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Mermen is on there, but it's "merlings" on layer 3. It's not quite as great as the Varys one.
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Apr 17, 2021 00:19
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Solice Kirsk posted:Was it the Aztecs or Mayans that never bothered using wheels? Tech develops differently across civilizations, so if a world just never bothered with an industrial revolution then I could see it plugging along at the middle ages for several thousand years. Speak of old slightly racist authors and mayan technology... Any one read Orson Scott Card's Postwatch Redemption? I enjoyed it when I was younger. I'm sure it is problematic in 100 different ways. People learn to use time travel but only for observation, ultimately trying to determine how to save the world from environmental collapse. One of the interesting twists is that Columbus was given fake visions by an alternative timeline "Postwatch" - because the only thing worse than the horror of colonization is what happened when the Aztecs ( or Mayans I don't remember ) successfully invaded the West. So now they have to fix the whole colonization gently caress up.
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Apr 17, 2021 00:29
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varys merman is on layer 0 because it's true, its a fact.
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Apr 17, 2021 01:33
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TERFherder posted:Speak of old slightly racist authors and mayan technology... Any one read Orson Scott Card's Postwatch Redemption? I enjoyed it when I was younger. I'm sure it is problematic in 100 different ways. People learn to use time travel but only for observation, ultimately trying to determine how to save the world from environmental collapse. One of the interesting twists is that Columbus was given fake visions by an alternative timeline "Postwatch" - because the only thing worse than the horror of colonization is what happened when the Aztecs ( or Mayans I don't remember ) successfully invaded the West. So now they have to fix the whole colonization gently caress up. I’m loving shocked a Mormon writer found a way to claim colonization was a good thing, especially the one who argued Hitler was a moral person
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Apr 17, 2021 02:35
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Stephen King did the same with the JFK assassination in 11/22/63. It's like, really? You're gonna try to say this shitheap is somehow the best timeline we could have?
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Apr 17, 2021 03:32
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In the book's original timeline Columbus leads a new crusade to capture the Holy Land which leaves Europe weakened and eventually overrun by the Aztecs. The Aztec conquest of Europe and the European conquest of the Americas (orchestrated by an alternate Pastwatch who send Columbus a vision that convinces him to sail west instead of leading a crusade) both lead to a future of environmental exploitation and collapse. The Pastwatch characters that the book is about avert that future collapse by innoculating the Aztecs against European diseases and accelerating their metallurgy so they can meet Columbus on equal terms and they all live happily ever after together.
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Apr 17, 2021 03:48
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TERFherder posted:Does no one remember loyal Ty? Ty served his years before the GRRM mast and is now on the cusp of publishing his final volume in his and his co-author's 9 book epic sci-fi saga, The Expanse. Eight books of which came out in the time since A Dance with Dragons was published. (Leviathan Wakes beat ADWD to book stores by a month).
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Apr 17, 2021 04:18
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sunday at work posted:In the book's original timeline Columbus leads a new crusade to capture the Holy Land which leaves Europe weakened and eventually overrun by the Aztecs. Sounds like a lot of trouble could be saved by just killing Columbus
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Apr 17, 2021 07:28
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:One one hand it’s the 10th anniversary of the show. On the other hand well, hope springs eternal. In July it will legitimately be 10 years since the Absolute Fucker published a main-line ASoIaF book. TowerofOil posted:Sounds like a lot of trouble could be saved by just killing Columbus Eh, the Great Man theory of history is bullshit.
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Apr 17, 2021 08:19
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pseudanonymous posted:the one who argued Hitler was a moral person nine-gear crow posted:Ty served his years before the GRRM mast and is now on the cusp of publishing his final volume in his and his co-author's 9 book epic sci-fi saga, The Expanse. Eight books of which came out in the time since A Dance with Dragons was published. (Leviathan Wakes beat ADWD to book stores by a month). Good for him. Just goes to show that good employees are hard to find, and that you need to find a way to keep them around. Or from escaping your dungeon. kalvanoo posted:varys merman is on layer 0 because it's true, its a fact. Tru dat. I saw one about Reese castrating Theon. Did uh.. did he just cut off his dick and leave his balls? Is this canon?
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Apr 17, 2021 08:42
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TERFherder posted:If you are referring to Ender's Game, I'd disagree with this. Other people claimed it was an apologia for Hitler, which Card denied, saying he set up Ender to be the complete opposite of Hitler. Card wants to talk about the role of "intention" and moral guilt, but other people are digging into the whole "Superman" and "Genocide" thing going on. It's an interesting discussion. in the show someone kicked him between the legs a few times and it didn't affect him, so no balls i don't recall if the novelization went into specifics
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Apr 17, 2021 08:48
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Like getting kicked in your genital mutilation wound wouldn't hurt like gently caress. I felt that scene was paying homage to that scene from King of the Hill when Bobby tries to kick Peggy in the nuts.
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Apr 17, 2021 08:58
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emanresu tnuocca posted:Like getting kicked in your genital mutilation wound wouldn't hurt like gently caress. yeah
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Apr 17, 2021 09:04
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emanresu tnuocca posted:I felt that scene was paying homage to that scene from King of the Hill when Bobby tries to kick Peggy in the nuts.
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Apr 17, 2021 17:33
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KotH was the better show by that point in GoT so
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Apr 17, 2021 18:49
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TERFherder posted:If you are referring to Ender's Game, I'd disagree with this. Other people claimed it was an apologia for Hitler, which Card denied, saying he set up Ender to be the complete opposite of Hitler. Card wants to talk about the role of "intention" and moral guilt, but other people are digging into the whole "Superman" and "Genocide" thing going on. It's an interesting discussion. Card is a really lovely writer, and just because he didn't intend to create an apologia for Hitler doesn't mean it isn't. Tolkein has repeatedly claimed he wasn't a racist but have you read the Lord of the Rings? Sometimes people put things into work they don't even know they are doing consciously. Also, you know, Card is a liar and a terrible loving person, but even he isn't going to come out and say "oh yeah this book was written in defense of hitler" or his unlimited supply of magical underwear money would probably slow down. So you know, you kind of have to be a bit careful taking the word of a writer about their own work at face value, let alone a bad one, let alone a bad Mormon one, let alone Orson Scott Card. Though tbh I tend to believe the theory he didn't really write the book.
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Apr 17, 2021 19:37
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sunday at work posted:In the book's original timeline Columbus leads a new crusade to capture the Holy Land which leaves Europe weakened and eventually overrun by the Aztecs. This is so dumb and logically incoherent. Did the Aztecs taking Europe also then immediately die to our diseases? Because if not, this is pure nonsense. Apparently in timeline A, the Aztecs were perfectly fine contacting Europeans and advanced fast enough to go to a vastly different climate and defeat the population of an entire continent. You'd think innoculating those magical Super-Aztecs and accelerating their technological progress would just lead to Europe falling even faster. But nope. Never mind that both Mayans (cyclical collapse, mostly gone by the point Europeans show up) and Aztecs (unstable tribal coalition wrecked by rebellions and close to breaking) are the worst South American civilizations an author could choose. At that point why not go full blast insanity and make the destroyers of Christianity be the Inca? At least their empire was somewhat stable and still growing before European diseases coming from the first point of contact reached them and wrecked them completely. I think as a writer, if you want to use stuff from real life, you should do your due diligence and at least look up some modern sources to make sure you aren't writing total bullshit. But apparently that's not like how Orson Scott Card rolls, yikes. 
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Apr 17, 2021 20:53
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pseudanonymous posted:Card is a really lovely writer, and just because he didn't intend to create an apologia for Hitler doesn't mean it isn't. Tolkein has repeatedly claimed he wasn't a racist but have you read the Lord of the Rings? Sometimes people put things into work they don't even know they are doing consciously. quote:Sometimes people put things into work they don't even know they are doing consciously. I can see how this might be an apologia for people who fought in the war, or supported the war. In particular it speaks to me of the scientists that created nuclear weapons, but that was just my take away. But it could apply to pretty much anything - that we support corporations that destroy species every day. Or pay taxes that go to bombing hospitals overseas. That people just follow orders, and the bigger picture is rarely a concern. But if I believe this is what the author is implying, then the second part of that HAS to be - I must do everything I can do to fix it. Oh, and that my name will be forever associated with these crimes, a loving horror story passed down through the generations. The main theme of these books IMHO is the question of what it means to be "human". The other sentient species in the series include soft shelled ant people, ewoks that turn into trees, an AI that exists in the sum of human's computers, and a virus that converts everything it infects into the same lifecycle/ecosystem as itself. The author is clearly saying that all of these have a rightful place in the universe, and that war between them is due to lack of communication. These books are literally about seeing the "other" as ourselves/human. Seeing as how Mormons were persecuted in America, I think the more "threatening" view he promotes is that these other groups _should_ be allowed to continue, even though they represent a threat to our existence. In these books, it is the stupid short-sighted people who want to isolate / contain / destroy the other species. Also the main character is a total cuck and ends up in some sad sexless marriage raising another man's kids. In a series that focuses on propagating our DNA, Ender really is the end of his line. So I don't know - if you can take from that an apologia for Hitler, more power to you. quote:Also, you know, Card is a liar and a terrible loving person I know he is homophobic, which isn't too surprising considering his age and religion. And his whole "Obama is a dictator, working to destroy America" is pretty sad and misinformed. I'm not sure that makes him a terrible loving person though. I think his position on homosexuality stands in stark contrast to the theme of the Xenocide books, which is focused on inclusion rather than exclusion. quote:or his unlimited supply of magical underwear money...let alone a bad Mormon one.. Is he a terrible person because he's Mormon? Because that is some pretty narrow minded crap right there.
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Apr 19, 2021 08:26
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Card campaigned for criminalization of homosexuality and reverted to “only” campaigning against gay marriage some time in the 00s. And I mean campaigned - wrote essays, chaired committees of bigoted organizations, that kind of active involvement.
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Apr 19, 2021 08:36
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:Card campaigned for criminalization of homosexuality and reverted to “only” campaigning against gay marriage some time in the 00s. And I mean campaigned - wrote essays, chaired committees of bigoted organizations, that kind of active involvement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p44bc2CSAI yeah ok that is pretty terrible. TERFherder fucked around with this message at 10:23 on Apr 19, 2021 |
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Apr 19, 2021 09:52
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Orson Scott Card: The Hypocrites of Homosexuality posted:Within the Church, the young person who experiments with homosexual behavior should be counseled with, not excommunicated. But as the adolescent moves into adulthood and continues to engage in sinful practices far beyond the level of experimentation, then the consequences within the Church must grow more severe and more long-lasting; unfortunately, they may also be more public as well. Orson Scott Card in the preface to The Hypocrites of Homosexuality, covering his gigantic moon-sized rear end with a piece of kleenex posted:This essay was published in February of 1990, in the following context: The Supreme Court had declared in 1986 (Bowers v. Hardwick) that a Georgia law prohibiting sodomy even in the privacy of one's own home was constitutional. I was also writing this essay to a conservative Mormon audience that at the time would have felt no interest in decriminalizing homosexual acts. In that context, my call to "leave the laws on the books" was simply recognizing the law at that time, and my call to not enforce it except in flagrant cases was actually, within that context, a liberal and tolerant view -- for which I was roundly criticized in conservative Mormon circles as being "pro-gay." Those who now use this essay to attack me as a "homophobe" deceptively ignore the context and treat the essay as if I had written it yesterday afternoon. That is absurd -- now that the law has changed (the decision was overturned in 2003) I have no interest in criminalizing homosexual acts and would never call for such a thing, any more than I wanted such laws enforced back when they were still on the books. But I stand by the main points of this essay, which concerns matters internal to the Mormon Church.
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Apr 19, 2021 13:47
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Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society.
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An insane man posted:Society's regulation of sexual behaviour. Holy poo poo
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Apr 19, 2021 13:55
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Orson Scott Card also did this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet%27s_Father quote:Hamlet's Father is a 2008 novella by Orson Scott Card, which retells the story of Shakespeare's Hamlet in modernist prose, and which makes several changes to the characters' motivations and backstory. It has drawn substantial criticism for its portrayal of King Hamlet as a pedophile who molested Laertes, Horatio, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and implication that this in turn made them homosexuals.
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Apr 19, 2021 15:36
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Lost Boys (1992), which Card describes as his most personal novel, is also a dire dirge of troubling opinions, and looking at his bibliography marks the point where quality of his fiction goes into precipitous decline. It pads out an earlier story with boring expository sequences about Mormon family life, a fuckton of petty score settling against people Card judges to be defective parents and guardians of children, and an incredibly gross subplot where his stand in character decides his red herring pedophile co-worker isn't so bad.
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Apr 20, 2021 11:15
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TERFherder posted:Any one read Orson Scott Card's No. The only thing he could write of value is an announcement that he's withdrawing from society forever.
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Apr 20, 2021 20:24
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Libluini posted:This is so dumb and logically incoherent. Did the Aztecs taking Europe also then immediately die to our diseases? Because if not, this is pure nonsense. Apparently in timeline A, the Aztecs were perfectly fine contacting Europeans and advanced fast enough to go to a vastly different climate and defeat the population of an entire continent.
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Apr 20, 2021 20:48
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This is why JK Rowling still has a ways to go to destroy her legacy as bad as Card but dammit if she’s not trying.
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Apr 20, 2021 23:38
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Just a reminder to all you remaining Sanderson fans, he is Orson Scott Card's protege.
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Apr 21, 2021 01:08
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Desert Bus posted:Just a reminder to all you remaining Sanderson fans, he is Orson Scott Card's protege. I’m not a big Sanderson fan but I can understand why as a young writer he would gravitate towards to biggest Mormon name in speculative fiction at the time.
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Apr 21, 2021 02:08
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It's basically that or the guy who wrote the DOOM novelizations in the 90s, am I right?
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Apr 21, 2021 06:09
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I vaguely remember something about the DOOM novelizations but I can't figure out what or why so I'll assume they're either comically bad or completely unhinged and having nothing to do with the actual game, and either way that's better than season 8.
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Apr 21, 2021 06:20
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Desert Bus posted:Just a reminder to all you remaining Sanderson fans, he is Orson Scott Card's protege. Ccs posted:I’m not a big Sanderson fan but I can understand why as a young writer he would gravitate towards to biggest Mormon name in speculative fiction at the time. He's also distanced himself from Card a LOT since then. He used to bring up Card a lot in the early days of his Writing Excuses podcast, now every idea that he used to always attribute to Card is curiously scrubbed of Card's name and role in its genesis. He also realized around the time Card went very hard and publicly mask off that maybe he should have more than just three Mormon dudes and maybe one randomly appearing guest who is also a Mormon dude on all the time and diversified the host pool significantly. But yes, I know this sub has an enteral raging hate boner for Sanderson, so whatever.
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Apr 21, 2021 07:31
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A HORNY SWEARENGEN posted:I vaguely remember something about the DOOM novelizations but I can't figure out what or why so I'll assume they're either comically bad or completely unhinged and having nothing to do with the actual game, and either way that's better than season 8. Oh, please don't tell me anything bad about the Doom books, I loved those when I was a kid. The first book was based entirely on the game -- it's about a US marine whose team gets blown up by the initial demon invasion on Mars, and he spends the book roaming around the UAC facility, finding guns and killing monsters and trying to figure out what's happening and whether any of his squad survived. It was less mindless than it sounds though, they gave him a pretty interesting backstory with flashbacks to how he grew up in a broken home and found a family (also kinda broken) in the military, and how and why he finally snapped and attacked his superior officer who was ordering them to commit war crimes. But then (and this is just the story I heard) apparently the publishers came back to the author and said "hey, this is great, we want more books" and the author said "well, I've already run through the entire game in the first book, I'll write more but it's gonna be completely original from here on out." And so the next three books are his own fairly-interesting story about how the Doom marine heads to earth to find out that the demons have already attacked and the governments of the world capitulated, and he helps the resistance and eventually goes back to space to meet up with friendly aliens and take the fight to the demons, and a lot of cool sci-fi poo poo happens. They were a lot of fun and surprisingly weighty and well-thought-out for a book series about a video game entirely about shooting monsters. I still remember them fondly so I'd prefer not to know Dafydd ab Hugh was a secret sex criminal or something.
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Apr 21, 2021 14:25
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Phenotype posted:Oh, please don't tell me anything bad about the Doom books, I loved those when I was a kid. The first book was based entirely on the game -- it's about a US marine whose team gets blown up by the initial demon invasion on Mars, and he spends the book roaming around the UAC facility, finding guns and killing monsters and trying to figure out what's happening and whether any of his squad survived. It was less mindless than it sounds though, they gave him a pretty interesting backstory with flashbacks to how he grew up in a broken home and found a family (also kinda broken) in the military, and how and why he finally snapped and attacked his superior officer who was ordering them to commit war crimes. I read those as a kid too. Loved them. Unfortunately, ended on a bit of a cliffhanger if I'm remembering correctly.
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Apr 21, 2021 14:31
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Son of a Vondruke! posted:I read those as a kid too. Loved them. Unfortunately, ended on a bit of a cliffhanger if I'm remembering correctly. I felt that way too the first time I read them, but it was a pretty good place to wrap up the series, although there were definitely places for the story to go if they ever wanted a 5th book. The ending had a lot of unknowns but they had dealt with the major threats and it left everyone in a pretty good place for a hopeful future.
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Apr 21, 2021 14:43
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nine-gear crow posted:But yes, I know this sub has an enteral raging hate boner for Sanderson, so whatever. While also loving writers like Joe Abercrombie whose original trilogy on top of being mediocre had the middle eastern empire be full of literal inhuman monsters.
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Apr 21, 2021 16:15
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Evil Fluffy posted:While also loving writers like Joe Abercrombie whose original trilogy on top of being mediocre had the middle eastern empire be full of literal inhuman monsters. His books are fun. Sanderson writes Wikipedia entries for a living in a made up world made up from his already laughably made up worldview and then cheats at his own made up rules. Also his prose style is too prolix. Abercrombie did some offensive poo poo and some lazy poo poo. Gurkish? Are you kidding me? This is the Doman empire lol. His prose isn’t amazing but it’s not a slog. And it’s fun.
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Apr 21, 2021 22:45
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Haven't bothered with Abercrombie and Sanderson seems like a genuinely nice dude, but yeah I've tried and just can't get into anything he writes. That's not a knock or hate-boner though, I just tend to glaze tf over whenever any author tries to write a lot of physical action and isn't insanely good at it. This includes authors I otherwise really like (looking at you, Iain M. Banks).
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Apr 21, 2021 23:14
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mind the walrus posted:Haven't bothered with Abercrombie and Sanderson seems like a genuinely nice dude, but yeah I've tried and just can't get into anything he writes. That's not a knock or hate-boner though, I just tend to glaze tf over whenever any author tries to write a lot of physical action and isn't insanely good at it. This includes authors I otherwise really like (looking at you, Iain M. Banks). Yeah, I met Sanderson once for like five seconds after like a 2 hour long line wait at a book signing once and he seemed really pleasant. I used to listen to his writing podcast a lot and he came across as a genuinely warm and funny dude who was actually like super liberal for a Mormon and tried not to let his religious biases effect his writing where he could help it. That said I've barely read any of his stuff, so I don't know what he's like as an author, but as a person he's pretty cool so I'm always kinda puzzled as to "wait, why does TBB loving hate this guy?" Maybe if I actually sit down and read Mistborn, I'll find out.
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Apr 21, 2021 23:40
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Kinda random but while I never read the Doom novelizations, I totally freaking ADORED the trilogy of Myst books that came out in the '90s, I thought those were freaking brilliant and as far as "books based on video games" go is more or less my gold standard.
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Apr 21, 2021 23:43
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