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TheGreatEvilKing
Mar 28, 2016





Despite the...interesting...revelations about a poster from the last thread, there are plenty more elf and spaceship books to be subjected to a critical lens. We never did finish that review of The Way of Kings, for instance. In an effort to continue the literary discussions - and maybe find some elf and spaceship books with some actual literary value that don't make us sad - I'm opening up a new thread so we can continue mocking "terrible, nonconsensual things" and other literary clunkers.

I'm gonna lay down some ground rules.

Don't get mad about criticism
This is a literature forum, discussion of literature is to be expected. We're going to be talking about prose and themes, not "worldbuilding", "magic systems", or any of the arbitrary criteria fantasy and sci-fi has created to excuse being in its own separate section of the bookstore. If you think we've treated a book unfairly, feel free to come in and point out some good prose - just don't expect us to take you seriously if you explain that the prose and characterization is bad but the worldbuilding is top notch.

Don't touch the poop
The last thread devolved into people invading the Brandon Sanderson thread to post literary masterpieces like "penis". Just don't. Yea, it's funny most of the discussion in that thread is surface level, or that Brandon Sanderson is supposedly writing this great saga about divinity while removing all mystery and wonder from any depiction of gods, but we really don't need to be in there.

Take chats about users and banning to QCS
You know why.

Have fun!

Somebody fucked around with this message at 16:06 on Mar 16, 2019

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Peel
Dec 3, 2007

the videophone chapter of infinite jest is a legit good piece of sci-fi imo


Does anyone have a view on Adam Roberts? He's an english lit academic and teacher who is also an SF novelist. I have one of his shortly in my pile but I find writing criticism excruciatingly difficult.

Mr. Steak
May 8, 2013

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
lol nobody wants to come anywhere near this thread. i wonder how many are silently bookmarking like i did.

TheGreatEvilKing
Mar 28, 2016





Awww.

Would people prefer a Dune review or an essay on divinity in Sanderson?

Mr. Steak
May 8, 2013

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
feel free to effortpost, man. personally i have a headache from all the you-know-who drama, so i think people are distancing (at least judging by the post/views ratio here so far)

The Gardenator
May 4, 2007


Yams Fan
I liked the last thread for the most part. Can this thread have NWS images tagged properly, or do I have to keep certain users on ignore?

Sarern
Nov 4, 2008

:toot:
Won't you take me to
Bomertown?
Won't you take me to
BONERTOWN?

:toot:

TheGreatEvilKing posted:

Awww.

Would people prefer a Dune review or an essay on divinity in Sanderson?

Yes. Either sounds wonderful. I liked the effort posts from the last thread and hope we can do/see more of those.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

TheGreatEvilKing posted:

Awww.

Would people prefer a Dune review or an essay on divinity in Sanderson?

I’m voting for Sanderson divinity essay

TheGreatEvilKing
Mar 28, 2016





The Gardenator posted:

I liked the last thread for the most part. Can this thread have NWS images tagged properly, or do I have to keep certain users on ignore?

How do I enforce this? It's a good idea and I approve.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

The Gardenator posted:

I liked the last thread for the most part. Can this thread have NWS images tagged properly, or do I have to keep certain users on ignore?

If you see a NWS image, use the report function or send me a PM.

Zoracle Zed
Jul 10, 2001
I posted this in the main SFF thread last week when Neil Stephenson's The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. came up. Nobody felt like defending it there so I might as well repost it here. Even for Stephenson it's bad.

somebody in the SFF thread posted:

I liked The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.. :shrug:

I thought that book was unreadable and just skimmed over the first couple chapters to remember why.

quote:

“What’s your pleasure?” asked the barista, a young Asian-American woman with interesting piercings, tattoos in place of eyebrows, and a demeanor that blended I’m sooo interesting and this job sucks with I have a really cool secret life and this job is an awesome front. Her nametag read “Julie Lee: Professional 聪明的驴子•双簧管” (which I understood, roughly, as “Smart-rear end Oboist”).

We ordered drinks—Tristan, black coffee; myself, something I would never normally have, a complicated something-latte-something with lots of buzzwords I picked out at random from the menu over the bar, and which prompted a brief smirk from our barista. The agents of shadowy government entities, I reasoned, were likely to be trained in psychological evaluation of potential recruits, and I did not want him getting an accurate read on me until I decided whether or not I wished to pursue his offer. (Also he was rather handsome, which made me jittery a bit, so I decided to hide behind an affected eccentricity.) The result being that he sat down with a lovely-smelling cup of dark roast and I sat down with something almost undrinkable.

The narrator's voice is constantly jumping back and forth like this from a horny teenager to a bitter boomer complaining about kids nowadays.

quote:

"We have a bunch of very old documents—cuneiform, in one case—and we need them translated, at least roughly, by the same person. You’ll be paid very well. But I can’t tell you where we got the documents, or how we got them, or why we’re interested in them. And you cannot ever tell anyone about this. You can’t even say to your friends, ‘Oh, yeah, I did some classified translating for the government.’ Even if we publish your translation of it, you can’t take ownership of it. If you learn something extraordinary from translating the material, you can’t share it with the world. You’re a cog in a piece of machinery. An anonymous cog. You’d have to agree to that before I say another word.”

“That’s why Blevins threw you out,” I said.

“Yes, he’s strongly committed to academic freedom.”

Dear reader, give me credit for not going LOL on mocking him.

“No he isn’t.”

Yes, that strikeout "going LOL on" is in the original. The narrator makes a lot of asides to the reader like that. This is supposed to be a young post-graduate lecturer in the classics department. The book tries so hard like this all the time. Later on, a old lady turns out to be a time travelling witch and proves it by transforming into a hot young woman. The narrator is jealous, or something:

quote:

Tristan, eyes glued to Erszebet’s face (and curves, I am sure), released me so I could unzip myself from the snowsuit. But even wearing civvies, I felt doltish while this elegant creature held us all entranced. Entranced is not the right word, though—that conjures a sense of a doe-eyed fairy-tale princess, and Erszebet was not that. She was fierce. Not deliberately, not like the Alpha Girl in a high school clique . . . it was effortless on her part, elemental. And she seemed amused by how her transformation distracted the rest of us.

“The experience was very pleasant,” she continued to Tristan, in a so-there tone. “Do not presume to tell me what is good for me or not. Ever again.”

“Got it,” he said almost meekly. His eyes kept sinking toward her boobs breasts bosom, as if lead weights were attached to them; then, with visible effort, he would wrench them back to her face.

Just a miserable slog for me.

Antivehicular
Dec 30, 2011


I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Oh my God, those strikethroughs should be a criminal offense. I've always found Stephenson a little cloyingly over-clever, but this is a new loving level.

Mr. Steak
May 8, 2013

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

ho. lee. poo poo.

i think i'm far more forgiving of "quirky" narrators than most, but this is downright painful to read. and i loved what i read of his historical novels. it's disappointing because the plot seems genuinely fun. wacky conspiracy fiction is always a good time. then again, we already have the Illuminatus trilogy, which does what D.O.D.O seems to be attempting, except is actually fun to read. (as a side note: i havent finished it yet but i believe it has the potential to be my favorite piece of satire)

Flesnolk
Apr 11, 2012
That prose is obnoxious.

Ban genre fiction.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

TheGreatEvilKing posted:

Awww.

Would people prefer a Dune review or an essay on divinity in Sanderson?

Either. I love the first four Dune books and would be interested in a critical take, but the Sanderson divinity stuff feels far more in keeping with this thread.

I may give a brief take on Warcross, which felt like one of the most cynical, market-driven YA books I've ever read. I read it because I was curious about some of these YA books that I've seen recommended around the place. It was pretty bad, which is no surprise, but it absolutely felt like it was written to market which was the most interesting thing about it.

Blood Boils
Dec 27, 2006

Its not an S, on my planet it means QUIPS
yo is this where the Lamp cultists are? I am totally fine with eating a punishment here cuz I guess this could be interpreted as 'helping to avoid a ban' tho if it helps I promise to not post any more messages from BotL, I just feel this situation warrants it plus I gave him my word that I would and as a dopey canuck I know you never break your bond with a vicious finn, the russians know it and now you know it

From that realm of hungry ghosts known as discord posted:


I read Franchescanado’s post, and I can say that it’s mostly bullshit, apparently to retroactively justify the permaban.

I haven’t stalked anyone or followed goons into threads. The reason it seemed that way that this is a relatively small site and we share a lot of the same interests. Sometimes I lurked on subforums where I usually don’t post, and occasionally broke my silence there.

With Francescenado, we argued about a movie once in Cinema Discusso, and later I made a snide remark about it in The Book Barn, in a thread were I had already been posting years. Is it too much to bring up an old argument? Maybe, but it’s not stalking or harassment. I was snide to almost everyone in every subforum.

If bringing up old arguments in different threads and subforums ss stalking and harassment, then I have had dozens of stalkers and harassers after me, including a mod (nine-gear crow) as a lot of goons will attest. Some of these harassment claims in fact come from goons who were doing exactly the same things that qualified me as a “stalker”. Maybe try getting that log in their eye first before accusing me of anything.

As for CelticPredator, the thing is that we just don’t like each other, or the movies that the other liked. This is obviously a death sentence for getting along on CD where we unfortunately tended to post in the same threads. Yes, I insulted him all the time, but he’s not exactly unwilling to take snipes at others either. I found him to be whiny and babyish.
I never followed him into the CineD discord. I was on the Discord some months already before I exchanged any words there with him. What happened was that he was incredulous that I would really be there and asked who I really was. I said I certainly wasn’t the guy who whined about people not liking a Star Wars movie. Again, maybe too much to bring up some old arguments, but that’s still not harassment or stalking. That was the extent of our off-site interaction.

I understand he suffers from some degree of depression and anxiety, and I sympathize. But to me he seemed to use that as an excuse, which is why I once compared him to Harold Skimpole from Bleak House. His posting style frustrated me, and I expressed that frustration in many ways over the years.

However, doing that for so long, unprovoked, was cruel and undeserved. I admit, I was trying to get under his skin, and for that I am sorry.

I was permabanned for being continuously negative, and I’m okay with that. Trying to justify it further and retroactively with claims of stalking and harassment is just ridiculous. I'd like to be done with SA, not be saddled with this nonsense. I'm okay with people hating me, just don't claim that criticizing something you liked is a form of harassment

I'll my own thoughts on the whole kerfuffle in qcs, in case anyone wants the ammo to burn me in the future

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Flesnolk
Apr 11, 2012
Shut up about things that aren't books, not-book-talker.

Mr. Steak
May 8, 2013

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
suggestion: add a rule to the OP that this is not a thread for talking about you-know-who.

Antivehicular
Dec 30, 2011


I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

onsetOutsider posted:

suggestion: add a rule to the OP that this is not a thread for talking about you-know-who.

:yeah:

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'
old thread is re-opened. we stick with this one, orrrr?

Mr. Steak
May 8, 2013

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
just gas the old thread tbh

Flesnolk
Apr 11, 2012
Personally I think goldmine the old thread and treat this as a clean break.

Tree Bucket
Apr 1, 2016

R.I.P.idura leucophrys

Zoracle Zed posted:

I posted this in the main SFF thread last week when Neil Stephenson's The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. came up. Nobody felt like defending it there so I might as well repost it here. Even for Stephenson it's bad.

There's no rhythm in that prose. It hurts to read.

Mr. Steak
May 8, 2013

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Because this thread is for being specific with critiques, lets go over everything I hate about the D.O.D.O excerpted text. (I have absolutely no desire to read more)

quote:

sooo
No. Even in first person narration, no.

quote:

Julie Lee: Professional 聪明的驴子•双簧管

You're not allowed to put non-Roman characters in your story unless your initials are MZD.

quote:

a complicated something-latte-something with lots of buzzwords I picked out at random from the menu

I know you know how to be funny, Neal. Why are you resorting to a bottom-of-the-barrel "coffee is too confusing" joke? Also, the use of the word "buzzwords" here just makes me shake my head and sigh.

quote:

...to pursue his offer. (Also he was rather handsome, which made me jittery a bit, so I decided to hide behind an affected eccentricity.)

I hate to be pedantic about this, but the parenthesis punctuation is extremely wrong here.

quote:

We have a bunch of very old documents—cuneiform, in one case—and we need them translated, at least roughly, by the same person.

The word "roughly" in this sentence, contrary to Mr. Stephenson's intentions (probably), very much wants to be attributed to "by the same person" and is barely, barely hanging on to "translated". It still confuses the heck out of me and I've read it over like 5 times.

Somehow I feel this case is kind of weak, so to defend against people who might attack me for not knowing how appositives work, think about how you'd interpret the sentence "We need them translated, at least for the time being, by the same person."

And this isn't even taking into account how "We need them translated by the same person" is a confusing sentence on its own, because "same" is not usually used as a solo adjective like that with no context to compare to. Even adding a simple "We need them all translated" would make it much clearer by emphasizing the plurality of the documents.

quote:

But I can't tell you ... And you cannot ever tell anyone about this. You can’t even say to your friends ... you can't take ownership ... you can't share it ...

Why is there a single "cannot" when he says "can't" four times in the same dialogue?

quote:

You’d have to agree to that before I say another word.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure this either has to be "You'll have to agree to that before I say another word" or "You'd have to agree to that before I said another word." Tense agreement still applies in conditionals.

Compare these example sentences from the guidetogrammar.org page on conditionals (yes I'm obnoxious enough to do research about this):
"If I become president, I will change the social security system." (Said by a presidential candidate)
"If I became president, I would change the social security system." (Said by a schoolboy)

Now if we reword Stephenson's line slightly (and awkwardly), we can illustrate the tense problem:
"If I am to say another word, you will have to agree to that."
compared to...
"If I were to say another word, you would have to agree to that."

Personally, I think the first is closer to what he was going for, so my change would be to switch the you'd to you'll.

Neal, hire me as your editor.

quote:

Dear reader, give me credit for not going LOL on mocking him.

...

quote:

I felt doltish while this elegant creature held us all entranced. Entranced is not the right word, though—that conjures a sense of a doe-eyed fairy-tale princess, and Erszebet was not that. She was fierce.

I have a huge problem with the logical flow of these sentences. The MC and Tristan (and others, but idk the context) are described with the adjective "entranced," right? Presumably what Stephenson was going for with this hyphen-paranthetical is that the concept of being entranced by someone makes you think that the cause of the entrancement is something akin to a "fairy-tale princess". But as written, it's the group of main characters being compared to the fairy-tale princess, and the following clause makes absolutely no sense.

quote:

Not deliberately, not like the Alpha Girl in a high school clique . . . it was effortless on her part, elemental.

1) An ellipsis is not a semicolon.
2) Yes, you can stick adjectives on the end of sentences like that. No it does not always sound good. Here is exhibit A.

quote:

...she continued to Tristan, in a so-there tone.

That is not a thing for hyphens, it is a thing for quotes. I get that it's in a dialogue attribution so that would be confusing, but here's an idea: write normally for one loving sentence.

(the last paragraph is too abysmal for me to even comment on. refer to my comment on the previous strike-through, but with extra silence at the horniness)


WOW, that was a pretty dense loving slog. Are you sure you didn't just cherrypick the worst bits? I'm sure I had an annoyance with every single loving sentence you quoted. And I super regret doing this. So thanks. gently caress.

FactsAreUseless
Feb 16, 2011

Does anyone have some examples of genre fiction that does a good job with descriptive language? I've always been frustrated by the inability of a lot of authors to describe these worlds they're trying to create. It's especially bad in fantasy - I see too many authors rely on either suggestion or some Lovecraft-style "the thing was too horrible to describe but hoo boy, believe me when I say it sucked" prose - but I know there have to be some that are decent at it. I remember Bradbury's prose being strong but it's been so long since I read any of his work that I can't say whether or not it actually was.

Antivehicular
Dec 30, 2011


I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

FactsAreUseless posted:

Does anyone have some examples of genre fiction that does a good job with descriptive language? I've always been frustrated by the inability of a lot of authors to describe these worlds they're trying to create. It's especially bad in fantasy - I see too many authors rely on either suggestion or some Lovecraft-style "the thing was too horrible to describe but hoo boy, believe me when I say it sucked" prose - but I know there have to be some that are decent at it. I remember Bradbury's prose being strong but it's been so long since I read any of his work that I can't say whether or not it actually was.

Mervyn Peake's stuff isn't an easy read, but his Gormenghast books have a lot of really great descriptive/tone work.

Solitair
Feb 18, 2014

TODAY'S GONNA BE A GOOD MOTHERFUCKIN' DAY!!!
Glad to be following this thread. I'm almost done reading D.O.D.O. right now, and I don't hate it, but I agree that the strike-through stuff in Melisande's sections is a detriment to the book and I'm always thankful when someone else takes over, which happens with increasing frequency once the time travel actually starts.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

FactsAreUseless posted:

Does anyone have some examples of genre fiction that does a good job with descriptive language? I've always been frustrated by the inability of a lot of authors to describe these worlds they're trying to create. It's especially bad in fantasy - I see too many authors rely on either suggestion or some Lovecraft-style "the thing was too horrible to describe but hoo boy, believe me when I say it sucked" prose - but I know there have to be some that are decent at it. I remember Bradbury's prose being strong but it's been so long since I read any of his work that I can't say whether or not it actually was.

Just the examples I have in the forefront of my brain, but you often find great prose in mystery fiction, especially noir-based mystery. Tolkien's descriptions are often quite good despite being non-concrete. LeGuin.

Actually yeah let me toss out Idle Days on the Yann as the perennial example of Good Fantasy Writing:

quote:

So I came down through the wood to the bank of Yann and found, as had been prophesied, the ship Bird of the River about to loose her cable.

The captain sate cross-legged upon the white deck with his scimitar lying beside him in its jewelled scabbard, and the sailors toiled to spread the nimble sails to bring the ship into the central stream of Yann, and all the while sang ancient soothing songs. And the wind of the evening descending cool from the snowfields of some mountainous abode of distant gods came suddenly, like glad tidings to an anxious city, into the wing-like sails.

And so we came into the central stream, whereat the sailors lowered the greater sails. But I had gone to bow before the captain, and to inquire concerning the miracles, and appearances among men, of the most holy gods of whatever land he had come from. And the captain answered that he came from fair Belzoond, and worshipped gods that were the least and humblest, who seldom sent the famine or the thunder, and were easily appeased with little battles. And I told how I came from Ireland, which is of Europe, whereat the captain and all the sailors laughed, for they said, 'There are no such places in all the land of dreams.' When they had ceased to mock me, I explained that my fancy mostly dwelt in the desert of Cuppar-Nombo, about a beautiful blue city called Golthoth the Damned, which was sentinelled all round by wolves and their shadows, and had been utterly desolate for years and years because of a curse which the gods once spoke in anger and could never since recall. And sometimes my dreams took me as far as Pungar Vees, the red-walled city where the fountains are, which trades with the Isles and Thul. When I said this they complimented me upon the abode of my fancy, saying that, though they had never seen these cities, such places might well be imagined. For the rest of that evening I bargained with the captain over the sum that I should pay him for my fare if God and the tide of Yann should bring us safely as far as the cliffs by the sea, which are named Bar-Wul-Yann, the Gate of Yann.

And now the sun had set, and all the colours of the world and heaven had held a festival with him, and slipped one by one away before the imminent approach of night. The parrots had all flown home to the jungle on either bank, the monkeys in rows in safety on high branches of the trees were silent and asleep, the fireflies in the deeps of the forest were going up and down, and the great stars came gleaming out to look on the face of Yann. Then the sailors lighted lanterns and hung them round the ship, and the light flashed out on a sudden and dazzled Yann, and the ducks that fed along his marshy banks all suddenly arose, and made wide circles in the upper air, and saw the distant reaches of the Yann and the white mist that softly cloaked the jungle, before they returned again into their marshes.

Read the whole story, it's short and one of Dunsany's best: http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/dun/swld/swld09.htm

Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 11:52 on Mar 16, 2019

CestMoi
Sep 16, 2011

FactsAreUseless posted:

Does anyone have some examples of genre fiction that does a good job with descriptive language? I've always been frustrated by the inability of a lot of authors to describe these worlds they're trying to create. It's especially bad in fantasy - I see too many authors rely on either suggestion or some Lovecraft-style "the thing was too horrible to describe but hoo boy, believe me when I say it sucked" prose - but I know there have to be some that are decent at it. I remember Bradbury's prose being strong but it's been so long since I read any of his work that I can't say whether or not it actually was.

ive heard extremely good things about the vorrh but its still in my big pile of cool looking books

idiotsavant
Jun 4, 2000

FactsAreUseless posted:

Does anyone have some examples of genre fiction that does a good job with descriptive language? I've always been frustrated by the inability of a lot of authors to describe these worlds they're trying to create. It's especially bad in fantasy - I see too many authors rely on either suggestion or some Lovecraft-style "the thing was too horrible to describe but hoo boy, believe me when I say it sucked" prose - but I know there have to be some that are decent at it. I remember Bradbury's prose being strong but it's been so long since I read any of his work that I can't say whether or not it actually was.

Mervyn Peake is basically exactly what you want, botl had a good writeup in the other thread. Jack Vance’s Dying Earth stories as well, though his “descriptive language” works less to describe an exact world than it does to spark your imagination. Also a writeup in the other thread.

Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


Link the old thread in the OP so all the old reviews are easily accessible.

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3833655&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

Ccs fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Mar 16, 2019

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Ccs posted:

Link the old thread in the OP so all the old reviews are easily accessible.

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3833655&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

done

Xotl
May 28, 2001

Be seeing you.
I'd echo Hieronymous in saying that the best genre writing by far is found in the mystery field, especially the hardboiled and noir areas. Raymond Chandler is wonderful to read. I'm particuarly fond of John D MacDonald; been thinking about doing an effort post on him, though I'm dissuaded by the idea that maybe three or four people here have read him and that I think most people in this thread want to read about fantasy writers it seems.

Peel
Dec 3, 2007

I would like to see posts from other genres if you have the time and I expect I'm not alone.

Thranguy
Apr 21, 2010


Deceitful and black-hearted, perhaps we are. But we would never go against the Code. Well, perhaps for good reasons. But mostly never.
I'm all for talking mystery and related. Ellroy is my favorite author there. I keep meaning to get around to reading Perfidia before This Storm shows up.

FactsAreUseless
Feb 16, 2011

Western as well would be neat to look at. I always forget that "genre" isn't just sci-fi, fantasy, and Clancy-style thrillers.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound
We have a good mystery thread that's just getting rolling -- the knox's rules one. At the moment my plan for next months BotM is to pick a genre mystery to help that thread get.kickstarted -- it has great potential but almost went to archives.

Flesnolk
Apr 11, 2012
Good genre fiction is an oxymoron. The term in itself means it's not good enough to be real fiction.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Flesnolk posted:

Good genre fiction is an oxymoron. The term in itself means it's not good enough to be real fiction.

The word "genre" only has so much meaning. It's either a critical term or a marketing one. It doesn't really have much use as a marker of merit or quality because for any genre you can almost always find a work of fiction that has literary merit and fits the markers of the genre (e.g., fantasy : Tolkien (or The Tempest), mystery : Maltese Falcon, etc.)

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Karia
Mar 27, 2013

Self-portrait, Snake on a Plane
Oil painting, c. 1482-1484
Leonardo DaVinci (1452-1591)

Oh, hey, just noticed that this new thread started up. I'll get back to Way of Kings tomorrow. Since it's been established that Sanderson sucks at the technical aspects of writing, I'll move on to discussing characters and plot.

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