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The March Hare
Oct 15, 2006

Je ręve d'un
Wayne's World 3
Buglord
Others have mentioned Gene Wolfe but I'll also leave some choice quotes about the man from his wikipedia page in this here thread for those on the fence.

“Wolfe is our Melville.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

"Gene Wolfe is engaged in the holy chore of writing every other author under the table." - Harlan Ellison

"[Wolfe is] possibly the finest living American writer." - Neil Gaiman

"Forget 'Speculative Fiction'. Gene Wolfe is the best writer alive. Period." - Patrick O'Leary

"Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today. Let me repeat that: Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today! I mean it. Shakespeare was a better stylist, Melville was more important to American letters, and Charles Dickens had a defter hand at creating characters. But among living writers, there is nobody who can even approach Gene Wolfe for brilliance of prose, clarity of thought, and depth in meaning." - Michael Swanick

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The Dregs
Dec 29, 2005

MY TREEEEEEEE!

The March Hare posted:

Others have mentioned Gene Wolfe but I'll also leave some choice quotes about the man from his wikipedia page in this here thread for those on the fence.

“Wolfe is our Melville.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

"Gene Wolfe is engaged in the holy chore of writing every other author under the table." - Harlan Ellison

"[Wolfe is] possibly the finest living American writer." - Neil Gaiman

"Forget 'Speculative Fiction'. Gene Wolfe is the best writer alive. Period." - Patrick O'Leary

"Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today. Let me repeat that: Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today! I mean it. Shakespeare was a better stylist, Melville was more important to American letters, and Charles Dickens had a defter hand at creating characters. But among living writers, there is nobody who can even approach Gene Wolfe for brilliance of prose, clarity of thought, and depth in meaning." - Michael Swanick

Imma have to check this Wolfe guy out

Oh. He wrote BotNS. I read the first one and I didn't 'get' it. That's the one where they fight with poisonous featherswords right?

The Dregs fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Feb 7, 2019

BravestOfTheLamps
Oct 12, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
Lipstick Apathy

The March Hare posted:

Others have mentioned Gene Wolfe but I'll also leave some choice quotes about the man from his wikipedia page in this here thread for those on the fence.

“Wolfe is our Melville.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

"Gene Wolfe is engaged in the holy chore of writing every other author under the table." - Harlan Ellison

"[Wolfe is] possibly the finest living American writer." - Neil Gaiman

"Forget 'Speculative Fiction'. Gene Wolfe is the best writer alive. Period." - Patrick O'Leary

"Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today. Let me repeat that: Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today! I mean it. Shakespeare was a better stylist, Melville was more important to American letters, and Charles Dickens had a defter hand at creating characters. But among living writers, there is nobody who can even approach Gene Wolfe for brilliance of prose, clarity of thought, and depth in meaning." - Michael Swanick

I think they got a really good selection of hacks to praise Gene Wolfe, whose writing really doesn't have "brilliance of prose, clarity of thought, and depth in meaning".

Even LeGuin gets onto it with her "Melville of Sci-fi" garbage. That's the kind of claptrap that's immediately dispelled when you actually compare Melville and Wolfe. It only works when you presume that genre literature is a kind of substitute for real literature and Wolfe is a poor man's Melville.

And that presumption is true. LeGuin is admitting inferiority. The actual "Melville of sci-fi" is just Herman Melville.

BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Feb 7, 2019

A_Bug_That_Thinks
Mar 16, 2011


ASK ME ABOUT HOW MUCH I LOVE BIG SAGGY POKEMON TITS

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

Making fiction that mocks "fantasy tropes" is a waste of time that could have spent on writing on something that matters. The section about the astrologer in Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia is a more ruthless treatment of fantasy than anything Pratchett ever managed, and it's not even trying to mock fantasy tropes.

The greatest way to ~*subvert tropes*~ is to not include them at all.


BravestOfTheLamps posted:

The number one problem is that genre authors think that having an aliens or magic a book is exciting.

But aliens and magic are only ever as exciting as the prose is. And genre authors can't write prose.

You know, people poopoo bravest of the lamps, but these are some very good owns

A_Bug_That_Thinks
Mar 16, 2011


ASK ME ABOUT HOW MUCH I LOVE BIG SAGGY POKEMON TITS
Very Good Genre Fiction
Herbert
Dick (forgive me, nvr read)
Vonnegut (so good he doesn't even count as genre?)
Gaiman

Good Genre Fiction:
Hobb
Butler

Fence Riding Genre Fiction
GRRM
Anthony
Pratchett

Bad Genre Fiction:
Duane
Heinlein
Chrighton

Very Bad Genre Fiction:
Vance
Fiest
Hamilton

Extremely Bad Genre Fiction:
Any given genre novel

Alien Sex Manual
Dec 14, 2010

is not a sandwich

I’m assuming by Anthony you mean Piers Anthony?

Wrath of the Bitch King
May 11, 2005

Research confirms that black is a color like silver is a color, and that beyond black is clarity.
Genre fiction peaked with Terry Goodkind and his sadist dildo cult.

The March Hare
Oct 15, 2006

Je ręve d'un
Wayne's World 3
Buglord

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwvONJXJUO4

A_Bug_That_Thinks
Mar 16, 2011


ASK ME ABOUT HOW MUCH I LOVE BIG SAGGY POKEMON TITS

Labes for days posted:

I’m assuming by Anthony you mean Piers Anthony?

Yes. He's basically a fantasy Heinlein, but I up-rated him because if you read the afterwords of his novels, he is extremely self aware of what he is

Alien Sex Manual
Dec 14, 2010

is not a sandwich

A_Bug_That_Thinks posted:

Yes. He's basically a fantasy Heinlein, but I up-rated him because if you read the afterwords of his novels, he is extremely self aware of what he is

No wonder you think those are “good owns”.

Wrath of the Bitch King
May 11, 2005

Research confirms that black is a color like silver is a color, and that beyond black is clarity.
Lol at rape and lemon cakes dude being anything but bad.

Oh and I take it back, the best genre fiction was definitely James Clemens, the guy that had his fantasy world predicated on magic fueled by the poop and pee pee of the gods.

Wrath of the Bitch King fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Feb 7, 2019

A_Bug_That_Thinks
Mar 16, 2011


ASK ME ABOUT HOW MUCH I LOVE BIG SAGGY POKEMON TITS

Labes for days posted:

No wonder you think those are “good owns”.

Lmbo, what can I say? They're true and people don't want to hear them. The perfect owns

A_Bug_That_Thinks
Mar 16, 2011


ASK ME ABOUT HOW MUCH I LOVE BIG SAGGY POKEMON TITS

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

Ethical and psychological complexities collapse into adolescent fantasy. This is Assassin’s Apprentice in a nutshell.

Say wot mate?

snergle
Aug 3, 2013

A kind little mouse!
I disagree Ursula K Leguin is a great author but bryan sanderson is the best author. Now please trade me this banana for your snack pack.

AKZ
Nov 5, 2009

Blood Meridian is a book that I return too every couple years. The first time I read it I struggled to fall into the "along for the ride" feel at first. Once I managed to hit the right stride it felt like the literary version of an impressionist painting. I enjoy it quite a bit.

I might suggest William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy to the OP to see if it catches. There are a couple sequences that seem to break from their setting in clever ways.

The Damnation Game is an old favorite as well and in my view is Clive Barker killing it early in his career. I much prefer the book to his later work that seems to get a bit overwrought. The Damnation Game is Barker writing sparsely and viscerally.

Dan Simmons' book Carrion Comfort has the feeling of a long form early Barker book, but his pace and threading of stories add an element that Barker didn't quite have. The Terror by Simmons is also a solid, but exhausting read.

underthecube
Dec 5, 2018
the first assassin's apprentice was amazing but everyone thought it was boring! and then the next one tried to be "cool" and was just awful. the third was okay except for the end

The Dregs
Dec 29, 2005

MY TREEEEEEEE!

AKZ posted:

Blood Meridian is a book that I return too every couple years. The first time I read it I struggled to fall into the "along for the ride" feel at first. Once I managed to hit the right stride it felt like the literary version of an impressionist painting. I enjoy it quite a bit.

I might suggest William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy to the OP to see if it catches. There are a couple sequences that seem to break from their setting in clever ways.

The Damnation Game is an old favorite as well and in my view is Clive Barker killing it early in his career. I much prefer the book to his later work that seems to get a bit overwrought. The Damnation Game is Barker writing sparsely and viscerally.

Dan Simmons' book Carrion Comfort has the feeling of a long form early Barker book, but his pace and threading of stories add an element that Barker didn't quite have. The Terror by Simmons is also a solid, but exhausting read.

Carrion Comfort has the best example of an antagonist that is both batshit crazy and extremely clever that I have ever come across. That Joker guy should take notes

BravestOfTheLamps
Oct 12, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
Lipstick Apathy

The novel doesn't do justice to the moral and ethical complexities of assassination, and instead wastes the whole theme in the service of teenage fantasy.

axolotl farmer
May 17, 2007

Now I'm going to sing the Perry Mason theme

Everything by Le Guin is good.

Almost everything by Vonnegut it good.

Nathilus
Apr 4, 2002

I alone can see through the media bias.

I'm also stupid on a scale that can only be measured in Reddits.

The Dregs posted:

Imma have to check this Wolfe guy out

Oh. He wrote BotNS. I read the first one and I didn't 'get' it. That's the one where they fight with poisonous featherswords right?

LOL. Yea, thats the one.

I love em though. There's enough little details asking to be puzzled out for a dozen readings.

The confusion is intentional. Neither you or Severin has much of a clue. You're being put in similar positions. It's the core of why the books are so drat fun to read. Some explicit answers are given by the end, but generally the books do very little giving in comparison to other genre books. You like Severin have to wrestle meaning from this process that is going on without your control or understanding. Its a little like life~

To the wolfe naysayers and especially that one dude who linked the hella :words: review: blow me. As much as I'd like to be understanding about not wanting to spend hours of ones life reading in total bewilderment, the reality is that I am better than you because you are sheeple who won't read things that ask an effort of you. You go through life, oblivious to the notion that you can actually use your own brain to have thoughts instead of mindlessly digesting whatever bullshit flows into your stupid-bullshit-eating-mouthparts range. My taste in practically-unknown but choice genre authors elevates me above the likes of you, so I will not dignify you with any further words other than these: You disgust me.

Kaedric
Sep 5, 2000

Blade Runner posted:

I dunno. It's more realistic than a lot of his work, so it hits a closer sort of place, but the ending is actually pretty hopeful for him. Like, Suttree might end up doing better, and he feels alright. Blood Meridian's ending is just loving horrific, in comparison.

e: I will agree that the book has a more desperate melancholy air to it that makes it really sad, though. I guess it just ends better than most, so.

I want to agree with you but then again, the last paragraph or so: pretty much saying hey looks like our boy Suttree might go improve his life this time, but here I come to gently caress him up again, he can never escape

Kaedric
Sep 5, 2000

underthecube posted:

curious what you guys think of jonathon strange & mr norrell

I remember liking this book and then kind of coming to the same realization that the author clearly did: oh poo poo this book is already like a thousand pages long and I need to very quickly come up with an ending whoops

ziasquinn
Jan 1, 2006

Fallen Rib
i finished left hand and very much enjoyed it. while i agree it didn’t go as far as it could’ve it was entertaining

Applewhite
Aug 16, 2014

by vyelkin
Nap Ghost

star eater posted:

i finished left hand and very much enjoyed it. while i agree it didn’t go as far as it could’ve it was entertaining

The whole glacier crossing was loving incredible.

ziasquinn
Jan 1, 2006

Fallen Rib

Applewhite posted:

The whole glacier crossing was loving incredible.

omfg it’s all i’ve been thinking about

ChairMaster
Aug 22, 2009

by R. Guyovich
I spent like three days thinking about that book after I finished it.

BravestOfTheLamps
Oct 12, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
Lipstick Apathy

Nathilus posted:

The confusion is intentional. Neither you or Severin has much of a clue. You're being put in similar positions. It's the core of why the books are so drat fun to read. Some explicit answers are given by the end, but generally the books do very little giving in comparison to other genre books. You like Severin have to wrestle meaning from this process that is going on without your control or understanding. Its a little like life~

To the wolfe naysayers and especially that one dude who linked the hella :words: review: blow me. As much as I'd like to be understanding about not wanting to spend hours of ones life reading in total bewilderment, the reality is that I am better than you because you are sheeple who won't read things that ask an effort of you. You go through life, oblivious to the notion that you can actually use your own brain to have thoughts instead of mindlessly digesting whatever bullshit flows into your stupid-bullshit-eating-mouthparts range. My taste in practically-unknown but choice genre authors elevates me above the likes of you, so I will not dignify you with any further words other than these: You disgust me.

The terrible truth is that "wrestling meaning" out of Book of the New Sun is not difficult at all. It's about man in a broken world being manipulated by strange and ambiguous forces to become its ruler and perhaps savior.

Fans miss the forest for the trees. Because they're trying to suss out whether or not Severian is himself or a simulacrum created when he drowned in the first chapter (or second?), they don't notice that he is never given any characterization (the best proof ever given that he is some kind of fake person).


Also, lol

BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 10:53 on Feb 8, 2019

Wizchine
Sep 17, 2007

Television is the retina
of the mind's eye.

Zeluth posted:

What, me worry?



drat. This is the one Mad Magazine I owned as a kid - got it on a trip to Alaska with my family.

To contribute:
Patricia McKillip is a fantasy author who writes very good prose, to contradict BotL.

I've been reading mostly short stories lately.
  • Ernest Hemingway
  • Dan Simmons
  • Heinrich Boll (translated)
All good stuff.

BravestOfTheLamps
Oct 12, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
Lipstick Apathy

Wizchine posted:

Patricia McKillip is a fantasy author who writes very good prose, to contradict BotL.

I don't know, she seems to be just write in that Dunsanian tone of fake folklore.

axolotl farmer
May 17, 2007

Now I'm going to sing the Perry Mason theme

Le Guins collection Changing Planes is really good, but it's not connected to any of her story cycles.

One version has a cover depicting a woman not getting owned.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Jerry Cotton posted:

Lol if you don't prefer Calvino to anyone mentioned ITT.

Also Capek.

Not that I care what other people like to read, I just like to laugh.

Gene Wolfe is very good, though his later stuff isn't. Calvino is great. Bulgakov is fantastic. Dickens is legit great, if a little mushy at times.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









BravestOfTheLamps posted:

I don't know, she seems to be just write in that Dunsanian tone of fake folklore.

the harpist in the wind trilogy is one of the great gay love sotries you philistine

Groke
Jul 27, 2007
New Adventures In Mom Strength

The Dregs posted:

Carrion Comfort has the best example of an antagonist that is both batshit crazy and extremely clever that I have ever come across. That Joker guy should take notes

Dan Simmons used to write good before the brain eater got him.

The Dregs
Dec 29, 2005

MY TREEEEEEEE!

Groke posted:

Dan Simmons used to write good before the brain eater got him.

Yeah, he's really hit or miss. When I read Darwin's Blade I theorized that it was written by a ghost writer.

Groke
Jul 27, 2007
New Adventures In Mom Strength

The Dregs posted:

Yeah, he's really hit or miss. When I read Darwin's Blade I theorized that it was written by a ghost writer.

The man's brain was another casualty of 9/11. Biggest disappointment of my reading life was Olympos, after the hella intriguing setup in Ilium. (Compounded by myself being pretty heavily into classical stuff at the time.)

3D Megadoodoo
Nov 25, 2010

sebmojo posted:

Gene Wolfe is very good, though his later stuff isn't. Calvino is great. Bulgakov is fantastic. Dickens is legit great, if a little mushy at times.

Did Bulgakov ever write anything besides you know what?

I guess I should learn about literature but lol at that among other things.

An Ounce of Gold
Jul 13, 2001

by Fluffdaddy
On Gene Wolfe:

Does anyone else think Adventure Time was partially based on The Knight/The Wizard?

Both are about a boy that is without his family, travelling with a dog that can change size and shape, becomes a knight, and has a relationship with fire women...

Also The Knight is amazing. I know everyone is raving about BotNS, but give The Knight a try if you want his take on the fantasy genre.

friendly 2 da void
Mar 23, 2018

LeGuin is my second favorite sci-fi author. I didn't think anyone could best her until I read this book:



Criminally underrated imho, Attanasio is plugged in to some VERY advanced emotional hardware

friendly 2 da void fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Feb 8, 2019

Applewhite
Aug 16, 2014

by vyelkin
Nap Ghost

friendly 2 da void posted:

LeGuin is my second favorite sci-fi author. I didn't think anyone could best her until I read this book:



Criminally underrated imho, Attanasio is plugged in to some VERY advanced emotional hardware

Well the name certainly has my attention. You know a sci-fi writer is serious when they have TWO initials.

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Applewhite
Aug 16, 2014

by vyelkin
Nap Ghost
Will there ever be a sci-fi author good enough to have THREE initials in their name? Dare we to dream?

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