoff. I also read through the section where Kvothe meets Ben again, and I guess my tastes haven’t changed that much. I still love all that wizard bullshit and the setting is just competent enough to win me over.

One thing all three do is some pallet swaps on their races to try avoid seeming stereotypical. Rothfuss has ninjas! But wait, they’re BLOND ninjas. Abercrombie has his native Americans except with red hair, and Sanderson gives us white people living in an Asian setting.

anilEhilated
Feb 17, 2014

But I say fuck the rain.

Grimey Drawer

Ccs posted:

One thing all three do is some pallet swaps on their races to try avoid seeming stereotypical. Rothfuss has ninjas! But wait, they’re BLOND ninjas. Abercrombie has his native Americans except with red hair, and Sanderson gives us white people living in an Asian setting.
Of course, Abercrombie also had the totally not-Islamic invading empire called, uh, Gurkey?

I honestly don't think color of hair of your completely fictional ripoffs does much to combat the laziness.

anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Apr 26, 2020

Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


Yeah, Gurkhul, but there was no pallet swapping there. It's basically a caliphate in the first trilogy. Then it starts exporting refugees to the Union in the second triology because Abercrombie likes to be topical.

The manga Berserk has a similar plotline about an invading Kushan empire. Miura didn't even bother doing a name change there, basing it on the historical Kushan empire in 127 AD.
Abercrombie and Miura really should read each other's work, they feel like very complementary writers, though now Miura has broken off into more high fantasy stuff.

Then you've got guys like China Mieville going off in the other direction and depicting really strange groups of antagonists that can sometimes hardly be described. It's too bad Bravest of the Lamps didn't critique and Weird Fiction before getting himself banned.

Ccs fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Apr 26, 2020

Sham bam bamina!
Nov 6, 2012

ƨtupid cat
Palette. A pallet is what a forklift picks up.

pseudanonymous
Aug 30, 2008

When you make the second entry and the debits and credits balance, and you blow them to hell.

Sham bam bamina! posted:

Palette. A pallet is what a forklift picks up.

Your distaste for homonyms is belied by your uneducated pallet.

Daric
Dec 23, 2007

Shawn:
Do you really want to know my process?

Lassiter:
Absolutely.

Shawn:
Well it starts with a holla! and ends with a Creamsicle.
What’re the chances, realistically, that rothfuss writes another novel

Daric fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Apr 27, 2020

TV Zombie
Sep 6, 2011

Burying all the trauma from past nights
Burying my anger in the past

Finishing the trilogy? no chance.

StonecutterJoe
Mar 29, 2016

Daric posted:

What’re the chances, realistically, that rothfuss writes another novel

Only if he runs out of money.

Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

I think I'd actually be surprised if he wasn't publishing other stuff under a pen name.

Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


I think he's too lazy for that. This is probably the one story he wants and can tell, because it spins so much out of personal experience (being in school for a long time and having some money troubles, unrequited issues with women.) He attached the trappings of a fantasy universe inspired exclusively by the fantasy literature he read a lot to those lived experiences. Combined with prose a lot of people describe as poetic (it is at least easy to read, I find) it became a hit. But I don't think he has the breadth of experience or work ethic to be writing a bunch of other stories under another name.

It actually annoys me how little research Rothfuss’ work seems to take. He describes a school or smalll dnd encounters or training sessions cribbed from Kung fu and anime. Unlike Abercrombie he’s never had to describe a battle or the inner workings of any part of government or any particular industry or colonization or frontier settlement or anything. It’s just repurposed school experiences plus DnD.

Ccs fucked around with this message at 04:04 on Apr 27, 2020

StonecutterJoe
Mar 29, 2016
He hates working and loves attention, to the point where he created a charity whose only purpose is to funnel money to another charity that already exists. There is no way he could write under a pen name and not drop so many hints it'd be obvious from day one.

pentyne
Nov 7, 2012

StonecutterJoe posted:

He hates working and loves attention, to the point where he created a charity whose only purpose is to funnel money to another charity that already exists. There is no way he could write under a pen name and not drop so many hints it'd be obvious from day one.

He's gotten tons of poo poo in this thread for his 7 years to finish a liberal arts degree. He seems like someone that just works if he feels like it and if the bill collector isn't banging on the door he's not doing anything he doesn't enjoy.

Solice Kirsk
Jun 1, 2004

.

StonecutterJoe posted:

He hates working and loves attention, to the point where he created a charity whose only purpose is to funnel money to another charity that already exists. There is no way he could write under a pen name and not drop so many hints it'd be obvious from day one.

I'd bet that's more of a tax leverage than an actual charity.

Evil Fluffy
Jul 13, 2009

Scholars are some of the most pompous and pedantic people I've ever had the joy of meeting.

StonecutterJoe posted:

Only if he runs out of money.

His book sales are high enough that he'd have to be actively bad with money to run out. Plus doesn't he have a job poisoning the minds of students at a college somewhere? I'd be surprised if he doesn't get to charge a minimum 5 figures for appearances too.

pseudanonymous
Aug 30, 2008

When you make the second entry and the debits and credits balance, and you blow them to hell.

Ornamented Death posted:

I think I'd actually be surprised if he wasn't publishing other stuff under a pen name.

He's an incredibly lazy self-aggrandizing liar who isn't a good writer. What makes you think he's hard at work concealing his true identity and doing work? Somewhere else?

Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

pseudanonymous posted:

He's an incredibly lazy self-aggrandizing liar who isn't a good writer. What makes you think he's hard at work concealing his true identity and doing work? Somewhere else?

He's not that lazy, he's constantly jumping on other projects. He seems to actually enjoy writing, he just, for probably a number of reasons, isn't writing the third book in his main series. He's also very online, so on top of the abuse he gets (mostly deserved, mind you), he also sees the abuse hurled at GRRM whenever he works on something other than ASoIaF, so it wouldn't surprise me if Rothfuss used a pen name to write short fiction as a hobby. I'm not saying he's cranking out entire series under a pen name, I just suspect he submits a story of two each year and doesn't say anything about it so he can sidestep additional trolling.

mewse
May 2, 2006

He's very online because he isn't writing. He's jumping on to other projects because he isn't writing. He isn't writing.

Patware
Jan 3, 2005

Ornamented Death posted:

I just suspect he submits a story of two each year and doesn't say anything about it so he can sidestep additional trolling.

do you think his distinctive prose that hangs in the whisk-hewn air like a cut desk would go unnoticed

Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


Ornamented Death posted:

He's not that lazy, he's constantly jumping on other projects. He seems to actually enjoy writing, he just, for probably a number of reasons, isn't writing the third book in his main series. He's also very online, so on top of the abuse he gets (mostly deserved, mind you), he also sees the abuse hurled at GRRM whenever he works on something other than ASoIaF, so it wouldn't surprise me if Rothfuss used a pen name to write short fiction as a hobby. I'm not saying he's cranking out entire series under a pen name, I just suspect he submits a story of two each year and doesn't say anything about it so he can sidestep additional trolling.

Since 2014 he's written 4 issues of a comic book and advised on a video game. That's the extent of his writing in the last 6 years. I wouldn't say he's busy "jumping on other projects."

Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

Ccs posted:

Since 2014 he's written 4 issues of a comic book and advised on a video game. That's the extent of his writing in the last 6 years. I wouldn't say he's busy "jumping on other projects."

Huh, for some reason I thought he'd been involved in more video games.

Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


The blog is also a clue, filled up with stuff about events or twitch streams or special editions. No progress reports, no writing snippets, nothing. The guy used to be a writer, now he's, i dunno, a person of interest for the fantasy-reading and adjacent community.

TheGreatEvilKing
Mar 28, 2016





Rothfuss just wants to be King Nerd and poo poo on the many women who have standards while pacifying the morons on Twitter.

Dienes
Nov 4, 2009

dee
doot doot dee
doot doot doot
doot doot dee
dee doot doot
doot doot dee
dee doot doot


College Slice

Ornamented Death posted:

I just suspect he submits a story of two each year and doesn't say anything about it

He isn't that humble.

Solice Kirsk
Jun 1, 2004

.

Dienes posted:

He isn't that humble.

This is the biggest flag. There's no way he wouldn't scream about anything new he's doing.

StonecutterJoe
Mar 29, 2016

Solice Kirsk posted:

This is the biggest flag. There's no way he wouldn't scream about anything new he's doing.

And then the pizza delivery guy came over and said "Wait a second, is that a new Patrick Rothfuss short story?! I'd recognize that beautiful prose anywhere!" And Pat aw-shucked and said yeaaah, you caught me, I AM Patrick Rothfuss and then the pizza delivery guy applauded and gave him a hundred dollars

pseudanonymous
Aug 30, 2008

When you make the second entry and the debits and credits balance, and you blow them to hell.

StonecutterJoe posted:

And then the pizza delivery guy came over and said "Wait a second, is that a new Patrick Rothfuss short story?! I'd recognize that beautiful prose anywhere!" And Pat aw-shucked and said yeaaah, you caught me, I AM Patrick Rothfuss and then the pizza delivery guy applauded and gave him a hundred dollars

Also the pizza delivery guy actually turned out to be a girl, just a tomboy type one, but she took off her hat and it was like that movie that was a ripoff of Shakespeare, and she could tell just by looking at Rothfuss he was a sex haver, and that means she wanted to have sex with him, not that she was a slut or anything, because he's absolutely not a misogynist, and that's why he has to bring up that he's a feminist so often.

Patware
Jan 3, 2005

"Now that's a birthday boyfriend beard" she said, checking it for spare candies with great success

Lottery of Babylon
Apr 25, 2012

STRAIGHT TROPIN'

Man orders a pizza. Tells pizza delivery guy he has writer's block. Pizza delivery guy says, "Treatment is simple. Greatest book ever written is The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. Read it, you'll get inspiration." Man bursts into tears: "But pizza delivery guy... I am Patrick Rothfuss."

Suxpool
Nov 20, 2002
I want something good to die for...to make it beautiful to live
but what if he DOES finish it?

TheGreatEvilKing
Mar 28, 2016





I have promised Dirt Road Junglist I will do a let's read for the forums.

Winifred Madgers
Feb 12, 2002

TheGreatEvilKing posted:

I have promised Dirt Road Junglist I will do a let's read for the forums.

I hope he's been actually working on it this whole time and it's 1900 pages.

Raiad
Feb 1, 2005

Without the law, there wouldn't be lawyers.


I wonder if it bothers him that he no longer has anything to do other than write, and thus has no excuse not to finish his book

jk i know it doesn't

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latinotwink1997
Jan 2, 2008

Taste my Ball of Hope, foul dragon!


Lottery of Babylon posted:

Man orders a pizza. Tells pizza delivery guy he has writer's block. Pizza delivery guy says, "Treatment is simple. Greatest book ever written is The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. Read it, you'll get inspiration." Man bursts into tears: "But pizza delivery guy... I am Patrick Rothfuss."

The kicker is, he never actually read his own book. He just wrote from one idea to the next and then decided one day he was done.

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